Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime

I’m listening to Beck’s cover of “Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime.”

I’m listening while reflecting on the motto: Be humble or be humiliated, a phrase my Orthodox elders are fond of.

Of course, one can engage in false humility, getting that special-feeling high from performing humility, but that’s not real humility. Such performances don’t crack you open; they only kick the can down the road, waiting for the day when you’re humbled through humiliation. It’s too hard, really, to just humble yourself when the opportunity to LARP as a sage in the spectacle is ever-present.

I’ve spoken with a lot of smart people, and many with so-called “spiritual capacities.” Let’s just say, regardless of how impressive they seem, I’ve smelled a lot of bullshit. I know impressive people, and they don’t have their lives figured out—some are a mess, nowhere near the promise of their impression. And all of them, without exception, are kicking the can down the road, just like me.

Fancy words.

*kick*

Deep philosophies.

*kick*

“Stoic” capacities.

*kick*

Intersubjective embodied superpowers.

*kick kick kick*

What was this all for? All these explorations, these searchings, these inquiries into what matters most? It all feels like a waste of time now—a silly game to hack feeling good without doing much good. All ways to avoid getting cracked open.

This Beck version really hits—better than the original. He got cracked open for sure. I’ve been cracked as well, and I know there’s more cracking ahead. I feel the great humbling to come. Everybody’s got to learn sometime.