What is The Big Picture?
As a kid who grew up in the 90's, there was an unlimited number of games and activities to enjoy since technology had not taken over completely but was still available as an alternative on a rainy day. I remember the bone-chilling thrill of Ghosts in the Graveyard, the "No Tag-Backs" clause in Freeze Tag, the time I choreographed dance routines to songs off the Chicago Bulls Greatest Hits soundtrack for boys from the neighborhood...When it came time to bring my imagination indoors, I loved to explore the world through the lens of Lego. On occasion, I would follow the pain-staking instructions to get from Point A (pile of rubble) to Point Z (finished castle, monument, or mode of transportation), but most of the time, I would just let my fingers create whatever they could and then spend some time in this constructed world. Though I didn't always have a clear vision of how it would come together, I appreciated the opportunity to discover how the pieces fit along the way. Even if the final product didn't look like what the instructions suggested, I was able to smile as I took on the personas of the Lego characters, sharing in the wonder of their newly fabricated reality.
Each year older was a step toward understanding big picture concepts, such as success, power, gender, love, and God; however, my imagination didn't reach for the pieces and create like it used to from the ground up. Rather, my vision was weighed down by towering concrete blocks of what the world was supposed to be based on expectations driven by the past. James Alison, author of On Being Liked, outlines what often happens in this situation as he describes building a Lego bridge without a picture on the box: "Naturally enough, we convince ourselves that, however often we take the bridge apart, really if we are going to put it back properly, it will look like the bridge we know of old" (20). My versions of success, power, gender, love, and God no longer existed within the framework I created previously; they took shape based on the societal Big Picture instructions, and as is the case with concrete blocks, they were nearly impossible to move once they had been placed. My inner vision for each concept was crushed under this enormous weight, and I found myself chasing the perfect image that I saw from the outside. Alison builds on this idea, sharing that "the fact that we have no picture on the front of the box is not meant to leave us imposing the same old pattern on the Lego pieces. Rather, by not imposing a pattern it encourages us to imagine different ways in which the Lego pieces might fit together to make a better bridge, because the learning how to imagine is itself a vital part of the bridge-building game" (20). While I completely agree with what Alison is saying here, there remains a problem: the blocks do not want to budge.
It's not like I haven't tried! I've attempted to move the blocks with a forklift, break them apart with a jackhammer, and climb over their hulking frames, but my fear of what lies beneath---a pile of rubble---holds me back. Even if I were to upend the blocks, I would need to rebuild from the ground up. This time around I don't have my childhood innocence to guide my fingers, though. I'm piecing these concepts together from scratch, trying to avoid looking at the societal Big Picture as a guide, but of course, this is much easier said than done. Is it possible to create my own Big Picture or will I always be subjected to the weighted, immovable vision of the world?
That's a heavy question in itself, especially after my 31st year came to a close in early April. It was a year of upheaval, for sure: I left everything I thought I knew about my Big Picture and traveled extensively trying to answer the titular question, but as my journey crumbled the blocks standing in my way, it seemed I was left with more questions than answers. When The Big Picture was revealed through The Name Game, Yehuda Berg's description in The 72 Names of God pieced together my dilemma: "This is how wisdom really works, It's easy to get stuck in the details of life and to miss the big picture. We perform actions without any regard to their future consequences. But as the apple is contained in the seed, every effect that materializes in our lives has its origin in a prior action performed by us" (123). Based on my exploration of the past in Like Useful Crying Over Spilled Milk, I understand my past can work for or against me based on my emotional experience and how much I've allowed myself to heal. When linked together with Alison, the pile of rubble takes a different shape: I'm able to use the past to build toward my Big Picture so long as I don't get cemented down in the perceived missteps. Ugh...it seems to be my biggest stumbling block, though: the past...the place where my feet get stuck and disallow me from making progress toward The Big Picture that resonates with my heart.
