Finding the Fit
“The painter…does not fit the paints to the world. He most certainly does not fit the world to himself. He fits himself to the paint.”
Annie Dillard
I’m involved in a meditation workshop this weekend. The teacher is very adept and everyone else in the class is swept up in the moment. I am sitting there, feeling my hip joints screaming, and wishing I were here instead, writing to you, or sitting at my sewing machine piecing bright scraps of fabric together. My writing and my piecing are my meditative practice.
I am told that one must “confront oneself” in meditation and I am thinking, “I thought one was supposed to lose oneself.’ I thought the boundaries of the ego were supposed to drop away to allow spirit to flourish, if only for a moment. Obviously, I’m thinking, and thinking is not meditating, so I must be doing it wrong. I try again. Breathe, exhale, breathe, exhale.
Attempting to fit oneself into the mold of another person or group is a fool’s errand. We all want to belong to a tribe, but finding the right tribe can be challenging. Most of us simply conform to the one we think is ‘best’. We wear the uniform, adopt the language, and walk the walk. If we look like a duck and sound like a duck, then perhaps we’ll become a duck! Right? Not likely.
It is important over the course of a lifetime to try on different outfits; to familiarize oneself with different groups and practices. If one finds a fit, then all is well. If not, then one at least learns something new and expands one’s range of experience. All is not lost and in fact, there is, as the business wonks like to say, ‘value added’.
I have not wasted a perfectly good weekend; perhaps some interesting writing will come out of it. I could even spend the time studying the colors and shapes in the room. I could get a sense of the movement and emotion. I could…
Have a great day!
Jane
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