The Wild Animal That is Me

"This animal takes risks.  She is fast. Faster than anyone. 0-100 in six seconds.  She is sleek and smooth.  Poised for action.  Swift and cat like.  She is the vampire slayer.  Her leadership is monumental and she knows fear.  She makes the possibilities and creates amazing symbols.  They speak to millions of people.  She changes people's lives. Her speed is great, but she can carefully walk silently waiting to see her prey.  When sighted, she becomes the purser.  People do not run from her, they are mesmerized.  She is beautiful in motion.  A sight to see.   She is God's creation.  Her relatives in the cat family are meeker than she.  She cannot be tamed.  She runs free."    

A friend of mine who is gracious and loving yesterday gave me note cards with a kitten sitting in a teacup.  As I thought about the picture on the cards, I began to get feel angry.  A cat is the symbol of how I describe myself and the license plates on my car for the past twenty years state it.   In 2007, I attended a creativity workshop in Florence, Italy we were asked to describe "the wild animal that is me."  I described myself as a jaguar.  The jaguar is the side of me that runs wild and free at top speeds. It is my manic racing thoughts that blur in my mind like a fan turning on high. 

At different points in my life I have imagined different storylines.  When I was first diagnosed twenty-five years ago I believed I was a pawn in a multilevel chess game being played at the company where I worked.  I was blind to the chess game, until a supervisor warned me he was a target because he supported me.  This company was known as "the best game in town."  Employees strategized and aligned themselves in order to get to the next level and advance the positions of their team.  At one point, someone told me "its just a game" although the Director in my department used his power to identify everyone's "weakness" and then proceeded to use it against them to break their spirit and force them out of the company.  As one person said, there will be a lot of bodies before the Director was fired.

Because of the stress I endured, I became manic and set off to "win" the game and warn Executive Management of the threat to the company.  It ended with me in a car accident at which point I shouted, "We are all geniuses, we just don't know it."  I ended up in a psychiatric hospital and drugs were pumped into my body to control the mania.  I later lost my job and it took me years to learn to control my mind.  I will note, that the company later "imploded" due to unethical management and thousands of employees lost their jobs.  They are no longer "the best game in town."

Later I realized that my statement, "we are all geniuses, we just don't know it" was profound.  Genius means, "spirit" and each one of us contain a soul.  Einstein said, "Great spirits meet violent opposition from mediocre minds."  We limit each other and ourselves with our mediocre minds and keep our souls from reaching their potential.

Although I admire chess masters and their abilities, I decided everybody needed to "win" and have fun while maximizing their intellect and potential.  I realized that the only way to do this was to have a God that is loving and all-powerful.  Without God, we become locked in symbolic metaphysical chess battles where evil can prevail and we eventually "implode."  We cannot succeed without a consciousness that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

So how do we do this?  We identify God's purpose for ourselves.  God built each of us and instilled a unique soul with a purpose in each of us.   We stay consistent with his Word and follow Jesus.  We maximize our talents without limiting others and ourselves.  We set mutual goals, measure our progress; establish rituals and symbols to motivate us.  With God's help we can increase our spiritual consciousness.  Winning this game means realizing that God has the plan and he directs our moves when we are open to his will which is love.

Returning to the kitten in a teacup.  Tea and a tea ceremony represent "enlightenment" and a Zen master's ability to be in the present.  My friend, who collects teacups and serves "God" graciously as in a tea party, was telling me I was "enlightened."  Changing the world takes many perspectives, which includes balancing visionary and psychic talents while also focusing on the present and discerning God's will for us.