My favorite 7 year old, if raising himself, would undoubtedly squander his life to electronic gaming. And perhaps we, my husband and I, make his obsession worse by denying him any gaming units or even any computer time in our home.
I just want his unadulterated brain to stay sharp and alive and motivated.
So we regularly discuss the why behind our rules. Because he is incessantly asking.
And it always comes down to the same phrase, “Buddy, we just want you to focus on what is real. And video games aren’t real."
After pounding this concept of “real” into my kids’ heads, I have attempted to instill a keener focus on what’s “real” into my own life, and subsequently exclude time and energy spent thinking or giving to things that are of lesser realness.
So I hate being late for things, like really hate it. And I was late for one of the kid’s pediatric checkups the other day and was in panicked fluster topped with heated anger at my family, all because we were about to walk in that office door 8 minutes late.
And then, as if somebody had climbed into my brain and ignited a “reality” synapse, I suddenly understood what was real in this situation; but most importantly WHO was real.
If the doctor’s appointment needed to rescheduled, so be it. No damage rendered.
But these kids sitting behind me in the car were and are everything. Their well-being is everything. And I was hurting their souls with my anxious fury. I shifted to what was real: them. And the things that weren’t, melted and faded, and it all seemed okay.
Our world is obsessed with the portrayal of fake realities, or idealized images of idealized realities. We can even promote idealized realities of our own lives whether through social media, or even social interaction. But the double consciousness we gain by surrounding ourselves with all this fakeness is entirely detrimental. What I mean is that we see all these idealized life portrayals and an emphasis on aspects of life that seem so real. But when we have a sudden loss of something so real. Like a loved one. Or a relationship lost. We begin to decipher and discern what things are of great and real value. And what aren’t.
It becomes strikingly apparent that realness is grounded in people. In seeing goodness in people. And giving goodness to people. It is found in relationships, in connections, in attachments.
Deciphering what is real comes back to the last post on our motives. If our motives are self-elevating, self- aggrandizing than we aren’t dwelling in what is genuine and true. It’s at times difficult to detach this from reality though, because our society and culture praise self-promoting success.
But when we are motivated by love for this world and for the people inside it, we find stableness. Because we are standing in realness. We must ask ourselves, do we get degrees, jobs, homes, cars, because we desire to bless and enjoy our interactions with mankind? Or do we do it to impress mankind? Do we exercise, clean, read, write, study, preach, shop, cook, weed, plant, because of our love of this world and love for humanity? Or do we do it to impress humanity?
I was walking past my college campus a few weeks ago and noticed the harried, worried nature of all those students. I was so one of them. Head down, bogged down by my sole individual load, tunneled into my own, massive life burdens. And how inane it all seems now that I couldn’t see past that paper, or exam, or assignment. It all seemed so big and real at the time. Oh that GPA seemed so real.
And then came life. And love. And pain. And grief. And beauty beyond the boundaries of language. And I reminisce with regret that I failed in recognizing the actual realness existing in the students and teachers I came in contact with. And I so regret and so wish my emphasis would have been less on the fleeting scores and more in my pursuit of enhancing the world we tarry in. I missed it.
And so we all are living in the weedy mucky stuff below, because it takes constant daily weeding just to survive… no matter what season of life we are in, be it school, parenthood, etc.
But if we can peer through it all and really perceive what is real,
or rather who is real,
we will find we aren’t missing it, missing life. Cause nothing will give us greater pain in the end than the realization that it all passed and we were blind to what and who were actually real.
Contrastingly, nothing will bring us greater fulfillment than discovering who is.
(Top image by the incredible Christina Thurston)
(Bottom cinemagraph via Anne Street Studio)