#750 Comfortable Numbness vs Authenticity

     "To break through our comfort, our ease, our behavioral patterns, our habits, the power of our environmental instructions that we all receive from childhood to the present. It takes something powerful to cut through that and get our attention. 
     I often think of Tolstoy's novella that was published in 1885, 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich.' Ivan Ilyich is a common name, sort of like John Johnson, and it's about a person who lived wholly according to the dictates of his time and place. He went to the right school, he espoused the right attitudes, he married the right person, he lived in the right neighborhood, he practiced the career ladder. Nothing ever interrupted the flow of his life as it was supposed to be, until one day he has a pain in his side. The pain doesn't go away, and it turns out to be a terminal illness. After going through the five stages that Kubler-Ross later identified in the 20th century of denial first, and then anger at the interruption, and then bargaining, and then despair, he reaches acceptance in the final hours of his life. After he passes away, everybody around him is indifferent because it was about John Johnson, not about me. 
     Of course, what Tolstoy was suggesting is, again, here's a person who got his appointment, and paradoxically, probably lived a more authentic life in those final days and hours than all the rest of those years put together. (see 'Post-Traumatic Growth' literature)
     So it is for all of us: there's so much of our life that's routinized, and patterned, and goal directed—again, often good goals. At the same time, the psyche has another point of view, and when it wishes to, it will break through. I think [the word] 'summons' is both reflecting the intensity of that encounter with one's own soul, and also that it brings with it an accountability. If you get a summons from a court or a lawyer, you have to pay attention, and if you don't pay attention, there are going to be consequences."

James Hollis: "A Summons to a Deeper Life." 65min interview (podcast) with Tami Simon.
https://www.soundstrue.com/store/weeklywisdom?page=single&category=IATE&episode=13007&utm_source=bronto&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=N180304-WW&utm_content=This+Week:+Featuring+James+Hollis,+Joanna+Macy,+and+Karen+Brody

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