EMILY, JOHN & NOBODY
/MAYBE I WAS WRONG. Someone said THE search is for significance, and it made sense at the time, so I concurred and set out on the journey.
Now? I’m not sure that’s correct, it’s certainly not necessarily real. Or, maybe it’s the picture of “significance” that’s fuzzy. How do you know if you’ve reached it? What does it look like? Is it fleeting? Are we falsely equating significance with fame or renown?
For today, for me, the worthwhile search seems to be for “belonging”, at least that’s my opinion. Maybe I’m wrong. I’m thinking that our significance comes from being in community, in family; being loved and cared for and cared about, and in caring for others—belonging. Even if your only membership is in the club for Nobodies: membership two.
#260
By Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
[Note: click this for in interesting article on Ms. Dickinson’s poem.]
I’m a big fan of Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”—not an expert, just a fan. It has helped me make sense of life for many years. Here’s a refresher:
First there is the need for Safety and Security.
Secondly, once we feel safe and secure we can take a risk or two, put ourselves out there and seek to Belong somewhere—meeting the need to Belong.
Next, Esteem needs. Taking a few more risks in hopes that someone will say, “Way to go! I’m so glad you are who you are.”
Finally for Maslow there is seeking to meet the need he calls Self-Actualization. My understanding is that at this point we can look at our lives and say something like, “I was born for this.” It’s where we sense a calling; where our gifts and passions converge.
Significance can be found all along that journey. Feeling safe and secure, for example, can be hugely significant especially for the abused and marginalized.
I’ve always thought of Maslow’s hierarchy as something like a mountain where you move upward step by step, stage by stage until you reach the summit (one that not everyone reaches). Now as a Medicare card-carrying Senior Adult, it seems to me that as we age we move back down the mountain.
I don’t mean to brag at all when I say that I reached self-actualization. I found my life’s calling and was able to spend my best years caring and nurturing young faith pilgrims, young artists, young soul searchers, hopefully providing safe and secure environments for them, offering them a meaningful place of belonging, affirming and encouraging them, and creating a path to help them discover themselves and move toward actualization.
As I wrapped up that work in a planned, formal sense, I found myself appreciating those sentiments that said, “Hey you’re old, but you’re still my friend, you’re still Pops.” You know—Esteem level stuff.
And also Belonging level stuff. Clearly this is more important than ever: family, friends, and my buddies I meet with every week at The Quarantine Tavern. We need those people who still love us and want us when we become “men of a certain age.”
Do we ever return to that place in life where our greatest need is Safety and Security? Definitely. As I watched my Mom and Dad pass, there came a moment where that was all they needed. Mom especially. Ultimately, we could not offer her safety from COVID, or from a final loneliness. I have no doubt though that until her last breath she knew she belonged. And I know that in her next breath after that last one in her physical body she heard the words, “WELL DONE!” How’s that for the ulitmate dose of Esteem?!
You’ve got to be careful with things that have stages and steps. It’s easy to get the idea that life can be compartmentalized, that it all happens in an orderly, structured way. It doesn’t.
Making too much of categories and formulas can become a self-fulling prophecy. For example I know that I am an INTP in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. If I’m not careful I can become paralyzed in my own thinking and isolation.
Remember John Lennon’s song “Nowhere Man” recorded by The Beatles:
He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody
It’s kind of like that if I’m not careful.
I like this advice from Albert Einstein:
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
Yikes this is turning into a crazy stream of consciousness. Let me abruptly wrap up with this from “Nowhere Man”.
He's as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Nowhere man, can you see me at all
Nowhere man don't worry
Take your time, don't hurry
Leave it all 'til somebody else
Lends you a hand
Or; in the words of Barbara Striesand,
“People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”
[Note: click this for an interesting look at the song Nowhere Man]