Thoughts on the Poem: “As If”

 

The theoretical underpinnings of "Acting As If" are deeply intertwined with self-perception theory. This psychological framework posits that people infer their own attitudes, emotions, and abilities by observing their own behaviors.

 

Acting "as if" involves wholeheartedly believing of the achievement of your goals before they materialize. When you embody this belief, it activates a powerful energy that attracts opportunities, resources, and the right circumstances for growth.

 

Acting as if is a necessary mindset to inhabit for social cohesion and the greater good of societies built through healthy, empathetic, goal-oriented individuals.

Living in the world is pretty much an “as if” proposition. For all intents and purposes life is so mysterious in its, at times, seeming indifference combined with its paradoxical penchant for grace, its well-oiled machine-ness of universal law of cause and effect, and its blessing/curse dynamics of manifestation…leaves we who are much grateful to be alive to embody (therefore take responsibility for) our own fulcrum of perspective. This can be as easily abused as to be empowered by. The cup “half full or half empty” is the free choice we have at any given moment in any and all circumstances. We are our own windows on the world and taking responsibility for our interpretation of it is arguably one’s most important task in life. Its far-reaching consequences extend into everything we feel, think, and ultimately do. I am reminded of Anais Nin’s famous quote “We do not see the world as it is. We see it as we are”. Therefore, like it or not, we are the captains of our fate; our bodies: the sea-worthy or compromised vessels we make of them. If you think having a physical or mental defect in life is unfair and stacks the world against one, it’s not that simple or true. Only in comparing ourselves with others (never a wise thing to do) are we subject to unparalleled protestation. On the other hand, the law of compensation is a saving grace anyone with an impediment can become advantaged in. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Without the world’s many challenges we would all likely be callous, insensitive zombies. Humanity is born adaptable and subject to conditions good and bad. The person who is born disadvantaged is the person who more than likely realizes they must take matters into their own hands. The person born advantaged is less likely to develop equivalent powers. What is taken for granted often lacks awareness. What is suffered builds awareness. Therefore, happiness is not a goal but a grace. A constant state of happiness would starve the soul of its necessary alchemy. Nothing would matter very much at all. I remember as a child watching the film The Sound of Music and being struck by a line Maria says to one of the children after they have just been singing together on the mountain (paradise) with my heart chockfull of the beauty and joy all childhood fantasies are made of. Little Kurt asks Maria, “Can we do this every day?”. Maria, in a shocking turnaround from the utter sweetness of all of that had proceeded before this exchange, replies “Don’t you think you’d get tired of it eventually?” (Or something to that effect). As a young boy with a built-in song in my heart, I couldn’t believe my ears. Why would she say that? How could anyone ever get tired of such harmoniousness or for that matter of happiness itself? That line haunted me. Now as an adult I reimagine the consequences of unending happiness. How uninvolved it would eventually make us. How poor in spirit because the spirit is a muscle that increases its strength more through adversity than anything else. 

 

My poem “As If” puts that ball in the readers hands. How easy it is to feel overwhelmed and even lost in the matrix of our existentially fabricated world. Buy this and you’ll be happy. So, you fork your money over only to find that it makes little, if no, difference in your happiness no less than an hour later. You’ve spent only to have lost. 

 

How many of us are living life as if there is no God?

 

Since life is an “as if” proposition, it makes as much if not more sense to side with the existence of a loving, all-seeing God, as to not. Because to conclude there is no loving, all seeing God, is equally as if as the opposite conclusion. Think about it: How does a child begin to become the person he wants to be? By pretending in increments that it is already so. If that same child concludes that he or she could never be what they want to be, by blaming a negative voice in their head or having had some discouraging experience to do with that desired self-image, they will inhibit their own growth because they have allowed, no, invested, in the very stumbling block to make it so. This is an easy mistake for a child or young person, but an even deadlier one for a grown adult. Because the ego has likely formed and tends to take credit when credit isn’t necessarily due. The adult mind in tandem with the ego wishes to distinguish itself from the masses. And no one wants to be the fool, though that is what we are, all of us. As the tarot makes clear, our journey is to incorporate and individuate, and that is the fool’s journey on his way to becoming whole, if not holy. The tarot is not in contention with a God, if anything, it imagines God’s many attributes in a polytheistic approach. As if God had many rooms in the mansion of his being. “In my Father’s house are many rooms. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also.” John 14:1-3