From yoga classes to the idealization of tribal life

Thoughts about Mediocrity and Ordinariness

Image. Idealized Image. How about Social Media Image? Or Professional Perfection Image? I’d prefer to call all this noise innate and socially acceptable narcissism. I have been in a state of ennui in reference to the changes in the world. For me, my day to day life is awesome. I don’t need to proclaim this or let this fact change who I am. I would love it, though, if more people could truly feel like they have a place in the world where there is no need to pretend.

Words and phrases have been going through my head lately in reference to our disconnected connected reality. It bothers me immensely that we only get to “see” into people’s lives through the lens of what they choose to share. There is an innate comparison and competition in the screen reality. Whenever we lose sight of the whole, we have lost a part of the self. Our modern world makes it too easy to pedestal reality (our own and others). We are left with choice. To fight against reality, be defeated by it, or strive to become successful AS it.

All the pictures in this post are me being…me. They’re taken by my lovely husband, travel buddy, and best friend. dr.joe.rothstein This is a picture of me at my local bodega. I have so many pictures of myself with tomatoes and the owner. It’s our thing.

We are all ordinary beings living an ordinary reality. We are also extraordinary beings living an extraordinary reality. Being anything but our whole selves reflects our own dichotomy between ordinariness and extraordinariness.

Social Media Or Mirror?

Idealization is an expectation, a pedestal, a push. Social media culture has created a drive to be idealized that is fake and disconnected from who we are. Most of us human beings are simply mediocre. Why is there a problem with being mediocre at some things, great at others, and awful at something else?

I constantly make goofy faces at my husband when he takes pictures of me. This is one of my more recent ones, sitting in a cave restaurant in the breath taking country of San Marino.

I am going to continue to rant a bit. Why is it that every person needs to come up with their own method or specialness? Their own schtick? Their own identity? Why is it that we need to define ourselves through the demand of our own idealized self image? What about cultural reality shifting means that we cannot just simply revert to the aspects of engagement that have worked for thousands of years? What keeps us from being all of who we are without all the noise of expectation and image? What prevents us from just being ok with the humanness of our existence? What is with this societal push to be superhuman?

Does anyone besides me find all this posturing we do in the modern world to be a little bit…EMPTY?

In the midst of all these questions I have about the lives we lead and what we expose ourselves to, I wonder if we are idealizing or idolizing. Maybe we would all feel safer being our perfectly imperfect selves if we let go of our addiction to wanting to be like other people, comparing ourselves to others, or thinking that other people have the answers to our problems.

I’m talking about normalizing physicality, emotionality, rationality, and spirituality here. Like.

I fart. Sometimes my farts stink. Sometimes they are loud. Sometimes I can’t control them. Anyone else noticed this happens to them too? How many of you are willing to talk about that in an ordinary way on your social media feed?

Yup. I spilt water on myself again.

I get angry for no good reason and want to take it out on someone. I do. Ask my husband or my kids. I cry sometimes about myself and my life in a completely self centered and selfish way. I have emotions that I am comfortable with and ones that I’m uncomfortable feeling. I don’t tend to doubt how I feel but I absolutely do choose to suppress my feelings sometimes.

I am also deeply spiritual and I hide it. I meditate a lot. I chant. I talk to spirits and ghosts. I see inter dimensional beings and the multiverse. I cultivate a relationship to an unseen and unknown reality.

This is all part of who I really am. I cannot talk about being mediocre and human without presencing my own shame or embarrassment about my lack of being what I judge as “normal.”

But WE ARE ALL JUST NORMAL, AREN’T WE?

I personally have deep interest in mediocrity and ordinariness. The place inside you that is just human. That’s it. I wonder if you can accept and show that self to everyone, no one, or only certain someones. I wonder what holds you back from being yourself and what invites you into expressing yourself. To have less social expectations of narcissism (which is the disease present in social media and advertising), we absolutely need to get comfortable with our feelings of insecurity. We need to learn how to say “I don’t know.” We need to understand that there is no perfect human or prescribed answer to the human dilemma of ordinariness.

A sunset walk on the Adriatic Sea. We took a trip to escape the heat. I needed time with my feet in salt water.

I consider something as simple as my yoga practice. I spent years attending in person yoga classes and, since that pandemic, I have also spent years participating in online classes. When I watch youtube yoga classes, I get to see a teacher who has perfected a pose or routine to a degree that she (or he or they) feels comfortable sharing it on video. My only reference point is someone performing perfectly. Suddenly I find myself in the land of comparison - no matter how much the teacher may encourage me to be authentic to my body that day. Folks, I have a really healthy adult ego and this still wiggles its way into my psyche.

This striving for perfection is not what going to a live yoga class is like for me. Yoga classes are full of people who are struggling, shaking, surrendering to child’s pose, and sometimes falling. Yoga classes create a doorway for accepting mediocrity. Youtube videos and zoom classes - with most peoples’ videos turned off - do not at all create the same container for just being okay with whatever is happening on the mat in the moment. I personally only really like yoga teachers who are imperfect and willing to show the students when they can’t do a pose as much as they show when they can master.

Here I go again. I question what it is about our reality right now that we can’t just be good enough and secure in all of who we are.

The Appeal of Tribe

This leads me into a thought I’ve been having about how we idealize tribe. Everything was better when there was a tribe, right? People were healthier and less stressed, all relationships were better, everyone fit in, the earth was thriving, etc etc. Tribe is where all of us lonely first world people staring at our phones get to fantasize about a world so far apart from the one we live in now that something has to be better than what is. Tribe is a lifeline that evades the reality that it is unsafe to be all of who we are.

I admit, it is really hard not to idealize the ancient world as I stand on top of a castle on the very top of an ancient city.

Now I know enough about human nature to understand that we tend to over fantasize. We jump to huge imaginings to escape what is going wrong in our lives. It is painless to create a perfect partner or friend in our heads than deal with the problems we have in our actual relationships. It is efforless to dream about a better job with an amazing boss, great pay, and friendly coworkers is possible than to make the job we are in good enough. We don’t really talk much about how other people’s kids are smarter, more creative, and behave better than ours because that’s not socially acceptable. Instead we may just end up idealizing our own capabilities as parents and create a huge fantastical gap of expectation as well.

Life is easier if we think big and act small, right? Is that a pathway to feeling content and alive?

The disparity we hold between possibility and desire directly affects our own dissatisfaction.

Loneliness and empty socializing is a very real societal problem. Talking AT people is not the same as talking with people. If too much of our time spent on social interactions is happening in fake time or through a screen, a secure sense of sharing the whole self is at risk.

Take a Risk, Build Community

I think we need to focus on building community. Community in the modern world. Community where people understand that if they sit down to a meal at a table, phones don’t come out. Community where a question might come up about something and no one looks up the answer. Even better, community where people talk about a topic that is scary and tolerate differences of opinion.

A harder to be with type of community. My family in grief between my father’s wake and funeral. Here we gathered. Just remembering together.

Community is a place where people get to just practice being people not illusions. I can’t build this for people, but I can dream it for you. I don’t want to fantasize about tribe. I don’t want to go back to needing to build a fire to cook and having no electricity. I want something that we can all have, if we simply make small choices to create it. I’m praying for social change that comes from the attainable, not the fantasy. Anyone with me?

Personal Note: Well I think this is a post that is a bit off of the beaten path from my usual writing style. Honestly everything I’ve written lately has been bleh to me, and this feels alive. I hope it makes an impact. I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments. I look forward to the freedom of letting myself write as I need to without expectations. This is me being authentic to me.