This past week, I found myself in a small town witnessing the celebration of all things American. I find it difficult not to be a cynic. I find it difficult to celebrate contradictions and lip-service. As songs are sung about the land of the free, I cannot help but think about how many freedoms and rights are denied and stripped away. As we sing songs about those who are “coming to America”, I cannot help but think about how many people American borders deny because they do not look and act like “us”. But most of all, I am mindful of the excess and entitlement I witnessed among so many people who want the country “to be great again” (and many who carry the flags proclaiming it).
This past week I also listened to an interview by a Harvard Happiness Professor, Arthur Brooks, who spoke about his recent visit an art museum in Asia; specifically, a conversation he had with a museum guide about the process for making good art. In response to the guide’s question, Arthur described the creative process as starting with a blank canvas and then adding the colours and images. The guide, in response, said that Arthur’s response is typical of many Americans, who think about creating as adding to something; whereas in his culture, creation is removing of something to reveal that which was there all along.
This perspective resonated with me; especially, as I think about the state of the United States and the world today.
My concern is that we are blind to our own consumerism; and that we have become so accustomed to progress that it is difficult for us to let things be. We constantly long for something better and newer. Salvation is earned, rather than gifted. Our accomplishments are measured by how much we posses rather than by how much we experience. We consume information much like we consume fast food – often making us feel like we know more than the substance it offers, skimming headlines as if those alone will represent the complexity of the issues they portray.
If we long for freedom, it seems as as if we long for the ability to take whatever we want, when we want. My own sense is that we don’t want freedom, so much as we want control. . . and we all know where that gets us.
In the same presentation, Brooks says that happiness equals our “have’s” divided by our “want’s.” (H=h/w) That we do not need a “have more” strategy; we need a “want less” strategy. That the secret is not to have what you want, but to what what you have.
The truth is that many of us would prefer to be special, more than we would happy. In other words, we want to feel unique, powerful, in control, needed, etc. . . At least this is the America I often see today; this is the “in dependence” that I witness day after day.
Again, it is hard not to be a cynic. So where do we go from here?
It is time we adopt a spirituality of subtraction; to realize that independence is freedom from the idea that more is better. What is needed is the decluttering of our minds, hearts and activity, so that we may reveal the original goodness that we forgot was there. In doing so, we will free ourselves from an ego that demands to be special and reveal a soul that is much happier.