Comments on: Cultivating My Inner “So What?”

By: Jenny

Jenny — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:07:53 +0000

I just got a phone call from Georgia’s kindergarten teacher letting me know that she is having some “issues” at school. She didn’t notify me at first, thinking that maybe it was just the transition with the new baby and that the behavior would resolve itself, but unfortunately the behavior has now escalated to scratching and biting the other children and of course “something must be done”. After the initial embarrassment of feeling like I had been called to the principle’s office wore off, I was tempted – SO tempted – to reply to her “So what?”

Makes licking the other children seem downright friendly.

By: Mara Collins

Mara Collins — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:47:21 +0000

Oh, Jenny, thank you for helping me have the courage to face my imperfect edges, and we do need a phonecall soon.

Of course this is about detachment, it’s just that whenever I try to be detached it’s like trying to stand on the corner and not think about polar bears… trying NOT to do something is consistently challenging to me. The nature of inaction and everything.

And I like the Broderick, the apocalypse is not the frontier, it’s Easter! Take out the unacceptable parts of this world and start with a blank slate! I think he almost arrives at the question I had just gotten to, when the idea that the Carl Sagan refrain of “If we don’t blow ourselves up” is just a little quaint because now we expect that the world could end by means of so many different mechanisms that each day we get through seems like a small miracle. Particle accelerators gone awry , bioterrorism, asteroids hitting the earth, bird flu more deadly than the 1918 pandemic, the disruption of food distribution networks, economic collapse, the depletion of energy sources… Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Must get on that flow chart!

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:18:05 +0000

I forgot to say this the first time (luckily I got pulled back in by the comments) but I happen to love your imperfect edges.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:49:49 +0000

I let this reading ruminate for a while before settling on Bhagavad Gita 4:16-17

“What is action? What is inaction? Even the wise are puzzled by this question. Therefore, I will tell you what action is. When you know that, you will be free from all impurity.”

“You must learn what kind of work to do, what kind of work to avoid, and how to reach a state of calm detachment from your work. The real nature of action is hard to understand.”

I am such a gita junkie…

Is the inner “so what” a little like finding the “the inaction that is in action, and the action that is in inaction”? I guess I kinda thought so, though the word that brought me to this particular reading was, of course, detachment.

By: unreliable narrator

unreliable narrator — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:17:53 +0000

PPS I’m at school check it out!

http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/61/broderick61art.htm

By: unreliable narrator

unreliable narrator — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:33:51 +0000

PS to Jenny–you know Mandarin and I have played this game for years, we call it “the fears game” and it always concludes dramatically: “And then…and then I’ll fall down on the floor and then I’ll DIE!” at which point we dissolve into giggles–often teary giggles, but giggles nonetheless.

By: unreliable narrator

unreliable narrator — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:30:19 +0000

Just got back, not even time to read this properly (only thinking already about the DBT’s suggestion that my then-partner and I have to ask each other TWICE if we really wanted feedback, and not to give it otherwise)…but I *must* comment that from henceforth I too will always pretend I am meticulously cleaning up the scene of a heinous crime whenever I have to do the hoovering. Love!

By: karen

karen — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:01:34 +0000

Ahh, I have a lot I want to say, but am migraine-ing after two very long days and can not put two sentences together. So really I’m commenting here to let you know “I hear you.” Learning to accept the seemingly unacceptable (which usually meant “me”!) has almost literally saved my life.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:08:16 +0000

K***n (are you out there K****n?) used to be my “so what?” voice for me, back before I had any inkling of how valuable being able to say that was. I would call with my latest crisis and, while enumerating each of my fears, she would say something like “and then what?”, taking each fear to its worst case scenario. It used to really make me mad, at least until we got around to the logical conclusion of my fears and I realized that generally the worst case scenario didn’t involve death – I might not like it but I could live with it. Left to my own devices, though, I have a hard time remembering to do that.

I wonder how it would work to play a modified version of the “so what” game with our kids? Hmm… I just thought that one out and realized maybe not! We’ll have to talk that one through on the phone…

By: lara

lara — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 15:31:51 +0000

Hum. This is in fact, just what I need to be reading at the moment. After a particularly embarrassing meltdown on my part yesterday, and Eric’s reassurances that yes, our kids are normal, I feel like I need a healthy dose of “so what” attitude in my life right now. Time to step back, loosen up, and open up to new perspectives.