To whom much is given, much will be required (Luke 12:48) – The Bible
The meaning is self-evident, and if we push it slightly further it also signifies a stimulus for a career choice or vocation. A higher calling. I’ve always known this. Nothing dramatic. But then a dramatic insight finds me, a lifetime after discovering the term. Is this calling a conscious decision, or a force, a passion, even a little voice in the head, heart, that finds us? The more I dwell on it, the more I go WOW!
A priest, artist, actor, writer, a sportsman or sportswoman: I’m sure the list can never be exhaustive. Were they conscious decisions based on calculated perceptions? Or passions that clamour for our attention, that found us.
I’ve heard of and know of professionals who gave up their jobs, qualifications to pursue a career in music, perhaps acting. A career quite different to their current professions or qualifications. I’m sure it’s a story that replicates itself over and over again, every second of every day. I have heard about them, envied them and still went back to work on Monday; with a loud sigh. As if these stories never occurred or more importantly mattered. Science will shed its light on what happens in the human brain, the tangle mess of neural networks, big and small and over lapping circuitry. All interesting stuff. But can science ever shed light on why a musician or…or why an actor? What made them make that specialist choice, that specialized selection; my conscious mental labours struggle with the unconscious. It can’t be, could it? Or sounds highly unlikely. But I’m not a scientist, just a thinker. Yes, genetics will play a role, but my active consciousness tells me that’s not the total truth. It is something else, something outside of us, something divine. And each and every one of us is deserving of this.
And it is also apparent when listening to these stories that when passions knock on our door, find us, it gives us the requisite talent to achieve it. And the sweat, both metaphorical and literal, we must out to bridge the gap may be something that does not taste like sweat. For it will not be work, but a pleasurable pain. I have touched on this in a previous article – “What do I really like to do in life” .
But why don’t we proactively and animatedly explore this possibility? The possibility that we are ‘best’ for something or several things. A talent that is both unparalleled and uncontested, which never existed before or will not be imitated after us. I find this thought both real and redeeming.
But I can easily perceive (with my active intelligence) two distinct deterrents to this. The first is, what if this voice is not clear. What if we don’t know. We are confused. The second is when the horrors of life such as poverty, hunger, homelessness, unemployment, wars and much, much more force us into hell. A living hell. These needs are primal, we must survive first before we can even think of exploring and finding our calling. It is a fact that a vast majority of humanity fall in to this second bucket.
Maybe for the first dilemma, an answer could be to interrogate ourselves, keep asking the question, the same question, day and night, every day, every month, every year. What do I really want to do? Until our hair turns grey, teeth fall off, spine curls in to a painful curve, until we…until we drop dead. We need this question, we owe it to ourselves. It is my hunch that the answer would never be far away.
For the second, the answer is equally clear. Deny and forego a little of ourselves, proactively, so that humanity may benefit. Do a little bit more to create an ‘Utopia’ that seems to recede every time we inch closer. But then again, when was ‘Utopia’ ever supposed to be anything more than a concept? Anything more than an ideal?
And when were we ever called upon to live life without an ideal?
copyright @2023 Jude Perera