4th Wall Breakdown (4WB): As an example of how these moments manifest, I've been stuck at this point in my writing for over 2 months now. After reviewing the opening 4 paragraphs and tweaking each word fussily, I stop short of letting go completely because I'm afraid of how it will affect my Big Picture. What will it mean if I say too much? What happens if I don't say what I feel? It's enough to drive a goofball crazy...well, crazier than he already is. It all leads back to something so basic yet so difficult in practice: trust. Yes, in the struggle to trust my authentic self, I remain stuck; I close off from all those around me as the battle rages within. I start writing a little, decide it sounds stupid, then delete. I write a little more, think I've going too far over the edge, and delete. There is so much indecision when I fail to trust myself, and then my frustration and rage grow as I sit and watch the days go by without a word written. My Big Picture is demolished under blocks that grow increasingly bigger when I consider how I'm not measuring up to others who are achieving their Big Picture destinies. Well...this writer's block has taught me a few lessons on trust, so I share now how I started to rebuild for the better. I will have to step outside of the renovation on occasion to monitor how my Big Picture is coming along as it develops, so I apologize in advance for the 4WB interjections as I look from the outside in...
Base Plate
Lego enthusiasts will remember the base plates that served as the perfect building surface for the imagination. Though I didn't always use one for my creations, I found them crucial for vertical structures so that they didn't crash down as I built up. When I consider the shaky ground my Big Picture is built upon, I unearth the root cause of my negativity, fear, stress, and addictive behavior: shame. I punish myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually when the shame I encounter for my existence gets the better of me, paralyzing me and making me feel unworthy of life. As I struggle to balance my Big Picture pieces on a base plate made of shame, the societal blocks of success, power, gender, love, and God loom over me and make me feel like a failure, shaming me further. Is my shame attached to my homosexuality? To my failed relationships? To the mistakes made in the past? To find the answer, I followed my heart and time traveled back, pinpointing moments of great pain. It was both healing and disruptive; I would reach a point of clarity, jot down some notes on the matter, feel I was making progress toward defining these Big Picture terms for myself, then totally reverse course when I considered the mistakes I made.
It wasn't until I finally sat back down in front of the computer screen and just let my fingers do the typing that the answer became clear: my deepest shame is mortality. I was born to die, and as an organism with a heightened sense of awareness, death is lurking at every moment. I cannot outsmart it, control it, or dissuade it, and the older I get, the more it makes its presence known. This shame was embedded after the plane crash when I was first visited by death. Though I survived, I never forgot the dark place I went to when I closed my eyes for what I believed was the last time. In some ways, I felt rejected by God for not being granted eternal peace. In other ways, I felt I was being punished for who I was, what I was. Ever since, I have been haunted by these thoughts, whether that be in my dreams or my reality. But this shame isn't specific to just my mortality; it is the mortality of all around me: my family, friends, environment. What is power, success, love, gender, and God in the face of death? How do I go about overcoming this deeply-held shame so I can build my Big Picture and live as a Whole-hearted, Harmonious Organism with others?
As you may have guessed if you've perused this site, nature is a healing place for me that offers solitude, clarity, and peace. It may read weird: I fall in love with myself when I'm outdoors; I gain my own trust by testing my confidence, living my fearlessness, and expressing my integrity without judgment. Was it always this way? No! I had to travel to remote places because I was so afraid to listen without feeling some level of shame. It took everything in my power just to open my ears to my heart; only then did I find my answer for my base plate dilemma: faith. I realized how the present moment was pieced together, how each breath and step is joyous. I felt true contentment and peace like I never had before. Every bit of magic. Every splash of imagination. The best part: I share in that creation. I exist within it and am able to contribute my own small piece.
4WB: Tears were welling up as I wrote that, demonstrating to me that I was expressing a deep emotional truth; however, I slowly began to question if I was oversharing because I didn't trust my judgment nor my heart. Even when I replace shame with faith, I still grow uncertain when I turn back to the past; it makes me seize up in terror to consider how wrong I was, how embarrassed, how isolated, how hate-ful/-d, how distrusting. Faith may be the perfect base plate, but how do I begin building my Big Picture upward when my past perpetuates further shame?
