Down with pedestals

[chelidon]

It seems weird to me that I have to write this, but I feel that I do, based on comments a few people have made to me lately.

I teach, and I occasionally rant on this LJ, not because I hold myself up as any kind of guru, or as someone who has the answers, or a shining example of anything in particular. Successful teaching involves, more than anything else, skill at teaching -- no more, no less. It's a kind of communication, or translation, much like writing or storytelling or painting. It involves being able to take your own truths and discoveries and translate them into a form that in some way resonates for others, and to find ways that help others to find their own truths. It does not mean that a teacher is a better person, or a wiser person, or anything else, other than having skill at teaching. A teacher has skill at teaching, just as a plumber has skill at plumbing. You don't expect your plumber to be a saint, so don't expect your teachers, or your friends, or your mentors or any other people in your lives that you learn from or who do things for and with you, to be saints either.

I have some communication skills, and I teach and write because it pleases me to do so, and because sometimes it seems that others get something worthwhile out of my words or my work, and it makes me genuinely happy when they do. I teach in large part as a service, because it seems to help some folks with their own work. And I do it because I get something out of it personally -- teaching, and writing, help me to grapple with and work with my own issues, problems, and personal journeys.

When I teach, or write about something, it's often because I myself am grappling with those very issues, not because I'm presenting myself as someone who has "solved" them. And part of the reason I might know something is not because I'm so very clever that I figured it all out, but instead because I'm so stupid (or, so very human) that I made my own mistakes and took my lumps and licked my wounds, and have the scars to prove it. We all learn from our mistakes (or at least, we can if we let ourselves), and because I have certain kinds of communication skills, I'm glad to be able to share some of what I've learned from my own mistakes, just as I'm glad to learn from others who've made their own mistakes. Then, just possibly, through noting the experience of others, we might not all have to make all of the same mistakes all the time, which frees us up to make bigger, more creative mistakes, and learn even more interesting things about ourselves and about each other.

Please don't put me on a pedestal, even a little. And don't ever, ever, let anyone else put you up on a pedestal. Putting people on pedestals, from priests to sports heros to political figures is a natural human response, it seems, and I believe it happens for two main reasons--

First, by putting someone way up high there, you take them out of the realm of human, you make them inaccessible, and "not like you." That puts the burden on others, and takes it off ourselves to do our own personal work. It falls into the familiar hero /guru/savior/priest model, where someone else up there/out there has all the answers, has the wisdom, does the work. Uh-uh. It doesn't work that way. Nobody can do your own work but you, there are no gurus out there with all the answers, and we are all just fellow journeyers along the path together. We all have bits and pieces of the story, and there are many ways we all can help one another.

Secondly, directly related to the first reason above, putting someone on a pedestal is the necessary first step before pushing them off. The inevitable next event after the elevation is the sacrifice. After pushing someone up to the heights, they become our scapegoat, the sacrifice for our sins. At some point, those we have elevated to be "above us" prove that they are, after all, merely human, and then we doggedly tear them to bits. What we are really doing there is projecting our rage at our own human "failings," all those things that really vex and bedevil us about ourselves, into the form of another person, who can become the scapegoat du jour for our "sins."

I know this because I've been there, on both sides of the system. That's the old pattern. We don't have to live that way. We can take full responsibility for our own work, for our own lives, for our own lessons and failings and foibles and discoveries and wisdom. And we can help each other along that path to self-discovery, to becoming more and more fully human, without needing gurus and sacrifices, priests and scapegoats.

So I can't say it any more clearly than this. I am not a guru, and I do not necessarily have answers for you, any more, or less than you have answers for me. And when I write something, if you get value from it, I am thrilled, because I believe we all have pieces of the grand, infinite puzzle, and if one of my pieces helps you with your journey, how wonderful! What a gift when we can share pieces of our own Tales with one another, and how amazing and marvelous when those pieces interweave, intertwine, and fit together in ways which make the whole greater than the sum of the parts!

(EDIT: and knowing the natural human tendency to take general things and take them personally, know that this post (or any other I write) is not about you, directed at you, or necessarily for you. If I had something to say to you (whoever the you is that is reading this right now), I would have said it to you ;>)

Comments

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

:) Some things bear repeating.