Layers

Experience defines more and more layers to life the longer I live. These layers make things vastly more complex to deal with, but also enrich our existence.

Consider a movie scene: a romance in this example; a couple is coming together at last to express their adoration and commitment to each other. Here are the elements playing in the scene: two individuals, both attractive and lovable in our view as their characters have been developed by the story and the film’s director; lighting effects are soft and attractive of closeness; prop surfaces are soft, comfortable; colors within the scene are soft and embracing; script is voiced softly and in whispered breathy speech; music is swelling in the background, sometimes sweet melody, simple line of music with under-girding chord structures that symphonically float throughout the scene without dominating it. The scene is thus set for the real action – the coming together of the two heroes of our story, romantically involved with barriers to the coming together now removed and – voila! – they are now embracing, kissing, and who knows what is to come?

Layers of the scene play an important role in our appreciation of what is happening as well as hinting at what is about to happen, whether we witness it or not. The layers provide much to appreciate and key in on. The sounds, the mood lighting, the environmental props – everything. The characters are primed for us to imagine them coming together, enhancing and defining their love relationship. The culmination of many threads leading up to this prime event.

How we come to understand the world around us is a complex story of layers. So too is coming to understand myself – yourself. And family; its roles and people and how they bring articulation to our lives. Expectations are part of this layering. Education, too. And money – lack of or abundance of wealth. So many layers. Some are important always while others play only a temporary role. Some layers are needed to catch glimpses of other layers hidden away. Other layers grow in importance and develop along with our life itself.

Layers. Complexity. Appreciation of same but also value for finding simplicity. These are often the recreations of our times. We make an effort to set aside time for relaxation, thinking, meditation, travel and exposure to new experiences. We develop skills for activities that hone the body to healthy standards. Athletics are not just sport or games but also of mind development. Getting along with others. Understanding life from a different perspective.

Layers. Challenging yet the basis for deep appreciation for life.

Dealing with layers teaches tolerance, curiosity, differences among people, cultural understanding and so much more. Age diversity, too, is important to consider. The layers age provides in our life are instructive. An elder ‘gets’ the why, when and how of so many things because he has lived it before. The youth are experiencing it afresh without experience to gauge it or give it dimension that lead to easy understanding. These are lessons learned from experience, and effort.

I think of the youth group I’m working with. They want; they ache for something. But they do not know what it is. Perhaps escape or avoidance of the uncomfortable feeling or lack of knowledge that haunts them? The use of drugs and alcohol are only tools, then, to manage the avoidance maneuver. Yet the use of the drugs and alcohol become perpetual through addiction – either chemically or behaviorally. Either way they become a replacement to life itself. Life is experienced through the gauzy view of the chemicals. Not real life. Only a representation of it and then very sketchy.

Pulling youthful minds into focus is a challenge. What do you want out of life? What gives your mind a sense of understanding? A view of a larger world or existence? Do drugs and alcohol help or hurt that view, that ability to see the larger world?

What role do relationships hold for you in life? Are they central to your happiness? If so, why? Does the other person in the relationship help define you as a person? Or do you get good feelings from making someone else feel good? Are you adding to the other person or taking from them? Is there mutual feeling and purpose between the two people in the relationship? Or is it one-sided? Either way, which is better?

Do you like working with your hands? Do you enjoy creating things – music, art objects, designs in the sand or on paper? Or writing poems, prose, essays? What about feeling the air, or sensing the temperature, or the grit and texture of the objects surrounding you in your space? What about freedom of movement? And sounds and smells? All of these sensations that we have the ability to feel and appreciate – what do they say about me? What part in my life do I want them to be?

Learning the layers of life. The penetrable layers and the impermeable ones. The mysteries of life abound. Without skills to think about them, to sort them out, we can be overcome by them. They become not enhancements to life but hindrances!

Is that what at risk youth is struggling with? Can we unravel some of this so they can use it to heal their hurts?

I hope so. I will attempt to use this knowledge to help them build lives of usefulness; for them and for our society. They deserve the chance. We need their contributions for the future.

Layers. Resources of appreciation.

January 29, 2013