Seeing what I want to see
Looking for the Beauty
Sometimes I look at a talented football player and I admire their skills, talents and efforts. Many times in my past I have been so impressed with their talent that I found it easy to appreciate everything about the person. I often put people up on pedestals and in my mind adorned them with qualities that I didn’t actually know they have… say for instance if my attention was captivated by a striker who had precise and powerful goals, I might assume that they must also have the skills as a goal keeper, coaching, defending and they probably were also a great referee. In my mind they were in general an amazing football player, end of story.
Spiritual Perception
Looking at the best qualities in every person is a spiritual quality that is important to have. Abdu’l-Baha tells us, “always look at the good and not at the bad. If a man has ten good qualities and one bad one, to look at the ten and forget the one; and if a man has ten bad qualities and one good one, to look at the one and forget the ten.” However when we put someone up on a pedestal based on our perceptions of who they are, I think we do that person a great unjustice. When we develop our ideas about a person based on
Up on a Pedestal
heresay, gossip or speculation we deprive ourselvs from noticing their genuine talents, qualities and gems. As we draw closer to the people we have on pedistals sometimes become disapointed to realize that our creation of who they are and who they are in reality are not the same (and we think our version is much better). I think the opposite might have some truth to it too… I have a funny feeling that niether is healthy.Its a hard fall from a pedestal… especially if someone doesn’t want to be sitting up there. I think it test peoples egos in ways that can be dangerous.
Developing Perfect Vision
My darling little brother, who just so happens to feature in many of my posts, used to tell me that purposely tried to be below average so that when he was average people would be impressed. I’m not sure that I follow that logic. I guess what I have been learning is that I must learn to detach myself from what others think of me… in fact not think so much about myself.
“look at one another with the eye of perfection; look at Me follow Me, be as I am, take no thought for yourselves or your lives, whether ye eat or whether ye sleep, whether ye are comfortable, whether ye are well or ill, whether ye are with friends or foes, whether ye receive praise or blame; for all of these things ye must care not at all. Look at Me and be as I am; ye must die to yourselves and to the world, so shall ye be born again and enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Behold a candle how it gives its light. It weeps its life away drop by drop in order to give forth its flame of light.”
on Feb 6th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Great post Clare……
putting things into perspective…..
the tabloids have got this so wrong, they love to put people on a pedestal only to knock them down soon after.
our media is littered with this attitude and its hard to ignore when the most widely read papers are the biggest culprits.
p.s. i’ve linked this blog to my own blog…(thought i had done already?!)
love it
on Feb 6th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
I agree with Ronnie’s comments. We love to put people on pedestals and we love even more to knock them off again. It’s that negative emotion of schadenfreude, pleasure in other people’s misfortunes.
How much better to take pleasure in other people’s advancement, development, transformation in the spiritual as well as in the material realm.
on Feb 6th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Really nice insight, Clare! But what is the psychological background for this behaviour of overgeneralizing? It reminds me of what Hand of the Cause Dr. Ali Akbar Furutan used to say about the universal human faculty of concluding the general from the particular: If we meet a nice person, we assume, if we don’t know any better, that all those of his kind (nation, family etc.) will be nice. The same principle would hold if we met a mean person.
It probably has something (or everything?) to do with our natural human faculties (aka frailties/proclivities), which we are encouraged to overcome:
“The imperfect members of society, the weak souls in humanity, follow their natural trend. Their lives and actions are in accord with their natural propensities; they are captives of physical susceptibilities; they are not in touch or in tune with the spiritual bounties. Man has two aspects: the physical, which is subject to nature, and the merciful or divine, which is connected with God. If the physical or natural disposition in him should overcome the heavenly and merciful, he is, then, the most degraded of animal beings; and if the divine and spiritual should triumph over the human and natural, he is, verily, an angel. The Prophets come into the world to guide and educate humanity so that the animal nature of man may disappear and the divinity of his powers become awakened. The divine aspect or spiritual nature consists of the breaths of the Holy Spirit. The second birth of which Jesus has spoken refers to the appearance of this heavenly nature in man. It is expressed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and he who is baptized by the Holy Spirit is a veritable manifestation of divine mercy to mankind. Then he becomes just and kind to all humanity; he entertains prejudice and ill will toward none; he shuns no nation or people.”
-The Promulgation of Universal Peace, by `Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 41
http://www.ibiblio.org/Bahai/Texts/EN/PUP/PUP-16.html#Page%2041
on Feb 9th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Hi Clare,
I love your article. I have been thinking about the powers of observation myself lately, and have decided that a sin covering eye sees, but does not dwell on the unpleasant things of life. We need to be able to be able to identify problems in order to work toward justice.
Let us know how your Junior Youth group is going in an upcoming article?
Love, Loree