#37 - You Are Not That Important {Reflections}

What is up everybody?

My name is Ryan.

Welcome to our Reflections podcast.

I am hey.

It's good to be with you.

We are on episode number two of a five-part series.

I think it'll be five parts.

We're talking about rites of passages, so go back and listen to last weeks if you haven't yet.

I don't know what it's called.

I think it's called Life is Hard, but there are these five messages embedded in most of these ancient rituals of passage.

And a rite of passage is this thing that most prevalent in tribal cultures that these young men and women would go through around the age of 11, 12, 13,.

It varies, but they would have them go through some rituals in order for them to pass through this stage of being a young person into an adult.

So this idea of adolescence or like a middle ground, doesn't really exist.

You're either a child or you're an adult in a lot of these tribal cultures.

And so there was this defining moment where a kid would be taken out of the wild and they'd do all kinds of rituals with them.

They'd wrestle a bear not really, I'm just kidding about that but they would do things that were like that.

That would help them understand five main messages of what it means to be a full, flourishing adult.

They'd come back into the village or the community and they'd be given all kinds of jobs to do Now as an adult.

They were treated as an adult and they were told you're an adult now and more or less you know, in no uncertain terms, and that's how they would become an adult.

And in our culture today, in the Western world predominantly, we don't have anything like this.

There's no defining moment for our kids where they are told by the community, by some elders, by some men and women around them, in the church or in the neighborhood hey, go and do these things, when you come back you'll be an adult.

We have sort of, I think, pseudo rites of passages.

So I mentioned last week you know, when you turn 21, you can go out and get drunk with all your friends, which is not a super helpful rite of passage, if we're honest.

There are these initiation rites of passages for, like gang members, which actually ironically is they're trying to mirror or mimic these tribal cultures and it's probably the closest thing we have.

And I could dive into that for a whole episode.

But it's fascinating what these gang cultures do, because they're actually trying to embody this idea of a real community, and they get.

It's fascinating what these gang cultures do, because they're actually trying to embody this idea of a real community.

They get pretty close.

It's actually pretty close.

We live in an uninitiated society.

We have lots of folks wandering around having no idea what it means to be an adult or how to get there.

No one's helping them.

There's not really a sense of community or tribe.

We are this uninitiated society, a lot of a sense of community or tribe.

And so we are this uninitiated society and when I would argue and what I'm arguing in my thesis paper is we need to recapture some of these ideas that come from these ancient tribal rites of passages.

As bizarre as they might seem, they're actually quite helpful for our young people.

And so, anyhow, embedded in all of these rites of passages, there are five predominant messages that each kid will receive while they're out there, and we're going to go through one at a time.

Last week I unpacked the first one, and the first message is life is hard, no matter what you think, no matter how easy your parents try to make life for you.

Life is actually hard and that's okay, it's part of life.

The second message today that most young people receive when they're on these rites of passages.

The second one is this you are not that important.

These are so encouraging, aren't they?

So life is hard.

And number two is you are not that important, which is odd, because in our culture today, like secular cultures around the world, we keep getting told just how special and wonderful we really are, and we love doing this with little kids.

You're special, you're wonderful, and even though, as they grow older, we keep telling them these things and they still don't believe it, because there's all kinds of things within them that maybe push back against that for all kinds of reasons.

And so these kids grow up just hearing over and over again how special and wonderful they are, how important they are.

And it reminds me when you have these little babies, there's a psychological phenomenon and they call it object permanence.

You probably have heard of this, but as babies, when you're a baby, an infant, when you see an object, you believe it exists, and when that object disappears, it no longer exists because you don't see it.

And really it's because, as a baby, as an infant, the whole world revolves around you.

That makes sense.

You're an infant, you're kind of trying to survive.

So when you see a ball, and that ball rolls off the bed and you no longer see it in your mind, oh, the ball no longer exists.

Well, of course it does exist, because its existence does not depend on your seeing it or not, or doesn't in and of itself right, because the world doesn't revolve around that baby.

And here's the problem.

Well, when the kid gets to be about four, five, six, seven, definitely by 10 months old, that baby begins to understand, oh, you know what Objects continue to exist, even when they're out of my sight, which is funny.

But I think sometimes that tendency to think, oh, the world revolves around me, or things exist in proximity to me, or like only in relationship to me, that I'm so important, I become this like the sun in my own universe.

The problem is when you grow older and still think that's true, and what happens is you have these young people who grow older and have this overinflated sense of self and ego and they begin to think that everybody only exists because of them.

And so then a couple things happen.

One is they begin to think that everybody only exists because of them, and so then a couple things happen.

One is they begin to think they have to prop themselves up to fulfill this notion like I'm super important, I'm special, I'm the main thing in the world.

And so they have to like, prop up this.

I call it the false self.

It's not really who they are, but they have to try harder to keep propping themselves up in order to feel like they're the big deal they're told that they are or they think they are.

And so people end up constantly working to try to be fill in the blank enough and to prove to the world hey, I am important, darn it.

The other thing that happens is we begin to believe our own press that we think we really are super important people.

We begin to believe our own press that we think we really are super important people and that everybody around us only exists or is sort of there to fulfill my own needs.

And so we become like this leech that sort of sucks off other people and it's really it's impossible to have any kind of like life-giving mutual relationship in that context.

And so it becomes this nauseating hubris that the world revolves around that one single person.

So to alleviate all these problems, the community or the tribe told that young man or woman hey, you are just not that important.

You are part of a bigger system, a bigger tribe, and your job is to contribute, to play your role, to know your role and to be a part of that.

Know who you are, know the true self.

So A stop trying to prop yourself up, which is something that we really all try to do.

On occasion.

We try to prop ourselves up, make ourselves appear more important than we probably really are, and whether it's by kind of like fibbing on like how much money do I really make, or what kind of car do I really drive, or on our profiles, we only project these certain parts of our lives, and it's just a way of trying to appear more important than we really are.

And then, secondly, do whatever you can to remind yourself that you are not the center of the universe.

I know this sounds absurd, but man, people think they're the center of the universe and it's nauseating, isn't it?

Like no one wants to be around a person like that.

And so just remind yourself hey, I'm not that big a deal, I'm a part of a bigger system.

My job is to contribute, to love, to give, even to serve, and you might have to do those things to remind yourself, but it's liberating because, after all, you and I are like characters on a stage that come out and we're on the stage for a short while and then we drift off to the side stage.

We're just not that important.

Even those with like main character, energy, as they say, their life will, their role in life, will come to an end.

This is one of the truths to come later.

But even these people who think they're like they're the sun and they don't live forever, their life is only a blip, it's vapor.

So you and I are just not that important.

I mean, aren't you glad you tuned in for this wonderful good news?

Anyway?

So today, know that, look, life is hard and you're just not that important.

All right, love you guys.

We'll catch you soon.

Peace.

Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends.

And don't forget, you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 830, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering, or you can check us out online at clcelkriverorg.

Peace.