Tossing It
Why are there flightless birds? Are there swim-less fish? Walk-less mammals? Run-less cheetahs?
Well, yes. There are creatures in the sea who can’t swim (urchins), kangaroos can only hop and are unable to walk, and a friend of mine’s cat was so obese it could not have run if it were being chased by a flaming vacuum cleaner with an airhorn. All of these creatures gave up what they didn’t need; most by means of biological evolution, and my friend’s cat because she was being pampered and overfed like a disagreeable, bi-polar Roman Emperor.
My point is simply that it makes sense to give up what you don’t need. If you can swim as well as a penguin or run as fast as an ostrich, you don’t need to fly. Give it up. Those big wings are just slowing you down.
And in that roundabout way we’ve come to the point of this little mini-essay—or, as they might call it in Mexico, “essayita”. I just finished reading a book that I can’t recommend highly enough and it’s sort of about giving up the one thing that is screwing up your life. You don’t need it as much as you think you do, the things you are afraid of if you give it up are basically illusions, and if you stop this one thing, you’ll soar to heights unknown. And the weird thing is it’s the same thing for everyone; it’s not like for me it might be alcohol and for you, it might be shoplifting or high-fructose corn syrup. There is just one category of thing that freezes every human in place and it isn’t something you’d probably guess. I didn’t, anyway. Though now that I’ve read the book, I can’t dispute the absolute truth of it. In fact, I’ve experienced it.
Yes, I’m going to leave you hanging because if I tell you the one-word answer it will seem more superficial than it is. I’m sorry, but I feel like if I tell you the one thing, it will cheapen it and make you less likely to read the book. It’s much better if you let the author introduce it in her own way.
All right, don’t be such a baby, I’ll tell you. The name of the book is The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self and the one thing you should give up is lying. Do you see what I mean about it being a little anticlimactic?
At first, “lying” seems like a simple topic. Unless you’re a politician or a sociopath (or both…) you’re maybe thinking that you don’t really lie a lot. Maybe a little to the IRS, or an innocent lie to get out of helping a neighbor move his piano, but that’s normal. I agree.
But this book goes much deeper, into the sometimes surprising areas where we lie to ourselves, our family and friends, and our communities, and how that rots us and our society at its roots. And, unbeknownst to us, it keeps us stuck in whatever personal hell we’ve constructed. It’s deep and brilliant and undeniably true.
What’s also brilliant is the way the book is written. The author is Martha Beck, a best-selling sort of life/spiritual coach and a regular columnist for Oprah’s magazine since forever. I know that for some of you, reading a book by someone with those qualifications sounds cheesy and common but this woman’s life—and she herself—are anything but common or cheesy. She weaves her own life story into this treatise—and her life story is harrowing and impressive!—and she does it with a biting kind of irreverent humor which frequently made me snort out loud. (SOL!) And believe me, as a professional humor writer for over 30 years, it takes a damn good line to make me emit a noise.
And here’s the kicker: As her structure, she employs Dante’s The Divine Comedy as a roadmap to life. It’s quite ingenious and easy to follow even if you’ve not studied Dante’s masterwork. (Hey, that’s what we pay people like Martha Beck for!) And if you’re familiar with ancient Eastern philosophies, you’ll recognize these concepts of integrity immediately. Even if you’re not, I suspect almost anyone would find it hard to deny the psychological precepts of this book.
I’m a person who enjoys attempting to know and understand myself and so I have read my share of both popular self-help books and academic philosophy, and I’d put this book somewhere between the two. It reads like a self-help book—it’s a very entertaining page-turner—but you can go as deep as you like with the concept. However far you’ve come on your own journey of self-discovery or “enlightenment,” you can still find depths within this concept that you’ve yet to plumb. And if you’ve not ever been on a journey of self-discovery, this is a terrific place to start.
If, on the other hand, you’ve no interest in self-discovery, journeys, enlightenment, or integrity, be careful reading the rest of the cartoons on this page. There may be one or two that make you think.
Without further delay, I present Wayno’s Bizarro cartoons for the week…
As Oscar Wilde might have said, “Tweets are wasted on the twits.”
A truly loving father would have let the kid apply the tattoos, as well.
I can’t help but wonder what a different life this fellow might have had if instead of a thumb, it had been a middle finger. In that light, this could be seen as a metaphor for white privilege.
If I had a nickel for every hour I spent at the bottom of a well when I was a teen, I’d have not one nickel.
I’d not have apologized to Schulz and Herriman because the worst that could happen is you’d be haunted by their ghosts and what an honor that would be!
Wayno goes into a whole shmagoo about this comic on his weekly blog post. In fact, he starts the post out with a rare Schulz drawing of Lucy as an adult—but not really.
The lack of commitment shows further in the fact that they’ve not memorized their parts.
That marks the end of our cartoon drive-in theater presentation. Thanks for sticking around until the snack bar closed. If you enjoyed this week’s features and appreciate the price (FREE!) maybe you’ll consider dropping a dime or two into one of the links below. We’re not lying when we say how much we appreciate it!
Until next time, please remember to put the speaker back on the stand before you drive away.
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