On New Year and Old Year

As a fairly lapsed Jew, what I know about Judaism could maybe fit on the head of a pin. But one thing that has always stuck in my head from a high holiday service I once attended is learning the origin of the term “scapegoat”. On the Jewish calendar the end of the year comes in Autumn, and is followed nine days later by Yum Kippur. This day of atonement is supposed to be a time to reflect and cleanse oneself of all the misdeeds of the previous year, before going forth into the new one. The term scapegoat comes from an old Yum Kipper story in which villagers tied a red scarf around the neck of a goat before throwing it off a cliff. As the goat fell to its death, the scarf turned white, meaning that all the bad from the previous year had been washed clean, and the new one could be embraced fully, and without regret.

Although I always hated the solemnity of Yum Kipper, this year, at what is still the beginning of our New Year, I see the wisdom of looking back and taking stock of what I learned in the last 12 months before stepping firmly forward. 2008 was a tumultuous year for me personally, as well as for the nation, and although I am looking forward to what will hopefully be a more even year, I am mindful that the peace I seek is a road walked, and one I can only see clearly if I remember to mark the milestones along the way. So to that end, I find myself with an impossible year finally behind me, able to say that although I lost much, I also learned a few hard, hard truths about myself, the world, and the human heart. By listing a few of them here, I tie my own proverbial red scarf, release it away on the wind, and hope that when it lands it will be a bright white spot on the valley floor.

Winter:

Grief is like sitting under water and breathing through the nose. And the only way to get through is to sit and wait for the waters to recede. At times it is a test of will- you, the water, and can I find a reason to stand up today, and today, and today? Now I understand all human frailties- addiction, compulsion, prayer, and plain old denial - in the face of grief. I would not wish it on my worst enemy, and I will never again presume to know another’s lonely road walked in its wake.

Spring:

I want, therefore I am. Desire. Vision. The snapshots that live in the mind’s eye. Or the thing that awakens with a start, unexplained but right, when we meet a person we recognize for the first time. It is in these moments and deeply personal hungers where our wants become ourselves. The actual achievement or possession of these things does not matter. The fact that we saw- a glimpse of a life, an idea, or even a person that we want- and knew- this is solipsism. It is these aches that tell us who we are. We may never achieve the ability to grasp, and hold close, but the fact of wanting, sometimes that is enough.

Summer:

I have always had a love affair with language. Words chosen with care, a phrase imbued with just the right twist of irony and double entendre- and, oh! Swoon! So it was with gravity that I conceded the caveat to Spring is Do or Do Not. There are limits to language- actions, movements, effort- these simply weigh more. You. Me. What do we do? The things we devote our attention to, these are the things we are made of. Like a key in a lock, it really is that simple.

Fall:

In the first semester of my PhD, what I learned was that knowledge is not a pinnacle, but a cliff’s edge, and once I got here, I realized that I will never really know. Each question begets an answer begets another question. True knowledge is a letting go, and an embrace of uncertainty. To be an intellectual is not to have access to an elite store of information, rather it is knowing enough to be humbled by all that is not known. And its opposite is not lack of education or lack of learning, but lack of curiosity, lack of willingness to learn, to think, to change. It is intractable. It is dogma.

The lesson I have only begun to discover. The bridge or the resolution for 2009:

The trick to finding happiness and contentment is to hold faith, but to not expect. Like an optical illusion- eyes open, don’t focus, and eventually the vision, the thing to find will be revealed. Release entitlement, release fairness, release what ought to be. Live only for what is, and know that all of life’s gift and all of life’s disappointments are the circumstances, but not the definition of a life. All I get is to put one foot in front of the other, to be mindful, and trust that all security, all tethers and all compass points are rooted in my own toes. The rest is beyond my grasp.