The Three Levels of Awareness - Trying to figure out what's going on

This series of articles was originally written in 2008 and 2009 for another blog.  While I still have a deep appreciation for the insights, it's striking to me how my conclusions were put to the test over the years since I wrote the three articles.  I am posting them unedited here.  I will write some updates in the future.

About six months ago I posted the first two articles in my What’s Going On? series.  After a fulfilling period of trying (not always successfully!) to put it all into practice, I read my articles again to see how my thoughts held up.  At this time I am comfortable with what I wrote, meaning I won’t change the original posts.  It’s clear, though, that I need to elaborate on what I am calling the three levels of awareness—Amusement, Disillusionment and Clarity.

To make the point clearly, I summed it up below as briefly as I can.  I also created three simple graphics and some lists of characteristics and a few examples to better explain these thoughts.

The main point
We should not deal with our disillusionment by simply seeking more and different forms of amusement.  Instead we should work through the disillusionment and, with God’s help, we will find true life by seeing all its aspects from the deeper perspective of clarity.

The Characteristics of the three levels of Awareness

Amusement

• We focus on activity.  Doing becomes more important than being.
• We desire experiences, especially new ones.
• “Fun” is our unspoken motivation and the standard by which all things are measured.  (“At least you had fun.”)
• Amusement is characterized by a consumer mentality—things, experiences and people should meet our needs and we move on when they fail to or they stop doing so.
• We expect circumstances to change to continually provide Amusement.
• Amusement is concerned with “me” and “mine”.  This may extend to other people (my family, my friends) and thus has a degree of love, yet it is limited in scope.

Disillusionment

• The things that used to provide amusement do not, but we cannot replace them or do not want to.
• We experience boredom, emptiness and depression in varying degrees.
• We feel the pull (from our habits and from social pressure) to seek amusement (fun) in new forms.
• We are very aware of what we do not have.
• We are very self-focused as we become more aware of our emptiness.
• We feel out of place, as if everything is very wrong, and we wonder why others are finding enjoyment while we feel empty.

Clarity 

• Our strength and purpose comes from God and a spiritual focus.
• We focus on being rather than doing.
• Contentment replaces the never-ending search to meet our needs.
• We trust God to lead and to give us what we need.
• We let God change us.
• We look for ways to give rather than to get.
• We are grateful for the blessings that we receive and we fulfill the obligation that comes with them.  (We realize we are blessed so that we can be a blessing to others.)

Examples of the three levels of awareness in different areas of life
Here are three main areas of our daily lives and how we can view aspects of each from the three levels of awareness.  Please understand that I speak of Clarity as an ideal.  I have not mastered the art of seeing my life from this perspective.  I provide these examples based only on the hints that I have so far been allowed to experience.

Our Jobs
Amusement – Ideally we all look for a job that fits our personality and that we find fun.  If that doesn’t work, we hope to at least find some fun at work while we do the job.  Even if we can’t do that, though, we expect the job will provide enough money for us to have fun outside of work.  The job becomes a means to keep us (and usually our families) sufficiently entertained.

Disillusionment – Work becomes grueling.  We feel trapped in a meaningless job that we do not enjoy.  It doesn’t provide enough money to keep us entertained.

Clarity – Our jobs are an opportunity to give of ourselves.  We trust God to show us the many opportunities we have each day to give in meaningful ways.  We find strength in Him to do so.  In this we find blessings (including the paycheck) and we accept and use them knowing them as blessings.

Our Leisure Time
Amusement – We probably think of leisure time as synonymous with amusement.  Above all else, we expect fun for ourselves and our families.  Good use of leisure time means each moment has something enjoyable to do.

Disillusionment –Things that were fun aren’t so enjoyable.  Weekends feel like a waste of time.  Due to a lack of resources, it’s hard to find something enjoyable to do.

Clarity – Leisure time provides an opportunity to reflect on our lives and improve our relationships with others and with God.  In it we are renewed.  The entertainment we enjoy in these times provides us with opportunities to give to others (possibly then or maybe later).  As a simple example, I might deeply appreciate a good movie as good art.  In it I see truth conveyed in a language that I could use to communicate that important truth to others.

Our Intimate Relationships
Amusement – From this perspective, a close relationship focuses on dating, feelings and most likely meeting the superficial needs of one another.  Of course, physical attraction and sex takes the forefront.

Disillusionment – It gets harder to maintain the relationship as the experiences are no longer novel.  Unattractive characteristics in a partner and the relationship become apparent and they are difficult to ignore.  We might think we find what we are missing in other people.  In varying degrees of interaction, we seek out a new partner in order to find what we are lacking.

Clarity – The relationship is built on a true love where each partner simply gives to the other.  Deep needs are met through deep, sacrificial love.  Partners are committed to each other and to God and the result is a union that blesses them and others.

