Why me?
Published: Fri, 12/08/17
This morning I re-read the first part of my manuscript. The first part covers my early life and how I originally got interested in martial arts and why. I am quite pleased with the way it reads and it should make a good start to the book. On the other hand I am remembering other things which I won’t be putting in the book but still seem to affect me today. Spending time looking after my elderly mother has an effect too. I am not sure if I have described this before but when I was about 14 my headmaster wanted me to see the educational psychologist. I was obviously having problems with certain aspects of learning so the staff must have thought that maybe I could be helped. Apparently my Mother refused point blank on the grounds that she did not want me to think I was ‘special’. I asked her about this episode a few years ago. She remembered the occasion but just said again that she didn’t think it would have helped me to to
think I was special in any way.
I suppose it was a matter of luck in that by that time in the early 1970s the idea of dyslexia was quite well known. A popular actress called Susan Hampshire had ‘come out’ as being word blind in the late 1960s. Miss Hampshire was quite famous for being in the popular series the Forsyte Saga and she had talked quite freely about being dyslexic in interviews. This meant that my teachers probably suspected the root of my problems with spelling and grammar. This is probably why they did not give me as much grief as they might have done a decade earlier. On the other hand, ten years later, I do not think my mother would have been given any choice about allowing me to have extra help and that may or may not have been to my benefit.
As you may guess I did not find school particularly enjoyable, even though mine was apparently one of the best state schools in the area. I suppose it raises the question. To what extent are who we are because of, or despite, parental, educational or any other influence? It can be very tempting to blame our problems and difficulties on circumstances and other people. For every problem that anyone has caused us either accidentally or intentionally there were probably far more opportunities for us to grasp if we had only bothered. In my manuscript I was able to describe how my school quite unintentionally engaged Sensei George Mayo as my own personal Mr Miyagi for a year. At the time I would not have known where to find a martial arts class locally yet the opportunity came to me. Others could have shared the opportunity but I was the only one that made anything of it.
There is a modern attitude that we are just victims of fate and circumstance. A more traditional and spiritual view would suggest that our wyrd or fate is spun for us before we incarnate and it is up to us to live the life given to us. Other traditions may suggest that the soul chooses its circumstances of incarnation to fulfill a certain purpose or learn necessary lessons. A karmic point of view would suggest that we incarnate in order to pay a karmic debt until eventually we can escape the cycle of rebirth. Maybe each of these concepts is just a different way of expressing a fundamental idea that incarnation is intentional and that intention has a meaningful purpose. Therefore all difficulties and challenges are simply put in our way to enable the soul to grow and learn. If you consider the spiritual message of Christmas, as opposed to the social or consumerist version, it seems that the creator of the universe was willing to
experience a human life. God engages in a mythic, and maybe mythical, journey from Bethlehem to a cross outside Jerusalem which is the basis of the Christian faith. These are all mysteries which begin and end, and maybe begin again, with birth, life and death. I have considered and studied these matters throughout my life. Spending some time with my mother who is now near the end of her life and writing my book have made me more aware than ever of the mystery that is life. I am no more sure of any answers than anyone else, but an incarnation with purpose and intent seems to make more sense than the idea that we are just helpless victims of chance.
I would like to think that the challenge for all of us is to find our own purpose and live it out. Over the next few weeks we experience nature’s turning point from darkness to light in the Solstice. Christmas has become a time to consider God’s willingness to involve himself in creation, even if historically we don’t really know when, or even if, Jesus was born in a historical sense. Even the new year is really just an arbitrary calendar phenomenon yet we have come to see the 1st of January as a time for resetting our lives and starting again. There is plenty to be cynical about this time of year. You don’t have to be. So, why not remember where you have come from, reflect on where you are now and let yourself have a vision for your future. You incarnated for a purpose, yours is as important as anyone else’s, so live it out.
regards
Graham