Originally posted 2011-07-16 13:22:33.
If a tree falls in the forest… does it make any sound if no one listens?
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If you live your life and no one is witnessing 1 it: did you live at all?
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I know these are very philosophical questions, but arm yourself, without asking relevant and philosophical questions about life and your life, your life won’t make much sense.
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And it is not only me, who is saying that. At a certain point in life, every human being asks the question: “Is this all there is?”
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Because we expected more. We though it was going to be more fun, more significant, more.
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Witnessing
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What is the missing ingredient? Why are we chasing (when we do) relationships, jobs, success? Why is the biggest complaint about our parents that they didn’t pay attention? That they didn’t come to our games, our graduation, that they weren’t there?
I think it is because we want our life to count. We, somehow, want our life to matter.
But… anything not witnessed didn’t really happen. What makes life real is not the living it, but that someone witnesses it.
But are we aware, are we conscious of this desire, in ourselves and in others?
I doubt it. I never knew that I had this desire. I observed myself trying to get and keep people to witness my life, my thoughts, my evolution, but not consciously. And I have also provided witnessing, but not very generously. I wasn’t aware that it would matter to the other person.
In my childhood you didn’t get attention by being good. You got attention, a beating, when you were bad. So I was bad. Otherwise I wasn’t noticed. As if I didn’t exist.
So here we are, seeking for someone to witness our life, but all the people that we meet are interested in what they are doing, interested in their life being witnessed, and mutuality doesn’t even come up as an option. It is too high-minded for most people.
So what is the solution to this seemingly unresolvable problem?
I went up and asked God to provide me with someone to witness my life. Silence. ‘No?’ I asked. ‘You already have one…’ the answer came… ‘Who?’ I asked. ‘Me…’ came the answer and a wave of warmth and happiness came over me.
I am not living in a vacuum, I have a life that is witnessed. By The Creator.
And so can you. You only have to connect and ask for it. How? For starters, master the Tangerine Method. Once you are good at that, I’ll show you the rest…
…So you can stop expecting witnessing from people. So you can have your life matter. Because it is witnessed. By the only force that can be witnessing.
- I have found a new meaning to the word, witnessing, last night as I watched “Shall We Dance?” the movie with Susan Sarandon and Richard Gere. In the movie a private detector asks Susan Sarandon’s character why she got married to Richard Gere’s character. She answers to have someone to witness her life… That really brought something to the surface I never expected: our lives don’t matter, and we don’t feel we exist unless someone witnesses it. I think this is what is so horrible in being in solitary confinement, or being an uncared for child, or having a secret, second life, that we can’t share our lives, and it feels like we are not even living.
