ARE YOU A FINISHED PERSON?

-Names Removed here-

The following is one of the most frightening and sad statements I have ever heard.  It was made by an adult student in a college course I was teaching.  The man was 38 years old and was one course away from completing his bachelor’s degree.  I have not edited his words.  This is literally what he said.

“By the time I reached 19 I learned all that I needed to know and believe in.  I don’t need to learn anything new about life or question my basic beliefs.  I am who I am and this is the way I will stay until I die.”

I am rarely shocked by anything that people say to me.  In 30 plus years as a counselor I have heard all kinds of strange and outrageous statements.  However, this comment, especially coming from a college student, caught me completely off guard and without a single intelligent comeback or question.

After a moment the shock lessened and I began to feel intense anger.  Here right in front of me was the kind of person I have always had the most judgment about.  Here was ignorance personified.  And to make it even worse, he was proud of it.  He had no shame or even mild discomfort about his position.  He meant every word of it and he was challenging all the rest of us to make him wrong.  I wanted to strangle him and if that was not really an option, I wanted to give him an F for the course.  I did neither.

I controlled my angry impulses, made a couple of innocuous comments and went on with my class.  As I continued the discussion on a new subject my mind kept repeating the same statement – “That was the single most ignorant statement I have ever heard!”  I never said it out loud.  I have often thought that maybe I let him or me or my students down that night.  But the fact is I kept uncharacteristically quiet.  He never knew what I thought of him.

As I reflected on that disturbing event (it happened 3 years ago) I realized that I was shocked because he stated something that many people think but are too afraid to make public.  He was a “finished person” and he was happy about it.  It gave him clarity and a certain sort of peace.  He had no more questions or grey areas to explore.  He had no confusions or frontiers or mysteries.  He was finished and that was that.

Many people actually live the way this man thinks but they never say it so loudly or proudly.  I knew this fact since I was 17 but I had never heard it said so clearly.  I had encountered versions of it in tobacco barns and fundamentalist religious meetings and in beer joints (yes, I visited a few) but I never expected to hear it in a college class.  It seemed almost sacrilegious or blasphemous in that environment.  I suppose it was time for me to break out of my own rigidity.  Ignorance had invaded my sacred space.  Boy did it piss me off.

I was reminded of this unpleasant encounter this weekend as I read Eric Maisel’s book FEARLESS CREATIVITY.  He quotes two astute individuals.

“Finished persons are very common – people who are closed up, quite satisfied that there is little or nothing more to learn.” Robert Henri

“The evil life is really the thoughtless life.” Dhammapada

Then I thought of a quote of my own.

“He who is not busy being born is busy dying” Bob Dylan

Is it true that finished persons are “common”?  Yes, sadly it is.  Is it true that evil and thoughtlessness are synonymous?  I would say close, very close.  Are we dying if we are not busy being born – you bet.

Now, why would I say all this to you?  Why do I think this subject is worth a newsletter?  Because, my friend, I am convinced that finished persons are a danger to the health and well being of our planet and you are the antidote to their potential toxicity.

Yes, you.  I am not kidding about this.  Your willingness to stay open to new or different or expanded or deeper realities makes you a powerful antidote against all sorts of toxic ignorance.  

Every time you resist the urge to close up and shut down and hide or run away from life and its complexities you make a miracle of new birth possible.  

Every moment that you keep your heart and mind open you create the opportunity for redemption and resurrection.  

Every second that you loosen your grasp on your rigid attachments and swing wide your arms to embrace the mystery of life you take a giant step toward truly realizing what it means to be made in the image of God.

So I ask you.  Will you use this brief moment to recommit yourself to a life of openness and of learning to tolerate being unfinished?  Will you accept the fact that your life and your open heart and your open mind make a true difference to all the rest of us?  Will you live that awareness each day and share your wisdom and your “unfinishedness” with any and every person who appears in your life?  Will you join me in the business of being born and living as fully as you can in each new moment?  I hope so.  I. Hope. So.

God bless you.
Dr. _______ (name removed)

"If I take God seriously (and I do) then I must also take myself seriously because I am the place where He has put His presence."

the student was being courageous enough to voice the opinion of how many feel. He also could have just been trying to get a rise out of the class and creating conflict -- the little hoodlum. However, ignorance is (not) bliss, no matter what anyone tells you, unless you're in a hostile or deprived country where learning about Western cultures and their benefits are beyond grasp. That could make them very depressed to know what they're missing. I believe social activities and cultures determine the very essence of who we are as people and tribes. We are, tribal people and often take comfort in other's wisdom, playfulness and concern. Those that are complete loners (and I can be that way at times) perhaps enjoy the company of him/herself and don't want conflict. There are several ways to view what the good doctor has said. However, I do believe in change, in rebirth of the soul and mind, of learning new things (constantly) and forgiveness. So, with that in mind, I guess I'm primarily an "unfinshed" person, although I'd like to cheat and tell myself I'm completely comfortable where I am at right now.

