We Can Refuse

"Well, one of the interesting qualities of being human is, by the look of it, we’re the only part of creation that can actually refuse to be ourselves. And as far as I can see, there’s no other part of the world that can do that. The cloud is the cloud, the mountain is the mountain, the tree is the tree, the hawk is the hawk. The kingfisher doesn’t wake up one day and say, “You know, God, I’m absolutely fed up to the back teeth of this whole kingfisher trip. Can I have a day as a crow? You know, hang out with my mates, glide down for a bit of carrion now and again? That’s the life for — ” No. The kingfisher is just the kingfisher.

And one of the healing things about the natural world to human beings is that it’s just itself. But we, as human beings, are really quite extraordinary in that we can actually refuse to be ourselves. We can get afraid of the way we are. And we can temporarily put a mask over our face and pretend to be somebody else or something else. And the interesting thing is then we can take it another step of virtuosity and forget that we were pretending to be someone else and become the person we were, on the surface, at least, who we were just pretending to be in the first place.

So one of the astonishing qualities of being human is the measure of our reluctance to be here, actually. And I think one of the great necessities of self knowledge is understanding and even tasting the single-malt essence of your own reluctance to be here. All the ways you don’t want to have the conversation, all the ways you don’t want to be in the marriage, you don’t want to be a parent, you don’t want to be visible in a leadership position, you don’t want to be doing this work. And this is not to give it away. This is just to understand what lies between you and a sense of freedom in it.

And I think self-compassion has to do with this ability to understand, and even to cultivate a sense of humor about all the ways you just don’t want to be here. That is the Woody Allen comic routine in the world. [laughs] It’s all the hypochondriac ways he’s afraid of the world. And that’s why he’s so entertaining, because we all recognize that part of us. So to embody your reluctance, and therefore, once it’s embodied, to allow it to actually start to change into something else, to — things only solidify when they’re kept at a distance. As soon as they’re embodied, they actually start to take on a kind of seasonality. And you’re actually, by embodying it, by feeling it fully, allowing it to start to change into something else."

~ David Whyte is an Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. His books include The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, and River Flow: New & Selected Poems.