Because we have a political climate unlike any we have seen before here, the allegory that comes to mind for this citizen is the tarot card, The Fool. This is when we step off into a new adventure with the sun behind us to light our path, carrying all we need with us, taking the steps which may be risky or appear to be.
Not actually knowing how to read tarot cards, the wikipedia gives boatloads of symbolism. Tis the season of magical fantasy and belief systems, so this can be added to the mix. If you are part of the booga, booga Yoga-is-the-devil crew or war on xmas crowd you probably aren't reading this particular blog.
Back to the Mayor 2013 selection . . . Encinitas Underground weighed in on this last week. The range of reactions in the thoughtful and the hateful comments prompted this notion of how fervently we each would like to control the outcome based on our own views. Some sounded like he or she was owed specifics. Others applauded wit and intelligence. The thing is, our representative democratic system is set up so that we vote and then we let these representatives step up and do the governing. We are vigilant, vocal and present and do what we can, but those five vote.
We can feel like we are in free fall, or like the Fool, we can take a kind of leap into the unknown (doubts yipping at our heels) and take the risk of trusting in this process. The sun is the bigger element than the cliff. Because Jeebus, I'm sick of cliff as a metaphor. Even in this allegory I choose to see it as illusion or perceived rather than real damn cliff. (My allegory = my rules.) The sun symbolizes the most important issue Teresa Barth has always promoted, open government and specifically the Sunshine Ordinance.
Councilwoman Barth is the most senior member of the council. Have we arrived at a place where we consider a person an expert on her own experiences? We can imagine she'd love to be mayor and so would the most vocal of us in the community and thousands more. She has been passed over, marginalized, ignored, ambushed and maligned for six years by that other (now defeated) majority. Community feelings are naturally really high and protecting her or promoting her is central. We can trust her to know exactly what she feels is best for herself and the community. She's earned our trust countless times. Perfection isn't available to any on the council or the community.
For those who can't imagine anything right about Kristin Gaspar as Mayor, the big bright spotlight shining on every aspect of her reign is a compelling argument. (See yesterday's Dracula Strategy.) Not just past actions are open to scrutiny. Regardless of who's mayor we have a new council. Knowing Deputy Mayor Gaspar's facile arguments, crony scripts and happy talk can now be challenged by more than one voice is good. Having a majority to vote against special interests or wasteful spending is good.
The following concept to embrace the negative came from a post yesterday, Screw Positive Thinking! Why Our Quest for Happiness is Making Us Miserable.
But many of the proponents of the “negative path” to happiness take things further still, arguing — paradoxically, but persuasively — that deliberately plunging more deeply into what we think of as negative may be a precondition of true happiness.Love that concept and the post is highly recommended, like the Fool, "deliberately plunging more deeply into what we think of as negative may be a precondition of true happiness."
Perhaps the most vivid metaphor for this whole strange philosophy is a small children’s toy known as the “Chinese finger trap,” though the evidence suggests it is probably not Chinese in origin at all. In his office at the University of Nevada, the psychologist Steven Hayes, an outspoken critic of counterproductive positive thinking, keeps a box of them on his desk; he uses them to illustrate his arguments. The “trap” is a tube, made of thin strips of woven bamboo, with the opening at each end being roughly the size of a human finger. The unwitting victim is asked to insert his index fingers into the tube, then finds himself trapped: in reaction to his efforts to pull his fingers out again, the openings at each end of the tube constrict, gripping his fingers ever more tightly. The harder he pulls, the more decisively he is trapped. It is only by relaxing his efforts at escape, and by pushing his fingers further in, that he can widen the ends of the tube, whereupon it falls away, and he is free.
In the case of the Chinese finger trap, Hayes observes, “doing the presumably sensible thing is counterproductive.” Following the negative path to happiness is about doing the other thing — the presumably illogical thing — instead.
Just getting this far along the journey makes me happy. If you're happy and you know it clap your hands.
