Dr. Noah Talle has been extensively published and lauded, mostly in University. He offers his unique brand of irreproachable advice in a regular column exclusive to Dearanyone.com.
February 01, 2006
Vol 2(2) Fe-blah-ary
Dr. Noah Talle--your baritone brass in a cacophony of cuckoos!
No friends of pop icons have written this week to admonish their whorish counterparts. Neither have any political figures indicated their regard for my expert advice. Nope: slim pickings this week--not even a lousy, I'm wondering if my cat is gay, letter. (Ask him!) So, I thought I'd share some of my life's pathetic, understated dramas that make me such a know it all.
I'm partial to my own little wake up calls, and I got one in a dream, born in part from an accident I got on my bike, and somehow woven into the context of a ceiling leak at home. In my dream, the plumber who came to fix the leak delivered a knockout non-sequitor while I was holding the ladder under his shaking body.
"You know, Noah," he started, staring at the pipe joint while intuitively grasping the ¼-inch wrench from among about 20 others in his waist pouch, "nobody will ever be able to know your suffering. How could they? You are a different human being. Your mind and body are different in billions of immeasurable ways from even your brother."
?!
Actually, this was surprising not just because it was the exact thing I was feeling at the moment, but because I remember thinking in my dream that I was getting just what I needed to hear from someone who's greater arse-portion was inches from my face. I guess I had always equated clairvoyance with thin women in headscarves and purple knit shawls, not men in crumbling denim. My stupid.
Thankfully plumbers are not the only sages in my life. I get messages from close friends to strangers, animals to (this week) meetings between trucks and my skull. It's good to know that I have this reservoir of experiential insight at my disposal, despite my unsettling knack of ignoring it. Fortunately for me, it's hard to ignore a throbbing egg on your forehead.
You have been getting messages too. How does that waiter engage you in conversation? Is he overly professional, or authentic, from his heart? Is that client persistently unable to discuss payment for the project you're doing for her? Did someone fail to return your call when they said? Did someone you just met offer you unsolicited advice? Did you miss the bus and get mad as hell? Did it make you question why the Gods are taunting you? These are all messages. They all reflect you in some way.
Which makes it preferable to want to hide until the "bad" messages go away. Just ignore them. Instead let your mind invent scenarios that demonize them and let you be the victim. In my case, sometimes being a writer provides the perfect alibi to evade such visceral encounters.
Whether or not you like it, it's important to acknowledge these offerings--because that's exactly what they are. These are
your wake up calls--your moments of truth. We have a tendency to think of these MOTs as dramatic events--a great culmination of our work and character…and they are! But they happen in little fragments, from moment to moment. Each one is an opportunity to choose your reality. Can you acknowledge
your responsibility, or do you remain silently skeptical, and dismiss? If you cannot accept responsibility for the "good" or "bad" messages, could your Ego be blocking your ability to grow? These are opportunities to look into your heart and adjust your course.
It can be difficult to see the connection and admit unflattering self-truths in what appears an overly-hyped culture that rewards perfection. But, if you look beneath the surface of even a seemingly shallow, narcissistic society like North America's, you'll see that perfection is not what is required. Alongside each "bad" experience there is imperfectly brilliant potential for "good" lying just beneath the Ego's radar. Think about it: do you really want the pressure of being perfect?! There's only one direction to go from there. Knowing your "bad" dissolves unrealistic notions of...well, reality, and who you are, which strengthens your foundation. It calms your anxiety. It allows you to establish strong relationships, for the right reasons, with the confidence of clear vision. If you're lucky, it may even get you laid just in time for Valentines Day. Yeehaw!
Speaking of getting laid, this is really just a message to myself. But for the rest of you, take heart, for especially during Feblahary, your Ego will be seeking new, exciting ways to convince you that God is punishing you with an expensive leak repair job brought on by 70 days of rain, for, as one American political figurehead recently put it, being a hedonistic, liberal Canadian (Hah!), believing that tuna melts are like Manna (they are!), that living in New Orleans was just asking for it (Nope!), or that stealing a famous soap opera star's underwear might have been more than a little creepy. (Are you listening, Baltimore Bellhop? Actually, you probably deserve to suffer a little for that...just a bit.)
Dr. N.
