{"id":5,"date":"2020-07-24T16:43:52","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T16:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/?p=5"},"modified":"2020-10-28T18:51:36","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T18:51:36","slug":"we-retain-that-which-is-pertinent-to-our-survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/24\/we-retain-that-which-is-pertinent-to-our-survival\/","title":{"rendered":"2. We Retain That Which Is Pertinent to Our Survival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Normally I\ndon\u2019t retain a lot; I\u2019ve likened my memory to a sieve from time to time.  But apparently those things which some part\nof me knew were important to my journey\u2014the survival of my physical, mental,\nemotional, or spiritual being\u2014would end up in some mental pocket for me to\nremember and call upon to use. I didn\u2019t even have to catalog them or memorize\nthem to remember. They were just there. I recognized them only as \u2018pertinent\u2019\nafter I found myself pulling them out of that pocket and re-saying them over\nyears of time.  (I\u2019ve had the luxury to\ncollect data for years about this.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes\nI\u2019d hear myself, in some sort of earnest teaching \u201clecture\u201d to a fellow-being,\nlaughingly end my harangue with the disclaimer, \u201cWe Teach Best that Which We Need to Learn\u201d<\/strong> (from Richard Bach\u2019s\n\u201cIllusions\u201d). I\u2019d then jokingly admonish myself, \u201cI hope you were listening to\nwhat you were just \u2018teaching\u2019 because it was probably something you needed to\nhear.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d quoted\nRichard Bach enough times that I came to immediately grasp the moment I started\n\u2018teaching\u2019 someone else, and I\u2019d make a point to listen as I talked. It became\nso familiar that I was able to extrapolate even further: \u201cWe Bitch Most About that Which We Do the Worst.\u201d<\/strong> (An original, not\nattributable to Richard Bach\u2014I\u2019m not sure he\u2019d want it.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collecting\ndata and extrapolating a conclusion is one thing I like to do. Here\u2019s my\nresearch: If you hear yourself bitching with great vehemence about something\nsomeone else is doing that royally ticks you off, check yo-self\u2026you probably be\ndoin\u2019 it, too, and this is your way of pointing it out to yourself\u2014bitching\nabout someone else. LISTEN. (Just sayin\u2019.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\nclaim credit for retaining the phrase, \u201cWe\nretain that which is pertinent to our survival\u201d<\/strong> for decades. Unfortunately,\nI did not apparently retain where I first heard it, but it has remained afloat,\nbobbing up and down in my conversations and questing.  I\u2019d use it to fend off a friend who\u2019d ask me\n\u201cDo you remember the time we went…found…did…said…played… visited…et\nal?\u201d (And I wouldn\u2019t remember.) \u201cThat must not have been pertinent to my\nsurvival.\u201d Or if I were commiserating with a friend who was frozen with the\ntiredness of dealing with life\u2019s everyday onslaught, I would hear myself relating\nan oft-repeated antidote for just that situation: \u201cYou just need another mule in the traces with you for a while.\u201d <\/strong>(Apparently\nthat had been pertinent to my survival, too.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collecting\ndata over the years, I would hear myself repeating a piece of knowledge\u2026a\nwisdom\u2026an apt quote\u2026a pertinent book paragraph\u2026a lesson I\u2019d learned\u2026some advice\nthat someone had shared with me that worked\u2026some explanation to others\u2026again\nand again. I recognized: that must have been pertinent to my survival.  I had found it, used it to survive the\njourney of life, and found myself offering it as a gesture that perhaps might\nhelp someone else in their surviving.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Layin\u2019 Down the Dots:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When one\nidea remained in my consciousness, my vernacular, my storytelling, my sharing\n(not to mention the import of the fact that I remembered it at all!) to be\ncalled forth again and again, it was labeled, \u2018pertinent.\u2019 Maybe it was a\nstepping-stone, a building block, a seed to sprout. Flotsam among the jetsam. Flagstones\nplaced in the pea gravel of life. I called them dots. Dots of big truth. Dots\nof insight. Dots of understanding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a\ndifference between Life with a Capital L and life with a little \u201cl.\u201d I sorta see\nLife (the Capital one) as a series of dots that we\u2019re given, taught, seek out,\nlearn, experience, fall into, teach. Those are the things that you \u201cretain\u201d\n(even when not intentional) and through sheer repetition (and some sort of\nfeeling) seem meaningful. They are pertinent to your path, if not also to your\nsurvival and growing as an evolving human being.