Get Your Own Dirt

If there’s one thing in my life that discombobulates my mind, it’s knowing something …and then really KNOWING something - receiving that revelation and understanding of something profound.

Though my brain is a supercomputer, my processor sometimes takes a little time in its internal Google search to find an answer, and that answer isn’t always the right one – it becomes the ‘understood’ one. The greatest thing I’ve ever learned in this life, and what I feel is the most important lesson and greatest revelation, is how to learn. As super as my brain is – I don’t know everything, I don’t always retain everything, and I don’t always understand everything in its fullness and entirety.  But, don’t tell anyone that – I’d have to kill you.

What surprises me though are those truths we know, that are right in front of us, but we don’t see them. We will stumble all over them, and yet remain blind to them. It’s like knowing Christmas falls on December 25^th every year, yet we find ourselves scrambling at the last minute because it jumped up and surprised us and caught us unprepared. That’s a sneaky holiday!  Actually, we are just poor managers of our time.  It’s like the concept of death – we KNOW that we know, that we know, that we know it’s inevitable, but our brains just won’t process the reality of our mortality and we are ALWAYS caught off guard and unprepared when it affects our life.  In truth, we use an immeasurable amount of disbelief in our lives every day – YET, we feel we are masters of our universe and have judgements and opinions on everything. We boldly proclaim what we would do in certain scenarios of life – especially things we see other people going through and struggling with, but we are so full of shit. Often we are NOT who we think we are in our minds. The person in our minds is the person we WANT to be – but actually doing and being that person takes so much of a concerted effort.  And come on, let’s be honest, most of us are too lazy to give even a minimal effort, much less a concerted one.  BTW, for the illiterate, concerted effort means something that is coordinated by multiple people or requires a lot of effort – something hard.  I know, I’m being a smartass.  I’m in one of those kind of moods.

So, what is it I’m really trying to say this morning? I just want to remind myself I’m a human being, full of perfect imperfections.  I’m stupidly intelligent and naively cunning.  I know enough to know I don’t know much of anything at all, and if that’s the case for me, I really live in a sad, sad world, because I’m uncommon, even amongst uncommon people. It reminds me of a story I once heard that was so simple, yet so profound, it changed my life. There are a few variations to it, but the truth of it is the same in its telling.

Story:  A group of scientist petitioned God, because they had made a huge discovery and wanted to speak to Him. They approached him as a group, so proud of themselves and their accomplishments and said, “God, we’ve come to a consensus and we are here to tell you that we don’t need you anymore. We have learned how to even make man in our own image from the very dirt of the ground, like you, through cloning. We can grow anything through splicing of cells and seeds, and we can cure any king of disease and don’t need your divine healing any more. We have done all this through our knowledge of science.”

God nodded his head and replied, “Men, you have done well. I applaud you for your efforts and your diligence and am proud of you in all your accomplishments.  I only have one request.”

The scientist, with their chests poked out, feeling so grand in their accomplishments, replied, “Sure, what might that be, God?”

“Next time, fellas, get your own dirt.” 

End of Story:

When I first heard that story, I didn’t get it.  I thought about it for a long time and then it hit me. The truth smacked me upside the head so hard it caught my breath.  We as human beings are highly intelligent and we know a lot of stuff – but there’s more stuff we haven’t even begun to understand. We are arrogant and egotistical.  For those of you who still haven’t got the ‘moral of the story’ it’s this: While we can do a lot of things in this world – and they are great accomplishments, we can ONLY manipulate what already exists.  We can clone a cell, split an atom, and replicate a seed – but we can’t give life to anything. We cannot create, which means to make something from nothing. Yes, we can harvest a sperm and an egg, but we can’t make it bond and create life. We are great manipulators.  While we can do amazing things with the dirt we have, we still have to have dirt in the first place. We can’t make the dirt. We can’t breathe life into anything or anyone.

In those times when I’m getting a little haughty and high-fallutin’… I remind myself that it’s not my dirt. When I’ve been blind to truths staring me in the face that I’ve been tripping all over, I remind myself I’m only human clay, made from dirt, and will return to dirt.  I love knowing things, but I love even more really KNOWING things. The key to that is a KISS – keep it simple, stupid.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray