I just finished reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman, so I am leaning a little bit into an overlay of mythological fantasy over mundane real life. However, the stories still impact my life, so to dismiss it purely as fantasy would be a mistake.
Anansi is a trickster god from African mythology. He appears as a spider, and, while he likes to play tricks on people, he is often considered a god of wisdom too.
I tend to find myself the clever trickster when teaching lessons to others. It requires weaving a web of ideas and concepts that I have heard before, and linking together ideas to show the lesson subtly. I have gotten good at it, and it has become a source of blind pride in a way.
I was talking to my coworker about my fear of being a leader that creates a cult, and how I avoid that by pushing off the idea of allowing myself to be a leader, someone in a spotlight. I cannot be unique, I cannot allow myself to become self-righteous. Not again. Therefore, I keep myself crippled in a way as if every time I make a choice, I criticize it from multiple angles to remind myself that I am only human. As if, that shouldn’t already be obvious. Why must I constantly remind myself of this? No one else does. Everyone lives in their mind of how great they are, in one form or another. Each person sees themself as a main character in their story. So do I. Yet, at the same time, I do not. Very Taoist of me.
We all wear multiple faces, and I like how Mr. Wednesday (aka Odin) describes himself in the American Gods book: “This is what they call me. I’m called Glad-of-War, Grim, Raider, and Third. I am One-Eyed. I am called Highest, and True-Guesser. I am Grimnir, and I am the Hooded One. I am All-Father, and I am Gondlir Wand-Bearer. I have as many names as there are winds, and as many titles as there are ways to die. My ravens are Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory; my wolves are Freki and Geri; my horse is the gallows.”
Through my discussion with my coworker. She described how I do not have ‘main character energy’, whereas she does. This made me audibly laugh out loud because she is much the same as me in terms of humility and a desire to not be seen. We also share a trait of wanting to avoid recognition of our greatness. In reality, the part that prevents me from creating a cult is that I would never allow myself to be a person destined for greatness or someone who stands in front of a crowd and beckons for people to follow me, even though deep down, I do believe I could do it and I could do it well.
My coworker poked me a bit. Maybe she knew what she was doing, or maybe she didn’t. However, I have to assume she did. She knew how to challenge me by letting herself dance in the spotlight, “I know my greatness”. Which is a 180-degree turn from who she is on any other given day. She played the opposite, to get me to try to prove a point while she was already two more steps ahead. When I thought I was being the clever one, I asked her to state her greatness, something she had never been able to do before. Her answer lacked true conviction about her own greatness and instead focused on how she relates to other people.
So, I took the bait. I tried to show her what a true answer should look like and I felt Odin’s internal monologue inspire me to state my statement of greatness: “I am great because I have trailblazed a line of talent in this organization by challenging myself and proving that age is just a number when it comes to productivity in the workplace. Through my journey, I have led by example to bring up others in a similar way to recognize their own greatness and continue this legacy of inspiring other people in the organization to be better. Through my journey, I learned the power my actions have to inspire others and the impact of their journeys too. I work in two directions to keep myself growing to be a beacon for other people to follow, while undercutting myself so that others realize it’s not a far reach to obtain.”
My goal was to show what the main character’s energy should look like, and at that moment, I was outplayed by someone embodying the trickster god. My initial reaction after recognizing I had been played was to ignore it and fight back. However, I need to sit with the lesson. So what did I learn?
I have an illness. An illness that unnecessarily holds me back. It served me well in the past, but like the concept of the Tao, we must shed the parts of us that no longer serve us, even if one day in the future it serves us again. We have to be fluid and flexible, but hanging on to the pieces that we believe define us is a mistake. My illness is a fear of self-righteousness, a recognition of ‘who am I to tell others what to do?’. I have to trust that the lessons I learned in avoiding my self-righteous tendencies will help me not go too far off the deep end. However, I need to trust myself to let go and wade into the ocean without the tether that keeps me safe in secure. I need to go outside my comfort zone.
Synchronistically, I was pressure washing my driveway and a neighbor came up to me and said ‘I have a disc you can borrow’. I politely declined because I fell into the illness of another belief that I shouldn’t ask for help. The illness said in my mind ‘I don’t mind the extra effort, it gives me time to meditate and think’. These thoughts replacing the thoughts I had an hour ago about how I have so many things I want to get done and not enough time to do it. Well, the universe comes and gives me a gift of a time saver, and I let one of my illnesses block it out, because of a sort of pride in doing things the hard way, and overcoming challenges through patience and determination. I need to understand that taking the gift does not rewrite all of the previous lessons I have learned in doing things with patience and determination.
What am I trying to prove?
Who am I trying to prove it to?
One thing is for sure, I was outplayed because I am predictably keeping my greatness at bay. What would it look like if I let it loose? Who could I become? What impact could I have? There is only one way to find out. It starts with me asking my neighbor for his disc to help pressure wash. Then, I continue to listen to the wind and the universe as it brings people to me and whispers what I must do. Taking up this blog again, which my trickster coworker also randomly brought to my attention earlier this week, is another good step.
It bothers me a bit to not know if the coworker understands how she translates the whispers of the wind to me in the form of wisdom from the universe. However, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Either way, I am filled with gratitude, and continue to be impressed.