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dots. Easy\nenough. And what do you do with dots?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re\na puzzler, you Connect-The-Dots! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what\u2019s\nthe purpose of connecting the dots?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To reveal\na picture (that you get to color any way you dang well please). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, I\nhave always hoped that connecting the dots would reveal not just a picture,\nbut \u201cThe Big Picture!\u201d It\u2019s a phrase that pops up again and again for\nme. Any job I had, I needed to see not just my part; I always needed to see\n\u201cThe Big Picture,\u201d how my part fit into the whole. Doing an ad or a spot for a\ncompany, I had to understand the whole company first. I named my business \u2018The\nBig Picture Company.\u2019 Thinking in terms of \u2018The Big Picture\u2019 also comes in\nhandy when the minutiae of the little life picture gets too heavy a burden.\nJust paint a bigger picture and the misery seems much more manageable in\nperspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s\nanother example I\u2019ve retained for decades, and just now popped into my head.\nCan\u2019t give proper credit, but I heard some fellow explain how, when he gets a\nreally big problem to solve, or an issue causing him consternation, or a\nmad-at-someone-he\u2019d-like-to-throttle, he begins to imagine himself rising up up\nup and away from it all, past jetliners at 30,000 feet, past the ISS, up up and\nmore up to, I think he was like 30,000 miles up or so.  How big does that problem look now?  Manageably miniscule. Drawing my conclusion:\nGot a big problem?  Paint a bigger\npicture and take a look at it from a higher perspective.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I\nfirmly believe that dots do not drop linearly. Nope, this is not necessarily a\nlinear thought process. Life (with the Capital L) is non-linear despite what\nlife (with a lower case \u2018l\u2019) drags on like. \nA dot\ndropped in one decade may connect to a dot dropped a decade later. Paying\nattention to Life vs life\u2014that is the Call. \nRemember those 3-D pictures where you\u2019d stare at a bunch of squiggly art\nin a certain way (focus or lose focus whichever) and all of a sudden a 3-D\nimage would pop out at you?  It\u2019s like\nthat. Seeing the 3-D picture of Life in amongst all the squiggles of life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s\nstart. You can connect two dots right here. If you have retained some pith of\nknowledge or saying or code or helpful antidote that you hear yourself\nrepeating from time to time in an effort to share with another human being (Dot\nOne), it is pertinent to you and your journey (Dot Two). See how easy\nConnect-the-Dots can be? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, I\ncall these pertinent pieces \u201cdots,\u201d for a big \u201cConnect-the-Dots\u201d puzzle. Could\nthey instead be called breadcrumbs, just like the fable foretold? Maybe they\nare the breadcrumbs we laid down to lead us back to safety.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m going\nto be dropping a few dots, some bread crumbs. See if something inside makes you\nfeel they are pertinent to your survival or at least useful. As the saying\ngoes, you can take what you need and let the rest rot.  See what sticks and the rest will go through\nthe sieve, right? This is what I have gleaned from a quest to \u201cKnow Thyself\u201d\nbecause I have come to believe if you \u201cKnow Thyself\u201d you will \u201cKnow All\nOthers.\u201d (Then comes the \u201cLove Thyself\u201d so that you can Love All Others.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connecting\nthese dots could take decades, maybe a lifetime. But, to me, it was important\nto connect the dots. Maybe connecting\nthe dots IS a lifetime.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, let\nme tell you who Mesmarriah Miracle is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mesmarriah\nMiracle was born in a dream.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Normally I don\u2019t retain a lot; I\u2019ve likened my memory to a sieve from time to time.  But apparently those things which some part of me knew were important to my journey\u2014the survival of my physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual being\u2014would end up in some mental pocket for me to remember and call upon to … Continue reading “2. We Retain That Which Is Pertinent to Our Survival”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions\/53"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mesmarriahmiracle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}