Play pin the tail...

The question that currently roams my mind freely and with abandon is this; at what stage of disillusionment with a situation or scenario, do you either get involved or pull away completely?

Now I ask this as I am currently caught between a rock and a hard place and the longer I remain sitting on the fence the nastier it seems to get. I am involved by purely being me, so involvement is mandatory and I will not take sides, as the participants are both loved and respected.

There are boundaries that people erect socially and politically to protect themselves and their loved one’s, and again their ideals, their lifestyle and numerous other unmentioned facets of life fall under this protective wrap. We go as far as to teach our children the finer tones and details of our ideology and even discipline them according to what we perceive as the correct and proper forms of behavior. This has been a fact since this human existence on earth and I have no doubt prior to our arrival there were very similar systems and ideology amongst the earths inhabitants.

So I have recently become aware that there are double standards at work behind the scenes in my life’s most treasured ideology. I have my entire life lived and respected a certain way of living and behavior becoming of a civilized society.

I have to my own detriment or benefit, (there being no real difference), discovered that the challenge it would appear is not so much the discovery, creation and eventually the teaching of this chosen ideology but rather the actually practice of those teachings by the teachers themselves. The old saying of “Don’t do as I do, do as I say” comes to mind here. Now I have difficulty describing to you the course of events my mind has taken that led me to this point and do not fear I do not aim to bore you with the countless pages it would fill, but safe is to say, I have explored this subject to great lengths, and my thinking bends in the following direction.

I, having played that childhood game of ‘Pin the tail on the Donkey’ once or twice before, discovered or for that matter failed to find a use for it in an “analogy” sort of way and, what can I say – I have finally solved that problem!

If you take the donkey’s body as the sum of your education here on earth and the tail, that needs pinning, as your contribution or perception of your responsibility, duty and commitment. In other words you need to find your place to fit in eventually based off your education, the expectations of your teachers and society in general.

I, having believed that the donkey was enormous, have always found places to fit in quite easily. The tail was never quite in the right spot but it definitely looked better than without the tail pinned at all. I have been corrected and scolded on many occasions regarding where I have pinned the tail and have tried harder. That is after all the due process of education.

Now every time I pin the tail, my teachers and peers tell me I am far off the target and that I seem to have lost my way. I dare not remove the blind fold to see for my self in order not to upset them or disrespect them for that matter and struggle on. I have struggled and strived to live up to their expectations and have been filled with shame and remorse for not meeting those expectations. But recently I did the unthinkable and removed a corner of the blindfold and took a peak at the picture of the donkey that my teachers drew for me all those impressionable years ago. And my world starts to crumble. The picture before me is no longer a donkey at all but a deformed image of insecurities, vengeance from years before I was even around, attitude pilled in heaps and more often than not left out in the open for others to see. There amongst the debris lie some, pity, a handful of childhood horrors a few failed dreams and a whole scrap yard filled to bursting point with forgotten or false ideologies, lying there just wasting away. I see the scrap yard and recognize my education, my discipline and remember the hidings I got for forgetting those lessons or enforced ideology and here they all lie going to waste.

I am horrified at what I see. The first emotion is anger! How dare they? I who have worn this blindfold for so long to satisfy and achieve the right spot for the tail, only to discover that there is nowhere to pin it after all. The second emotion or stage I went through is where did I go wrong? What have I done incorrectly to end up with an education or tail that seems so out of place to the picture I see before me? I have evaluated the entire process and even though I realized I have struggled and labored at it for an eternity and fall short of their expectations I still consider that I did not do such a bad job. My third and possibly longest stage I have been through is that of exploring the causes and consequences of what I see before me and that has confirmed that what I did was as right as I could make it with the tools supplied.

My current stage, which has prompted this narrative and outpouring, is pity mixed with sadness in that the educators knew what they wanted the donkey to look like, but were unable to draw it themselves. They had been lied to or hoodwinked in a similar fashion by their educators. How true this statement is, I do not know, but what I do know is I will no longer try and place the tail in the right place but rather do, as I am sure many have done before me, and that is, draw my own donkey and pin the tail on without a blindfold.

This very action in itself may be leading me down the same path as my educators but for awhile at least my donkey will look complete tail and all. So a promise I have made to myself reads as follows;

I will endeavor to remain as true to myself as I possibly can, armed with the knowledge I have now, and armed with the results I expect based off my somehow now educated opinion, I shall persevere to be an example to everything and everyone I come into contact with, to show that life seems to be made up of boundaries and limits i.e. ‘the donkeys body’ that need to be explored and tested for your own peace of mind and sanity. Test, explore and conquer at every available opportunity. Remove the blind fold and experience first hand that life is a mix of belief, reality and a good dose of wishful thinking. Dare to dream, dare to do. Tread carefully around other peoples pictures as you will discover that even those closest and most trusted see life differently even at the best of times. Do not point out their failings; do not correct their mannerisms as they too have a course to steer that will lead them to where they want to go.

I have said enough, and wish to finalise with this final statement.

Allow people the room to express themselves; do not draw any conclusions even after discovering the truth. They have as much right to their beliefs and mannerisms as you have to yours. Lend a helping hand if it is requested. Never judge or comment about or to anyone, not even to yourself about someone else’s failings. We do not have the right to criticise as we did not walk in their shoes or go through what they went through to get where they are today. Never waver on your tasks or your ideals as that is what makes you, you. But at the very least ensure that the foundation of your ideology is built on rock, prior to you educating others.

It is with a sad heart that I end this narrative hoping that we will learn that pinning the tail on the donkey is all a matter of perception and experience…

And in closing – to those I love, please see that the donkey is no longer the objective, your comfort, your ideology and your outward appearance is what bought me to where I am and will be what see’s me through to the end. For the end will come and I need to believe that who I am “IS” who I am.

With the utmost respect and unconditional Love

Duncan