The Ivory Tower and The Sinking Well

My life looks enviable on paper. In my teens, I traveled the world with a renowned  ballet company, I danced for Presidents and Princesses and I lived in my own flat in Monte Carlo. In my twenties, I acted on TV and in movies and I studied healing in the Philippines for ten years. Today, I live in a beautiful home that feels like an ivory tower with high beamed ceilings and vistas from every window. I’ve written bestsellers for rock stars, movie stars and gold medal winners here. Sometimes I feel like the luckiest person in the world.

That’s how it looks on paper. It’s true that I’ve had rare and extraordinary experiences but because I learned to speak French from a Can Can dancer in Monte Carlo, (sounds like a hoot and it was), doesn’t make me all that special. It means that I can get depressed in two languages and my Ivory Tower can become a sinking well. It pulls and pushes, it grabs and rejects and it’s hard to determine up from down. It’s hard to stay connected to the good parts when my made-up stories about the bad parts blow me around like a feather in the wind.

A friend once said to me, “How could that woman have taken her own life? She had homes all over the world, she was married to a billionaire, she had two kids and a nanny, she could buy anything she wanted and doors automatically opened for her wherever she went.”

I see how all that looks but the things that you have are irrelevant when you feel depressed. It doesn’t matter if someone lives in an ivory tower. The ups and downs of life are inevitable. It’s called being human as we try to hold onto the good stuff and banish the pain. But that doesn’t work.

Pema Chodron writes, “There’s a common misunderstanding among all human beings who have ever been born on the earth that the best way to live is to just try to be comfortable. But a much more interesting, kind, adventurous and joyful approach to life is to begin to develop our curiosity no matter if the experience is bitter or sweet.”

I have some trouble with that. I can’t seem to wrap my head around the idea of accepting the bitter stuff as okay. But I try. I know that being in the moment is a good way to live but what if the moment sucks? How do I learn to manage the suckyness and remember that everything changes?

I think the aim is to try to stay steady along the middle way and allow all of it to be there, to avoid extremes and do my best in both the bliss and the sorrow. The middle way is a fundamental aspect of Buddhism. It may sound boring but the Dalai Lama defines it as a blueprint for peace. It isn’t boring to be able to feel peaceful with oneself. If we want to stop struggling with pain and accepting it instead, it takes a lot of work, but what else is there to do that means so much?

Yesterday, I was happily watching TV when my electricity went off at 7 in the evening for no apparent reason. I later found out that a tree had taken down four electrical transformers and I spent eighteen hours with no refrigerator, hot water or television. I was pissed off and a little bit scared. It was so uncomfortable to realize how dependent I am on my comforts. Turning on lights. Taking showers. Cooking food (even though I hardly ever cook), and figuring out what time it is.

When the problem was finally fixed and the lights turned on, I saw how easy it was to fall from the ivory tower into the sinking well. I decided to create a reminder for myself so I’m careful not to get too close to the rim of the well and stumble into the downward spiral. I found a photograph of a large hole in the ground and at the bottom of the picture, I wrote in bold capital letters, KEEP OUT! I keep it near me to remember that I have a choice to live in heaven or hell. I’m not a victim. I chose the life I’m living and my job is to live it the best way I can. I can’t change it to match my fantasies and expectations. Trying to change myself is the opposite of accepting myself as I am.

When we fall into the well, no one can lift us up but ourselves. At the same time, climbing the tower is no easy task. We meet ourselves on every step and we have questions to ask and decisions to make. What is worth fighting for? What is worth letting go of? What do we want and what do we need? What do we think of ourselves? How do we stay om the path?

We might be angry or frightened or timid or jealous. We all feel all of these. The work is clear:

When we hate these parts of ourselves and desperately try to escape and change them, we’re walking the path of the sinking well. When we accept these parts of ourselves, stop trying to change them and have some compassion for ourselves for being human, we’re walking the path of the ivory tower.