We know transcendence. Love’s chemicals send us soaring. Under their spell, we wing above the humdrum and find enchantment in a world no different than it was before.
Put our lives in danger and we know transcendence, too, thanks to the autonomic nervous system going into overdrive. More chemicals. Nothing lazy, quarrelsome, or conceited stops us then. Pumped, we rise above our usual habits and meet the demand.
We also go beyond our immediate selves when a pivotal interview demands that we rise to the occasion. Or when team spirit, or a paycheck, or the promise of our name in lights force discipline. Or when we’ve had it up-to-here, but keep our anger in check.
Transcendence is also a talent, a genius that we can learn to grow, trust, and invoke in the best of times, in the worst of times and in the times so bad that recovery seems impossible. Indeed, in such time, the transcendent practice that renews our subjective bearings and redeems our subjective energy is the most mindful, practical action we can take.
Felled by unfairness, a public humiliation, a lapse in moral authority, losing a job or failure, transcendence is ours to will and to initiate. It is also available to those without a soul who hate their mean-minded lives, to those disadvantaged by the worthless hand they were dealt, to those grossly misused by life, and to those stuck with the unforeseen (and unwanted) consequences of choices made or crucial actions left undone.
Even in the proverbial darkest hour of the darkest night, our spirits seemingly broken, there is hope for our future because mercy, generosity and transcendence are ours to summon and bestow.
Of course, transcendence is a simple matter when the chemicals that buoy or protect us flow. Nature has done its work. It’s accessible, too, when the reward of discipline or the punishment for its lack is obvious. Those who can’t get over inertia don’t catch the early bird opportunity and those who can’t find their moral compass make bad role models. However, each of us has been cleaned up, civilized, disciplined by culture doing its work. At least to some extent, we can get over ourselves, get over the way we are right now.
At first, though, heartbreak and defeat seem to separate us from our transcendent power. Surely, this precipitous drop in adrenalin and energy has its evolutionary value. The wounded animal’s instinct to wither or slink away from the light may have been its best resource in the natural world. But we’re not limited to nature’s ruthless solution of death or a slip into darkness, though the Scoreboard is harsh enough and the shock that accompanies defeat can be so immobilizing that we seem to be at the end of the road.
So, we can find ourselves defeated because life has dealt us chronic illness or unacceptable obsessions, or no fair share of what makes people attractive to one another, or unconscionable abuse, to name only a few of the miseries with which the human spirit is over-burdened, the human body brought to its knees.
We can also be defeated by foul play, or the unforeseen implosion or deal breaker that always seems to go down in the unforgiving lights of the Scoreboard. We didn’t see it coming and then there it was—a wrecking ball to reputation, material comfort, stability and hope.
To make matters worse, the biggest thrills of Scoreboarding are catalyzed by the defeat of a rival. Certainly, the fall from grace of big-name, high-flying Scoreboarders receives the most media attention. However, the fall of any one of us from our established place in the pecking order may be gloated over, and when we lose our place, we may lose our fair-weather friends, too.
It goes without saying that there may be wounds to nurse and serious amends to make after a terrible fall, but the fight is far, far from over. There is life after blows to the ego, after humiliation, after divorce, after losing a job, after economic conditions reduce our net worth to a fraction of what it was. There is also life after a public meltdown and nightmare betrayals, after illness, after the death of a beloved.
Life is hard. Messy. Contingent. Unfair. Riddled with unexpected changes, some of which, fortune willing, may be good. We hope we have some easy, honorable wins, and we hope our losses aren’t backbreaking.
But no matter how it goes, the demand for transcendence is always present, isn’t it? We need it as a resource when we are caught in poignant struggles with the highs and lows of love, with passion and with chemistry gone flat. And we need it when we are caught in iron-fisted, two-fisted, ham-fisted or fist-in-glove struggles that have left us absolutely winded, pummeled to a fare-thee-well, undone, downed.
Learning to satisfy the demand for transcendence is itself a (mostly private) fulfilling reward. Inspiration, initiative, creativity, sovereign resolve and, yes, even peace of mind favor the transcendent. In the effort to overcome, the exhausted spirit is kindled, brightened, renewed.
And because the subjective bearings and energy provided by transcendence are enormously gratifying, we might even experience pride in the manner and spirit with which we recover from our losses. Everyone loves a noble spirit!
We all admire those able to sustain commitment, responsibility and soul through the most troubling times, and the display of resilience, courage, generosity and honor in the face of challenge commands our respect. And haven’t we always tipped our metaphorical hats to adversity overcome? We just never knew that it would be our own spirits that had to transcend, to breakthrough, to prevail!