And, or, but, nor
At it´s respective and most likely, obvious, extreme is the one which produces the most anxiety: the feeling that i have been cheated out of my divine right to be essential and irreplaceable, just as i´ve been told since the day i was born by mom and dad and on through it all and even now that I read and embrace all this oriental deal. Wouldn´t we all want to be well-valued but hell, we don´t even know our own face-value. And then, on the other side, and for a couple of minutes of the day of my wage-earning life, i feel free. Seems I could do anything or even nothing, if that were my wish.
And in their simplest forms, it appears to me as though the former, just as the latter could be true, if only they could co-exist in a friendly manner. That we are, in the great scheme of things, essential, is true, taking what Blaise Pascal stated to be true: “Had Cleopatra’s nose been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been different.” So believing that we are essential could lead to both: being anxious about being essential but not coming through as such (in a lesser scheme which might be just as real) or feeling free since, no matter what we do, essentiality is part of our make-up.
The problem resides then, as everything else, in the way this condition of being essential or being disposable is viewed. Being both at the same time could and, more often times than not, happen. We are essential by nature so we could also be disposable at a given point without losing our essential quality. So my answer could lie in extending those two minutes of the day in which I feel free and understand that being essential is inherent to me no matter how disposable my employers decide to make me. Sounds as simple as it actually is and yet, anxiety´s still there.