Hugs,
Ciara

We all thought we knew it all when we were 20...  At 30, I looked back at 20, and realized that at 20 I didn't know jack squat about the world, about me, etc.  In my 40's, I now look back at 30 and realize that at 30, I didn't know jack squat.

Every time I think I know everything about anything, I just fast forward 10 years and reflect on how limited my current vantage will seem from that perpsective.

The realization that I will probably grow 10-fold over the rest of my life gives means I have to accept that I don't know even 1/10th of the answers today, and I treat my opinions accordingly.

While I felt like a finished person after I met NetM, I realized that what I really meant was "spent".

Hey I started my love affair with history reading "Hitler Moves East" by the German  Historain Paul Carell (Sp?) when I was six.  Since then I have read many more books avaraging about a book a week, not counting trashy crime novels.  I must say that while I did have a plateau in my 20s when I did know all, I revel in learning new things all the time.  And not just from books- life gives you new info all the time.

For instance the time I stumbled  on TER...

Before that I had thought that all these web ads were scams...

Some cliches are really truisms "Live and Learn"

Our society CREATES this mentality.  And when I say our society, I mean EVERYONE we consider to be not primitive.  If you REALLY want to expand your horizons and get an understanding for where our culture stands, you need to read Daniel Quinn's stuff.  

Read him in this order:

1) Ishmael
2) My Ishmael
3) The Story of B

You will fight it and resist it and scream denial, but his words are undeniable.  The core to every problem we encounter is because we are NOT tribal people.  After you read Daniel Quinn, you will understand this.

I try to remember

``There are more things in heaven and earth than your imagination could ever dream of''

Shakespeare.

I can guarantee you you are not a finished person (and never will be).  Thinking you are finished is the ultimate fantasy  (Buddhists and psychologists would probably say it arises from our deep wish to avoid dealing with the fact we will die.). .  

Change is the only constant in life.

I don't think the guy was talking about learning things like how to bake a pumpkin pie.

I think he was refering to his general frame of reference, and for that, I'd say about 19 years old would be when most folks "clay" is set. For myself, by the time I was 19 I knew I didn't believe in God, and no amount of additional time exploring the "mysteries of life" is going to change that.

I bet the profesor who took such offense did so because his authority of being an authority was challenge. Know-it-alls always hate that.

Two things ... and thiis time Imean it

1 – Every time think I'm getting anywhere near complete the universe has this nasty habit of smacking me across the face with incontrovertible evidence that it ain't so of the most uncomfortable time.

2 - I admire the professor for his forbearance and good manners cuz I'd have given the guy both barrels starting of with a simple question, "If your were so damn complete at 19, why are you wasting 10's of thousands of dollars getting a bachelors degree almost 20 years later?"

RJAGW

PS:  rerminds me of a quotation attributed to Mark Twain, "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

Even if that is what the fellow meant it still seems odd to me, but I guess it all depends on the individual in question.  

Personally, I'm more like OmegaZap, I am soooo completely different in basic beliefs and viewpoints than I was just 5 years ago much less over 30 and I look forward to continuing to aggressively challenge my own perceptions about the universe and people and stuff.  I love being around intelligent, passionate people that disagree with me because it makes me step back and reexamine my own paradigms.  I often don't do it willingly and I can, in fact, be pretty dog-gone vociferous about denying that I might in fact be wrong about something, but almost always, some sort of door opens up and my universe increases its beauty and complexity exponentially.

It occurs to me that we probably need both types: types like me who are always out there rolling around, gathering no intellectual moss, pushing the edge of the envelope a little further away and the boundary of the universe with it and;  people like our 38/19 year old student who are the rocks that anchor us in place and keep us from getting completely lost among the stars; no matter how much we tend to piss each other off.

RJAGW

Sedona, your post made me think of an Anais Nin quote that a provider I have been corresponding with always includes in her e-mails.

“It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before…to test your limits…to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful that the risk it took to blossom.”

"society CREATES this mentality."
Yes.

"And when I say our society, I mean EVERYONE we consider to be not primitive."  
I couldn't disagree stronger.  
Primitive and tribal societies also have problems with ignorance, and the evil which can follow.  Tribal cultures have (and have always had) their own atrocities.  

