Thursday, February 9, 2017

Life Plans - LS"D - Color Commentary - The Secret Of "Hachala"




Image result for image play by play announcers

In the previous post I linked an old video of a game where I was the play by play announcer. When I was a kid - my plans for life were to be a professional sportscaster. I figured - I like to talk and I love sports so why not get paid for talking about sports. I think that I would have been quite good had I pursued that avenue. I am really bad at most things. I could never go into business or medicine or high tech or most other professions. I am naturally not so inclined and would do a very pooor job. But sportscasting? Ahhhhhh. Who knows. Maybe I coulda "made it big". 

Anyway - I don't regret making the choice I made to attempt to spend my life as a שבתי בבית השם כל ימי חיי Yid. I am 45 and so far - so good. It should only continue. That of course will depend on one factor and one factor alone - if Hakadosh Baruch Hu helps me. I should have LS"D [Lotsa Siyata Di-shamaya] and so should YOU in whatever you want to do. 

Anyway - to my main point: We are ALL play by play announcers. And "color commentators" [the guy who gives the "bi-iyun" and "lomdus" about what is happening in the game]. 

How so??

We live in this world and observe events. Every event that we observe goes through our brains and we tell ourselves what is happening [play by play]. "There is a car coming". "Mincha is in ten minutes". "There is a Starbucks right up ahead". We are non-stop telling ourselves what is going on. We have this magical, genius brain that is able to see and understand events. 

Then we do the color commentary. We assign meaning, value and interpretation to events that occur.

"I missed the bus" ["play by play"]. "That is a bummer" ["color commentary"].

"It is really cold outside" ["play by play"]. "I should have stayed home" ["color commentary"].

And so on and so forth.

Here is the rub! [In today's idiomatic sense, a rub is a difficulty or impediment. The longer idiomatic phrase there's the rub was made famous by Shakespeare. In Hamlet, the title character delivers the oft-quoted “To be or not to be” soliloquy, which contains the line, “To sleep—perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!”]


The interpretation we give to events are completely subjective, growing out of our experiences, innate nature, education, upbringing, brain chemistry etc. etc. and our souls. No two people are going to experience the same event in EXACTLY the same way. I get excited at a tisch. "Look!!! The Rebbe scratched his forehead!!! How holy". Others aren't enthralled by that but when they see some sushi on the table that they may eat it is like Moshiach has come. I have yet to taste sushi... Everybody has a different way of viewing things. 

The problems begin when we impose our unique perspective on others. As I often write - never confuse actual reality and your perception of reality. As they say in Brisk שני דינים החלוקים ביסוד גדרם. They are two completely different categories. 

Spouse often have fights because of this issue. "Why can't you see things MY WAY?" Why? Because s/he can't. Maybe they can see that there is another way of looking at the situation but that doesn't obligate them to accept your way as THE WAY.

There is a concept in Hebrew called הכלה - [not "the bride"] but to embrace someone else who is different. An ideal relationship is when each person is able to see things from their perspective while accepting that someone else's perspective is NOT NECESSARILY any less valid. Some things are not a matter of right and wrong. It is just "different strokes for different folks". There are moral issues that we must remain firm on while accepting that not everybody is gifted with moral clarity. [We are not always ourselves]. 


So keep giving you color commentary but remember - it is only YOUR unique approach and nobody else's. Validate yourself but never stop validating others...

Bi-ahava,
Me:-)