Part 1 -  Part 2

The Wake Up Call

This series of articles was originally written in 2008 and 2009 for another blog.  While I still have a deep appreciation for the insights, it's striking to me how my conclusions were put to the test over the years since I wrote the three articles.  I am posting them unedited here.  I will write some updates in the future.

What’s Going On – Part 2

So here’s the conversation I will always remember. Kyle was hanging out on my lunch period talking about card tricks. He asked me once again if I’d show him how I did a fairly complicated trick that I had stumped him with for years. This day I finally relented. I showed him the moves one by one. With my explanation I unraveled the miracle and stripped away the mystery. What had seemed fascinating and entertaining to him for years became nothing more than a couple false shuffles, a little misdirection and some well timed patter. In the end, of course, there simply was no magic.

As soon as I revealed the trick he said something like, “Man, that seemed so cool before, but now there’s nothing there.”

I thought I had given him a secret—something I had shared with no one else. Instead of being grateful he was disappointed. He acted like I took something from him.

“That seemed so cool before.” The statement of his remorse echoes in my mind now. I hear it again often, whenever I, my friends, colleagues or family members catch a glimpse of the reality behind the illusions of life.

“Nothing’s there.” But that was where I disagreed. I was 37 years old then and I’d been doing card tricks for over 30 years. I probably did that particular trick for almost a decade. He found out the secret and felt like there was nothing left. I knew the secret and still enjoyed it thoroughly.

On my bike ride that morning that was the insight that finally broke through. It was like my eyes were opened to what’s going on. I saw us all somewhere scattered in a continuum from amusement to enlightenment. It’s in amusement where most of us live our lives, especially those of us in developed countries, where we have never spent much time concerning ourselves with survival. We are easily sedated with superficial distractions and entertainments. They are illusions of joy and peace and we tire of them quickly. We fear facing that fact. Like Kyle, who saw the card trick for what it was, we first experience emptiness in the light of the truth. Our glimpses past the illusion reveal boredom and things far less tantalizing than the little marvels we afford with our leisure time and easy credit. Rather than looking hard for something on the other side we look for another amusement.

But it is a great hope that with work we can find something real on the other side. It’s hard work and so much inside of us wants to avoid it. Kyle could have practiced that trick like I did, mastered the moves and pulled it off the mystery in front of his friends and someday made his own children laugh with it. He could have found the satisfaction of knowing the truth and still enjoying the reality.

The card trick is an imperfect analogy of this truth, but it served to wake me up. I now see the same thing going on everywhere and I believe it explains so much of our maladies—everything from our relationships to our empires. We were created to live with a true, deep sense of reality. We are broken, though, and we are always distracted by our drive for convenience. Here in the 21st century we have nearly mastered the art of amusement. While the signs of its emptiness are clearer than ever, it’s also harder than ever to get out. Only an intense effort to face and forge through our initial disillusionment will carry us through to clarity.

While I struggle too, often resting comfortably in a cocoon of shallow illusions, I do want to experience that which is life indeed. I do want to see more clearly. I press on slowly. I find strength in the words of those who walk with me and of those who call me farther along from far up ahead.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:13, 14

Part 1 -  Part 3

Card Tricks, Bike Rides and Revelations

This series of articles was originally written in 2008 and 2009 for another blog.  While I still have a deep appreciation for the insights, it's striking to me how my conclusions were put to the test over the years since I wrote the three articles.  I am posting them unedited here.  I will write some updates in the future.

What’s Going On – Part 1

“For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, none will suffice.” – Dunninger

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.” – Albert Einstein

I pulled those quotes from David Blaine’s book Mysterious Stranger. I love David Blaine. With his style and confidence, he’s been a hero of mine since I caught the last half of Street Magic on TV back in 1997. I’ve dabbled in illusions, particularly card tricks, since I was very young. I know enough to surprise the average person and enough to appreciate what Blaine can do with the most basic moves. I talked to a much better magician than myself once who had no respect for Blaine. He called him a jerk, but I just took it as jealousy. I know I’d be ecstatic to be able to entertain a small crowd, staring into the eyes of an amazed stranger, with a simple trick that, with one mistake, could have made me look like a fool for even attempting it.

Besides just performing tricks, I love watching magic too. I want to be tricked by an illusion when I first see it, I seriously do. But then I like to figure it out and try to pull it off myself. One morning, on a long bike ride, I think I came close to figuring out a pretty big trick. It wasn’t one I saw an illusionist perform. It was one that I lived. I think I stripped away the illusion of my fascination with illusions. It was like I realized I was drawn to magic tricks all my life because it gave me a clue to the purpose of my existence. Maybe it showed me something about all of us, how we all lie somewhere in an expanse spanning from amusement and amazement. This is a large jump from David Blaine’s card tricks to a significant revelation about the entire human race, so I need to set the stage. I have to introduce Kyle. He was one of my students and his fascination with David Blaine rivaled my own.

