This word crossed my mind recently: buoyant.
I’m going to reflect on it here…because it doesn’t feel like it describes me recently (ever?). I actually think it does, though, even if not lately. So what gives?
First of all, I am drawn to the notion of buoyancy — not so much because of what rises to the surface as to what stays above the fray…to what can be seen when it isn’t submerged. This aligns with features of my personality. It is my nature to acknowledge what is, but even more to imagine what can be.
More core to my sense of self, is a tendency to lightness (as opposed to heaviness). So, it is here that the metaphor grabs my attention. Because I haven’t felt this, this naturalness, in some time. I have, in fact, felt heavy in spirit.
It’s not hard to understand why — we, in so many ways, are under duress. Anybody, not living in a critical awareness of denial, can acknowledge a pervasive sense of existential threat circulating above, beneath, and within us.
But, there is another reality I feel aware of as well. For the better part of my adult life, I have been around people who trend in the opposite direction. This has provided much opportunity for me to consider life from the perspective that doesn’t automatically start from a point of positivity. It has enabled me to consider deeply the powerful role of suffering in life. And, I am so grateful for that awareness.
However…
I am also increasingly aware that along with this awareness has come the perception that being light (buoyant) is…shallow. You are considered a deeper person if you embrace the heavier parts of things. And, deeper is often conflated with…better. In other words, there is often an air of superiority that has been aggregated with heaviness. One can fairly easily detect an inferiority attached to those who aren’t. A lighter spirit is, among other things, a less thoughtful one.
But, what if the opposite is actually more true (or, what if we just disposed of the notion of more, or better, altogether)? What if lightness was actually a calculated response to the realities of the heavier things of life? What if it was a choice?
As I have traveled across the domains of this terrain, I increasingly desire to be more like…buoyant. Buoyant in spirit. One that acknowledges the travails of human existence, but also who rises above them, both in terms of personal aspiration, as well as in a calling forth of others to do the same.
…by the spirit with which we choose to carry ourselves.