Base
I turn to Eknath Easwaran, author of Take Your Time, to better understand how my negativity regarding the past impacts the base of my Big Picture: "When we have resentments or hostilities or ill will, he would say, not only our attention but our vital energy is caught in the past. When we learn to recall attention from the past and keep it completely in the present, we reclaim a tremendous reserve of vital energy that has been trapped in the past like a dinosaur. Every time we do this, we restore a little more of a vital wealth to the present moment" (61). I know I can be extremely negative when I turn back to my sordid past, and this often projects outward. How is it possible for someone so weak to overcome fear? How can I take a leap of faith if I'm held down in the past? When I'm unable to answer these types of questions, the base of my Big Picture crumbles because I feel like a powerless failure; however, Easwaran helps me link together another way...
When I first launched this blog nearly a year ago, I had no idea it would take this shape. I mean, there was a point in time not too long ago that I thought I would just live in total silence for the rest of my life, hidden from the world because the truth was too hard to face. While shame served as my base plate, my negative attachments to the past formed the base, and it sunk me into a personal hell made up of lies, manipulation, and hypocrisy. Then, as I began writing my truth (my collection of experiences, perceptions, and understanding), I found that by sharing stories about my run-ins/misadventures with power, success, love, gender, and God, I felt less shame. I stopped chasing the societal Big Picture that seemed to have all the right answers, and I no longer put myself down for being wrong. VERY slowly (but surely), trust began to develop as my fingers danced along the keyboard to express situations that occurred in the past and how I believe they shaped my present moment. My days as the victim and as the enemy were over; instead, I saw limitless pathways to shape my own reality with these concepts. No longer did I need to conform to society's versions of power, success, love, gender, and God; I could use my past to build my own, gleaning lessons from what I had encountered to understand the universal Big Picture. It was true freedom.
4WB: No tears of joy this time, just the electrifying feeling of liberation. Before jumping into the next section, I wandered outside to explore this newfound freedom, but then new threats began to emerge as I considered how this might impact my relationships. Though most of my hiding was for selfish means, I also believed I was in some ways protecting others by holding my tongue/fingers back. It scares me to think that there is a group of people that thinks I'm filth and profess that I am banished to hell because of what I am on the outside. It scares me even more that sometimes I agree---not because I'm gay, though; because of the hurt I've caused by allowing the societal Big Picture to dictate my livelihood. Does that mean I have to upend this Big Picture and replace it with my own? This won't work, of course, because my Big Picture isn't the same as others since it's based on my truth and not theirs. Do I run back into the wild and set up a life away from the society that doesn't understand me? That seems counterproductive as well since I just returned to connect with those I love about the lessons I learned. How do I form a Big Picture that works for everyone?
Crown
Ok, so I wasn't quite sure what to call this section since I've never studied architecture, but based on the visual in my head, "Crown" seemed to make the most sense. As mentioned, the societal Big Picture concepts of power, success, love, gender, and God are already established, and they are prone to tower over me when I'm lacking faith and trust. It's like the comparison between regular Lego pieces and the over-sized Duplo bricks. When stacked against each other, the Lego pieces require a lot more effort to stack against the Duplo pieces, and often, they do not share the same compatibility. When I think about how my Big Picture relates to those around me, I stumble even more because I wonder if I'm wrong for what I believe when we don't align on how these concepts fit into the world.
I turn back to Alison to bridge the gap: "as we learn to desire through the eyes of another, so we are given the heart of another, and what we learn is the extraordinarily benign, peaceful power of one holding everything in being, liking and delighting in us, without distraction" (16). The societal Big Picture doesn't change shape without a collective group of unique individuals; the diverse perspectives and experiences contribute to the definitions of these concepts. However, when we refuse to share our misadventures and listen to others, we fail to gain trust. And where does that lead? To a Big Picture that is out of alignment with the universe. One that is destructive rather than constructive and productive. I suppose that is where the true beauty of life lies: we have an opportunity to express our truth and listen to others through creative means; we are able to join together to bring about effective change in the world. Is this an easy task? No! It can be a painful and awkward process that makes one question their purpose, their Big Picture vision, and their existence; nevertheless, when we remain faithful and trust our experience to guide our paths, we reveal the universal Big Picture---consisting of integrity, freedom, and peace---in all its glory.