Kyle ended up in one my classes every year of his four years of high school. He didn’t learn much math from me, but he loved seeing the card tricks I’d do at the end of an hour every now and then. Even when I only knew four good ones he’d ask to see them over and over. When I’d show other students he was as pleased as I was when the trick went well. If he’d figure one out after seeing it ten times he’d still act amazed along with the other onlookers. We even made up a trick together where he’d pose as a bystander. At one point he’d secretly plant a card in some obscure location. He was more than happy to let me take all glory when the card was revealed and the watching students would go nuts in amazement.

Often Kyle would come in during lunch. He’d ask to see some tricks or we’d talk about David Blaine’s latest stunt or TV program. Every once in awhile he’d ask to learn one of my more difficult tricks. I generally was reluctant to show students my secrets, but Kyle proved he could be trusted. And this led to a conversation one morning that I’ll always remember.

Part 2

A Hint of Freedom

This post was originally written in April, 2009, on the previous version of this blog. 

I’m just coming off two years of a life experiment where I quit buying myself things. It stemmed from a brief passage in Donald Miller’s book Through Painted Deserts.  It was like a passing thought, but it changed my life.  To sum it all up in context of the book, he speculated that by buying new things we take the edge off our God given desire to grow and change.  Those couple sentences were like an alarm waking me up from a dream.

So in early 2009 I got the idea during a weekend getaway with my wife that I wouldn’t buy myself anything.  In just three days of thinking this way–walking out of stores without that thing that caught my eye–I began to see how much I was manipulated by a system that wants my money.  I began to realize that having something new, sometimes almost anything new, was in fact letting me settle for far less than what God was trying to do with me.

I extended this experiment indefinitely.  Life does require some purchases, though, so I had to specify exactly what I would and wouldn’t buy.  I eventually phrased it as a commitment to not buy myself any material possession other than clothes when I needed them.  The freedom I found in this was amazing to me at times.  The clarity I had of Consumerism and what it is doing to us was worth far more than the silly things I would have accumulated in this time.

Basically, this is just one other path from Romans 12:2.  As believers, we should not let the world squeeze us into its mold.  But we do, willingly, when it flashes shiny new things before us and tells us we deserve to have them.  Jesus said we will have what we need.  In our hearts, which voice are we following?

The Other World - Why we still believe the commercials

Many times I look at what's keeping everyone doing what they do and it looks like we're all dreaming of a better world. I don't mean everyone would really put it that way or that it's some grand utopia better for everyone. I just think we've got this idea of what our world could be or should be and it keeps us going. 

I don't think we are all realists, living in the moment.

Sometimes I call it the other world. Depending on the person it might be more of dream world or fantasy world.  For some it might be a vision that helps thousands. For many others it's just a hint of a better life that pulls them along through what they really are living out. 

To some degree we all live in an imaginary life that we try to show those on the outside. 

It's why we enjoy superhero movies or other wildly unrealistic fiction as grown adults and we don't feel silly. It's why we keep believing the commercials.

But there's always some other world we work toward, comfort ourselves with or we actually believe and we fight to keep it feeling real. 

We surround ourselves with people who allow us to keep the dream alive. We avoid or maybe even hate some of those who would make us see it for what it is. 

We can get quite a following telling people about the better world that's close enough if they reach out, or more likely just pay enough. 

I'm not saying it's bad to have a dream of a better world. I don't even think we can really live any other way. In fact, i believe we were made for another world and that's why, in so many ways, we all feel out of place here. Something is not right, but maybe if we just do...whatever, it will be closer to that world I know could exist.

One thing I'm learning, though, is it's not enough to just see it, want to be the and lift it up for others to marvel about. We also need to love others enough to bring them along. 

Ruthless Trust - Summer reading

I finished Ruthless Trust again today. I used to read it every summer for a few years, then I loaned the copy out. I finally got it back. 

Every time I read it something new speaks to me and it fills in the gaps in the lesson I need at the moment.

Brennan Manning speaks from his brokenness with brutal honesty.  In the suffering of this world, he offers no trite tips for success.  Instead, from his experience and many insights from saints and Scripture he simply reminds us the lesson, moment by moment, is to learn to trust the God beyond our understanding. 

Resting in the God who is there

I'm not much of a singer, but I often have a song I feel I have to sing and share with anyone who will listen. 

This is a song I finished recently after trying to dig some meaning and a conclusion from a period of depression that I experienced. What I learned in that time was that I needed to rest in God. This was not God as I always thought of Him, but God the creator, the God who is there, the Source of every good thing.