Being First

Today is my son’s fifth birthday.

My son is a fantastic kid. He is smart. He and his sister sometimes get along, and sometimes do not. They care for each other, having sibliing rivalries, and sometimes get into fights. My daughter is two-and-a-half years old, going onto three-ager. She doesn’t understand what it means to be first or last, though my son does.

He used to get so mad that he didn’t get first. It wasn’t for everything. He would compete with his sister to get buckled in the car seat. I allow the competition because it helps him be focused and motivates him. I did not always coddle him. If I see him making an effort, I might slow down buckling his sister into the seat. Sometimes I recognize or even introduce some challenges. (He doesn’t get a fair competition yet). I have also just steadily buckled her in, and because he was not paying attention, he would “lose”, and cry. It was the same with putting on his own PJs. Throughout the iterations, he had won; he had lost. He learned that how well he does has a lot to do with his own focus and skill. He also picked up “nah nah nah nah nah”, that sing-song taunting. My wife and I nipped that every time it comes up.

It took him a while to learn that you don’t always need to compete – though I didn’t want him to stop competing because he is afraid of losing – and he also started to take losses more gracefully. Sorta.

He used to get mad that I sometimes let his sister get out of the bath tub first. Now he expresses a disappointed “aww”, and his sister mimics that if she is not first.

This morning, on my son’s fifth birthday, I slept in, spending some time doing a lot more Domain refinement work. I didn’t take Ganja last night, thinking I could use the break, only to find myself doing some work in the morning. As the work wends its way through various relations, I came upon a memory, and the very strong, unresolved energy related to it.

While I was in elementary school, my sister had an opportunity to skip a grade. She was a year younger than I. My mother approached me about that, and it went as well as you might imagine. I don’t think it surprised my mother either.

I flat out refused it. I threw a big stink and temper tantrum over it.

I remember imaging the shame that comes with it. Of having to explain to everyone why my younger sister was in the same grade I was. Never mind that, in the elementary school I was at, I was already skipping multiple grade levels for reading and writing.

My mother ended up telling the school to keep my sister in her grade. I wasn’t there for that, but I knew my sister did not skip a grade.

I don’t know what went into my mother’s consideration. For one, my sister was at a different school. The district we were at had schools specializing in different methods of education (before magnet and charter schools got popular – this was in the 80s). Her school taught with combined grades. Thinking back as an adult, they probably had support for allowing the grade skipping.

Everytime this memory had come up, I thought, geez, my sister should have been allowed to skip.

It wasn’t just that, perhaps that was in my sister’s best interest. This very pattern of a boy throwing a fit because he wouldn’t let a girl come ahead of him, and society responding by keeping the girl in her place, is part of driving gender politics. We could also offer the boy a path to do better, and not because he is a boy and therefore, he should come first because he is a boy.[1]

So in this “mini-vision”, I was tuned into that energy from my experience when I was a boy. It was very strong, with the energy flaring out with multiple limbs, throwing a big temper tantrum. There, I saw and felt my mother trying to talk to me. It wasn’t a fight she really wanted to have, and I could sense that she didn’t have anything other than to let this storm pass.

I came in and swapped with my mother. I came in as I am now to talk to myself as a boy. The personas were not so separated like it is with gestalt therapy methods. I was also trying to add in my Domain sense, to work with it at the collective level at the same time.

This energy didn’t really want to listen. Not because it was creating a wall to avoid listening – there are techniques for working with that – but that it was fixated on some central idea.

What finally started changing it is when I expanded what it means to be first.

When you come in first, it is not just about the glory the community or society bestows upon you.

When you are first, the feeling of victory that arises is also all the hard work and failures along the road that got you in that moment. Italians have a word for this emotion – fiero. I learned this from one of Adyashanti’s talks. [2]

When you are first, the glory bestowed by the community comes with the duty of being the community’s Champion. You are the Example to inspire those that come after, both for those who seek to develop the very best they can, and those who enjoy that activity however skilled they are. I learned this from Carol Sanford’s Regenerative Living [3], and my experiences with the SCA. This is part of wearing a Mantle, the subtle energy body bestowed by a community or a group, to represent and manifest some aspect of that community.

The taunting? It isn’t just it is bad sportsmanship, it is that this is not a good Example. (Is this how the community wants the next generation to be inspired?)

It was expanding the perspective on what it means to Be First that started settling it.

While inner and shadow work is a part of this, this isn’t just the individual’s psychology. Mantle and Domain are the subtle body energies with our social roles.

My wife and I don’t want to cheapen the accomplishments of our son and daughter.

And those efforts doesn’t just end when winning. Being First also comes with a Mantle, a duty, a responsibility that includes inspiring those that come after.

Footnotes

1. A few weeks ago, I had a powerful visionary experience facilitated by Ganja, which included seeing how teenage boys impose their sexual fantasies on women. This creates a lot of friction in the gender politics. The fantasization generates the creepiness; it is also at the core of incels (involuntary celibates). That grown men in our society also do this, and it further contributes to societal expectations on beauty, femininity. “Being First” is a part of this.

   There is a matching fantasy from women, but these are not primarily sexual fantasies. They are primarily romantic fantasies. While men experience the imposition of their sexual fantasies from the sexual energy centers, the romantic fantasies are originating from the heart center.

   I will at some point, be writing about all of this.

2. In one of his recorded talks, Adyashanti once recalled his experience of training as a cyclist and competing. He said, casually, that you don’t want to be first. In the silence from the audience, you can hear it – what? Of course we want to be first!

   He then said, winning and being first is not just about coming in first. It was also all the training to get there. The long road of pushing yourself, day after day. (Eating well. Competing in races, and failing).

   He then talked about a foot race. This woman stood near the finish line, and when the finalists came in sight, she broke out the audience to run across the finish line first. People cheered for her thinking she was the finalist. But you could hear from the people listening to Adyashanti in silence, the pathos for the hollow victory. That someone so desparately wanted to be cheered like that, that she pretended to be first.

3. In Regenerative Living, Carol Sanford used soccer as an example of how soccer players develop and grow as they advance in skills. A young child might focus on the basic skills for dribbling. Then they start learning about how to work as a team. They might be playing at bigger and bigger stages, and at the level of the world stage, they examplify the best of humanity. I am abbreviating. You should just read Sanford’s more eloquent words.

   I’m reminded of Leonial Messi. He is that person to a lot of fans (with just as many fans who don’t like him!).

   I also saw this in the 2022 Winter Olympics in the snow boarding events. There was someone who was competing for the last time, and an inspiration for an entire generation of competitors. There was also a new competitor who impressed everyone. There was a great deal of sportsmanship in how competitors treated each other after their run.