Superficially Substantial

By | August 14, 2014

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Superficially Substantial

There are times in your life when you have to step back and look at your life in a critical way. When you look at where you’ve been, where you are and where you are going, you might see things you don’t want to see.

When I was younger and deciding on what I wanted to do with my life, it never occurred to me that there would be many opportunities to revise and refine goals and to change directions. I wanted it all planned out so that, what? I could not have go through the planning again. I couldn’t know when I was 23 what I would know at 38 or 50. You can’t know what the future holds because there will always be things influencing and directing and misdirecting your life. It may be the loss of a job or the loss of a loved one. It may be a sudden unexpected illness or some personal tragedy that you couldn’t foresee that turns your life upside down and forces you down an unknown path, full of dangers, problems and opportunities.

When I was younger it was money and success that seemed to me to be the most important goals. Acquiring “things” was a passion and having more than I needed and wanting more than I could afford were, as I see it now, ill-conceived dreams born from a youthful, impressionable mind that was being fed by the constant barrage from a culture that seemed – and seems – so much more intrigued with image than substance. I longed for the image of success and not for the substance of life. I yearned for the superficial and not the meaningful – yet I never felt a bit superficial when I was a younger man wallowing in his own superficiality. To be honest, I actually remember enjoying it.

Today, older and a little wiser, I find myself questioning myself, my goals and my society. I find no joy anymore in acquiring things. I’m faced with a very real probability that I’m soon going to forced to learn to live on less. I would be considered successful by some. I thought myself successful at times. I based my success on the size of my house, the number and kind of cars in my driveway, the neighborhood in which I live, and most of all by the number of things I had acquired.

What is success? Is it having a lot of money and things? Is it having the admiration of peers? Is it the size of a bank account or the number of investments in your portfolio? At what point does success become self-defining and all-consuming? At what point does success start stealing my life away and become an end to any means? Why is being successful so important? Why couldn’t I have seen that blind ambition can make you blind to things that really matter – the simple things like love, family, tradition, and the other things substantial that get lost on the road to success. Did perceived success drive me to the superficial and away from the substantial? Looking at my life from here, I think it’s true. Sadly true.

I think back to Christmases when gifts were few but love was great. Times were tough but I never noticed. I think back to Christmases where gifts were plenty, and love took a back seat to the festivities and the opulent trappings of “success”. It makes me hurt to know that the Christmases where gifts were rare and love was plenty were the best ones of all.

I look at our society where it seems everyone wants everything instantly. A pill for this, a pill for that, a gadget for this a gadget for that. Instant cures for everything. Instantaneous cures for loneliness are just a click away – they’re called “Dating Sites” or social networking sites – where lonely people mix with predator and game-players and be whatever they want to be. Predators, charlatans, and real lonely women and lonely men all mixed together in an instant stew of humanity – all looking for instant relief from the pain of loneliness or a quick ego boost. A decade ago these types of sites would have been called “bars” or “singles’ bars”.

There is instant relief for trouble marriages; it can be found in the Yellow Pages under “Divorce Lawyers”. There are instant cures for aging and perceived unattractiveness –these are listed under “Plastic Surgeons”. You can instantly communicate with anyone, anywhere, for any reason. Instant is in and the more instant we become the more shallow and superficial we become. We think we have instantly cured yearning – now we don’t have to yearn for things anymore. We don’t need patience and sometimes we don’t have to work hard for some things anymore. We want things to come cheaply and instantly, so we just flip a switch or click a link or fill in a form and instantly we’ve found a pill for a pain or companion for the moment.

I have been in some of this instant mess and I’m sure many others have as well.

I see a society more concerned with quantity and less concerned with quality. We instantly connect but never really connect with anyone. We instantly remove any pain or guilt with the right combination of doctors and drugs. We don’t want to wait for love, we want to find it instantly – loneliness hurts and anything is better than nothing.

I am a hypocrite because I too am a part of this instant generation. I’ve missed so much in pursuit of success. I’ve become superficial and shallow. Whatever success I’ve achieved wasn’t instant, but many of the things it has enabled me to do are..

I’m a shallow man who is starting to yearn to go back to a simpler time where real things mattered; where things took time and important things like love and friends and family and soft summer nights and winter landscapes and waterfalls and undiscovered forests and watching a child ride down the street on a tricycle mattered. A time when sitting on the porch swing at night with someone I loved and pondering the stars and wondering what is out there mattered. Happiness and peacefulness and love should matter – they are all successes. Waking up with nowhere to go and nothing to do; yearning for someone I love to return; waiting for the good things in life to find me – these are all successes.

What I can’t figure out is why did I ever want to click a button and have it all happen right now? Things that come cheaply are worth what you pay for them. Things that come only after sacrifice, time, and hard work cost much and are worth much.

The more instant our lives become the more shallow we become. Instant gratification only makes us weaker and more superficial. I can only imagine how shallow our society will be ten years from now.

I yearn for a simpler time when I had the time and opportunity to yearn – and the patience to wait for them to come to me.

13 thoughts on “Superficially Substantial

  1. martha

    What well written essay! It is all so true in this world today. Health, family, love and friends are the most important in our lives. Thanks for a great essay! Money and things do not make us happy or healthy.

    Reply
    1. Robert

      God’s work must be done by God. We work, but we must rely on Him every step of the way. To do the work of God, we must trust God to work through us. Life can be hard and things never became easy until we stop trying to do things ourselves and turn our life over to the God of the universe . The essay above was very good, but life with God can be much better..