"The core to every problem we encounter is because we are NOT tribal people."
I would state instead (note: MY interpretation to follow, we all have our own truth)
that the core to nearly every problem we encounter is purely energetic.  A distancing and disassociation from that divine energy which is the stuff of our making, the energy which is life.  

Proud Ignorance is just one symptom of a weak fifth chakra (wisdom).

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TANTRA 101 (extremely condensed and specific to this topic):

Whether you believe any of the following or not, the visualization is a wonderful meditation tool for many situations... especially those things about ourselves, other people, or the world as a whole.

Ida and Pingala are the currents which run through the core of our body (visualize this as if it were the two main nervous pathways in your spine).  The seven major chakras are energy centers which run from the perinium to the crown of the skull.  You may have seen these in yogic pictures, often shown as discs or lotus flowers.  This is where information is shared and processed between the centers (3-dimensional and spinning vortex of energy-matter), and where our physical being manifests.

What follows can be looked at on a personal level, but is often also applied to the state of human evolution.  Moving up through these centers is called the path of liberation.  Moving back down through these centers is the path of manifestation.  Our problems occur when there is too much or not enough energy through the primary centers, as well as when Ida and Pingala do not flow freely.

Problems as the energy is manifested through our chakras:

1st chakra:  our life-force, physical survival;
Imbalance - loss of our connection to the earth (air and water pollution, genetic food-stuffs and pesticides, reliance on consumerism and mass-production to meet our needs).  

2nd chakra:  the creative drive of life;
Imbalance -  sexual explotation and abuse, disconnect from our sexual nature and identity.

3rd chakra:  personal power, ability to live life as we choose;
Imbalance - victim syndrome, aggressiveness.

4th chakra:  connection to others;
Imbalance - lonliness, bitterness, selfishness, greed.

5th chakra: our own truth;
Imbalance - inability to speak up or to speak out, inability to honor the truth of others.

6th chakra: wisdom
((vs. intelligence!  NOT the same.))

7th chakra:  connection to the divine

Example of problems associated with the flow of energy:
A disconnect of the first chakra (life) and the fourth chakra (connection to others), as well as a high third (personal power) leads to many of the atrocities we see around us.  

Others who have a weak fifth chakra (ability to speak our truth) and or third chakra (personal power) are the ones who enable the few who weild this distructive "power".

Oh, whatever.  I'm not sure I could share enough here typing to really explain or teach anything... just wanted to share that there are other (respected and long-lived) ideas around about what "THE core to every problem" is.

Anyone who is still with me here, and is interested in discussing, feel free to e-mail me direct.  I'm taking it off the board now...

xoxo,
Sola

At least a plant will absorb sunlight and grow.  An ensouled being that desires much less is both afflicted and cowardly.  At most that man will live forty, fifty more years, and all of it will be  be spent in a prison cell that gets smaller by the day. His only ultimate relief will be knowing that he's going to die.  Meanwhile, his misery will be contagious, distressful to those around him as it was to the author of this piece.  

A healthy soul must willfully and constantly recreate itself, and expand its world into the universe, to make its world a fire upon the universe.  

I do disagree with the last line, though. I am an atheist.  

There was a time when I would never have considered seeing an escort. All I knew about the subject was a mass of preconceptions and second hand knowledge. Then I met all these women with lives so totally unlike mine who had ideas and stories I'd never heard of. Suddenly I was feeling the limits of my own thinking. There was no way to go back to the old me.

"Every second that you loosen your grasp on your rigid attachments and swing wide your arms to embrace the mystery of life you take a giant step toward truly realizing what it means to be made in the image of God."

Dogmatic crap?
Just because the story mentions God does not mean that it excludes YOUR God, or is inherently dogmatic, or that dogmatic is always a negative thing.

dictionary.com sez':
Dogma
  1. A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a church.
  2. An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true. See Synonyms at doctrine.

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Those who follow a specific faith, do so often BECAUSE of the doctrines... some individuals NEED the clear answers, the structure and the accessibiility of Truth given to them.

While I am the sort who needs to find my own answers (and make my own mistakes!), I have respect for everyone who lives with faith... even if not for everything they believe, or the decisions and actions which are a result of that belief.

Do you not have a version of a divine source in your life to relate the story to?  Even if not, why would you mind the sharing of an inspirational story?

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Re:  made in the image of God,
I'd like to suggest...
we have a body for which we give divine energy a physical presence, a container in which to manifest, vs. "made in God's image".

Just 2cents... maybe 3.
   

That's one of the great things about this country! Everyone can participate in those things that they like and ignore all others! Isn't that OK with you or must you insist that everything be done your way?

was the smartest person in all of Greece.

The reason why?  Socrates knew that he knew nothing at all!!!

Mike Cooper