Thursday, June 10, 2010

Ruminations on the topic "Help"

My friend Calvino of the Play as Being project (defined as "a group of people exploring reality by using our own life as a laboratory" http://playasbeing.wik.is/) proposed a topic for contemplation: "Help." It's been rattling around in the back of my brain this week ... I wonder if one reason it's been rattling around is because the word itself has mixed connotations for me.

What does the word "Help" mean - assistance? That's the closest synonym that occurred to me, and feels a little more neutral than "help." (In my mother's nursing home, the woman next door often calls out "Help! Help!" in a quasi-urgent tone to get nursing attention instead of pushing her nursing call button. She does it so frequently that she she is the woman who cried "Wolf!" (Help!) in terms of the attitudes of the staff towards her cries. So for me the word Help brings this woman's use/abuse of the term to mind ... So already I can make a distinction between the cry for "help!" and the non-urgent usage "help." But ... the connotation bleeds over.

The first thought for me is that one man's help is another man's hindrance. A classic example that occured to me: one member of a couple wants to "help" the other person to improve their appearance, notwithstanding the lack of interest or downright resistance of the other party to such "help." In this case, the best descriptor might be "interference" or even "control" (as in "control trip"). Above is a cute cartoon from a client's website illustrating this idea.

So stepping back a little bit - this example shows that the word help has to be seen in terms of "help - to do what?" as well as "who's asking for the help." Without these two pieces of the picture, the concept doesn't quite click into place for me. So if the husband in the example above asks his wife, "Hey, honey, can you help me to improve my wardrobe?" then this is a legitimate help situation involving an asker and a specific goal. If she imposes her "help" without being asked for it, I would question whether the word help would really apply in that situation.

(By the way, has anyone ever actually *heard* of a man asking his wife to help him with his wardrobe? This could be an imaginary example!!)

So let's say we're talking about "help" in the context of someone wanting to improve or direct a certain personal issue in a certain direction, and feeling that they don't have all resources they might wish at hand to accomplish their task. I am guessing this might be the context in which Calvino is thinking of the topic - is that correct, Cal?

Thus, perhaps finding help is about acquisition of resources ... emotional, intellectual, instructional and inspirational as well as the crassly material type of resources.

A side thought sprouting off ... I think we operate under the impression in daily life that we are an independent entity, controlling and directing the resources in the domain of our daily life, to accomplish tasks. This subjective impression may be necessary for mental health ... I think it also may be necessary for our experiences as "individuals" (another topic to explore) ... so it can create cognitive dissonance to try to find help outside our supposedly independent domains.

So in terms of acquiring resources to work with in order to move a personal issue forward, I feel we are drowning in information, books, and advice, but that the resource that's most difficult to come by is the internal capacity to digest information, to discern the next best action towards our goal from the enormous array of choices: where to place our attention? Even how to actually PLACE our attention instead of having it drawn to various focuses without a feeling of deliberate placement?

On an even deeper level, I have experienced from time to time such a deep sense of presence in the moment that every small simple moment bursts with significance, beauty and truth illustrating universal concepts in action ... at those times I am taking in so much that I wouldn't need any help or additional outside resources to accomplish my spiritual goal. The missing resource or help I need when I'm *not* in this state - is remembrance of a way back there ... where are Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs when you need them?

Thus help is a word my mind uses to express a sense of incompletion. In me, the energy to do, to solve problems, is probing around the general internal environment trying to resolve the discomfort, seeking something to hang onto to ride into a different feeling/energetic state with less discomfort, looking for "help."

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