      Reply
  2. Carolyn

    “The more instant our lives become the more shallow we become. Instant gratification only makes us weaker and more superficial. I can only imagine how shallow our society will be ten years from now.” It’s already happening more and more by the day with each and every “new”, “innovative” i-phone. Here I sit, having just sent a text to my daughter to let her know I’ve arrived safely at home. I can buy into that. But to have the phone on at all times? No. It’s become an intrusion to my brief but precious thinking time. Times I spend musing over things I want or need to do; planning out some of them and arranging them in my mind’s list of most important first. Or just day-dreaming is a nice thing to do sometimes. Do people still do that – those of the younger generation? I wonder.
    I do NOT want to go to lunch with anyone’s phone and I draw the line when person #1 sends a text to person #2 at the same table to say something or another in private about someone at the table. Pul-eeze! Phones off thank you very much. Learn once more how to converse with human beings so they can see the earnest look on your face, enjoy the smile at a joke or comment, and hear the passion in their voices. Shallow is an understatement – disconnected from humanity is what’s coming if we don’t put in a detour on this road we travel just a little too easily. When I go to sleep, my phone is off. If there is an emergency so great that it can’t wait until tomorrow, I’m sure someone will bang on the door. And I much prefer a real-life hug to a text that says *hug*, don’t you? I realize that there are distances between us and sometimes it’s an important connection that might not allow us to be together any other way. I refuse, however, to have that little buzzing rascal order my entire day. Come on over and sit a spell. Kick off the shoes and enjoy an easy conversation while I bake up some cookies.
    Well said in your essay…well said.

    Reply
  3. Charles Willis

    All I can say to this is thank you. I yearn for the same. I have found it to some degree, but I see the world around me so caught up in material things. My son hasn’t had a full time job in over 6 years, but all he wants is to be on a golf course. He is 54 years old and doesn’t have a dime (we have to support him with rent and such). I tried to instil in him respect and value but sorry to say nothing works anymore as he see’s his friends with everything and he wants the same.

    Reply
  4. Gina

    Speaking of clicking buttons, This one needed a big LIKE button for me to click !

    Reply
  5. Rosemarie Saare

    How true, so sadly very true and very well written. Thank You!

    Reply
  6. Wendy

    I am a lady of 72. We live in Durban, South Africa. My husband and I have been married for 48 years. I am so proud of that achievement as we are among the few who have been lucky enough to get through the tough times.
    My family is a large one and I so remember us sitting around the dining table on Christmas Day with up to 30 relatives.
    My mother was of Scots descent and for her “Hogmanay” was her special evening. We had a big braaivleis (barbecue)
    Gone are those days. We now live in a granny flat attached to my eldest daughters’ house. Our younger daughter lives about 500 meters away with her husband and 2 little girls, In our house, we have 2 grandsons and a grand-daughter. So many of our friends have fled to Australia or the U.K. They did that mainly to be with their children and grand-children.
    We don’t have much in the way of material things, but we have a heap of precious memories and the privilege of watching our girls and their children grow up.

    Reply
  7. Holly H

    I loved the essay for it really ‘spoke’ to me and so happy that many others feel like this as I do. I think now that I am an older lady, what do I do now with all the wisdom I have gained? Certainly I try to share it with others but somehow that does not seem enough. I don’t like the way the world has changed. However it has taught me to always be true to myself and not measure myself by someone else’s idea’s or ways. Like you I have cherished memories of long ago that I would not give up for anything and made life’s journey worth it all 🙂

    Reply
  8. HogMan

    Dad gum it TC you done it again. I sit here and reflect back on my life and i think of how my brother and i was raised by my dear sweet mama after my dad passed away when i had just turned 7 and how hard it was for her but you know the one thing that she always wanted in life was just an opportunity to do it herself not a hand out. Every Morning she hit them cotton fields like all other poor people and pulled that sack or chopped with that hoe. One of the things i remember the most was she never complained. Now if the young people don’t get the latest gadgets out there they think their world is just about over. A big Christmas for me back then was an apple, orange, hand full of hard candy and a single shot cap pistol you know the one where you tare off the caps one at a time but boy was that some big Christmas. Back then when you were under 12 years old you could take a quarter and go to the movies pay 9 cents to get in get a coke and popcorn and a candy bar then i got caught because i had joined the Roy Rogers club so they knew when i turned 13 and then i had to pay a whole fare to the movies which was 24 cents so you can see the devastation in my young life. A lot of you have not lived until you have to go to the outhouse on a cold rainy night and you had to walk those long stretch of boards that led out to it and back. I got the first indoor restroom right before i turned 18 so i know what i think was hard times as i look back. As i look back because of you TC the thing that i miss the most and it didn’t cost anything was that big ole bear hug that my dear precious mama could do and i sure could use one right about now. But my wife and i became Christians in Jan of 1962 and i know that one day when i leave this world one of the things i look forward to is walking up to her and say ok its been a long time but lay one them hugs on me that you been saving up for all these years. The one thing that we do as a husband and wife is make it a point to do although we been married for 54 years is give each other a big hug and kiss before bed time just in case God needs one us to come home. Ok enough of this.
    God Bless all of You.

    HogMan

    Reply
  9. Mary Tyler (Less)

    Couldn’t have said it better myself if I could have been it’s writer. And to see comments from
    others my age and of a different world view – priceless. Our society has come so far only to
    continue to run in place. We are all seekers still.

    Reply
  10. kiwibarb

    What happened? I was reading “Leave the Candle Burning” and clicked the link to continue, and find I’m now on Superficially Substantial” which is also an excellent read.
    But I still don’t know where to find the rest of the Candle essay.
    Barb.

    Reply

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