I AM There

A few weeks ago, I saw the film “I’m Not There.” It’s best described as a collection of stories imaginatively based on the life of Bob Dylan. Each story has its own cast, narrative, and main actor playing the Dylan-esque character.

With so many different angles on the life of a single figure, you might expect to learn more about him. But the opposite is true. The movie, living up to its name, is dominated by a sense of absence. The plot shows a character unwilling to connect with others, as evidenced by his mistreatment of his romantic partners and his doggedly obscure answers to straightforward questions.

This absence of person — and therefore of meaning — left me deeply frustrated as I watched the movie. As I left the movie, I said to a friend “I’m not sure what I just saw.”

So then later I thought, that if there was a movie about my life (which is highly unlikely!), I’d prefer it be titled “I Am There.” I would want to look back on my life and see that I was present — that I was conscious of life to the greatest extent possible.

But it’s more fair to describe me as pulled between absence and presence. I suspect that I’m not alone in this. On certain days, in a certain mood, with certain people, I feel ready to fully experience life (especially the good parts). Other times, the opposite is true — I want to just “get through” the day, I want to read the newspaper without feeling every single story, I want to have a conversation without plumbing the depths of the other person’s soul. In the “getting through,” the easiest way to cope seems to be to block out awareness of all the things that are getting in the way.

I suspect I’m not alone because this tension is evidenced in different areas of life. Take drug use for example. Last week I heard a minister (!) describe the use of hard drugs as a way of knowing reality from a new angle. What I saw interning at a detox center several summers ago is that people use drugs to get away from their reality, especially when that reality is exceedingly painful.

American work/life patterns also show a tension between awareness and escape from awareness. I heard a prominent work/life scholar (I think it was Juliet Schor) speak a while ago. She pointed out that many affluent Americans work incredibly long hours, then spend that money to take a two-week vacation doing nothing (i.e. sitting on a beach in Mexico). When we flip through magazines and see ads for such vacations, they usually feature sensory overload — sun, skin, alcohol, and a landscape that is a treat for the eyes. By contrast, I have never seen an advertisement for a product that will help me be more aware of life while I pay my bills or go to the dentist.

Even our bodies mirror this tug-of-war between awareness and non-awareness. We are awake for most of the day, but then we take some hours to be asleep, tuned out to the world around us, processing in unreal dreams our emotions and experiences.

I’ll end with some questions: It feels good to be aware of life’s joys, and I do think there is value in being compassionate and concerned for others who are suffering. But is there an inherent spiritual or religious value in being fully aware at all times? In religious terms, “does God want us to be fully aware at all times?” Are there circumstances in which it is better to be less than fully aware? And to take it down to a practical level, how do you make heightening or reducing awareness part of your own daily life?