I believe each one of us has a calling, a purpose divined before birth.
However we are born diamonds in the rough.
Our calling did not come from your mother, father, church, or school. Not given by a friend or seen on TV. Those are the people and events that have clouded this memory, this re-collection of your call..
Plato’s Acorn theory holds that each person has uniqueness that asks to be lived, present before birth. We bear the seed of the mighty Oak before we were even conceived.
How can that be?
To Plato the soul of each is given a daimon, a guiding angel before birth. The soul has selected an image or pattern to live on earth. The soul’s companion, the daimon, guides the process of arrival. However, we forget all that took place once the soul arrives on earth, we believe we come empty into the world. The daimon remembers and carries our destiny. Choosing the body, the parents, the place, and circumstances that suit the soul. This we have forgotten.
How can we know this?
One way is in reading our life backwards. We see the tree we have become and look back past the growing, to the seeds, the gifts given at birth.
These ideas are contained in myths that imply we must attend to our childhood in order to catch early glimpses of the daimon in action. We move to recognize the call as a prime fact of human existence aligning one’s life with the call and finding the now uncommon sense to realize that all we do has lead toward the patterns outlined by the soul and the daimon.
Everything leads up to this day.
There are no accidents.
All the pain, suffering, illnesses, disease, work, heartaches, loves, successes, magic, mystery, boredom, and comedies are reminders of the call. No matter if we forget, postpone, ignore, or
run, the call will keep ringing.
The call may resonate sounding like, “I just always knew it was the right thing to do.”
It may be Homer Simpson asking, “Barney, the call is from heroism, will you accept the charges?”
Your calling is shadowed by fate and fortune. It does not teach morals and is not to be confused with the “still small voice” of your conscience. It is invisible and obvious, like sunshine and farts.
Myths and fairy tales say, “Once upon a time what took such good care of me was a guardian spirit. I damm well knew how to pay it appropriate attention.”
How have we fallen so far?
Our lives are less determined by our childhood than by how we have learned to imagine our childhood to be. Were we victims of abuse and neglect, of control and addictions? The victim is the flip side of the hero. It is our hero who answers the call.
A child’s specific calling has to do with finding their place in the world. They are trying to live two lives at once, the one they were born with, and the one among the people they were born into.
What does your picture of yourself have to do with the peculiarity you feel being you?
Does a childhood vision show something different from your mirrored image?
Plato’s Acorn theory, champions children, those young and old. The theory affirms the foundation for an understanding of who you are. It draws from myths, philosophy, religion, psychology, from other cultures and imaginations to make sense of children’s dysfunctions before committing them to a life of therapy and drugs.
What is my calling?
To ask good questions.
To write about things that matter.
To get mad as hell and not accept the victimization of children.
To speak out and ask, who are you?
My calling channels energies to make meaning, add kindness, create beauty, inspire, and achieve.
No matter what we do, to thine own self be true and follow that calling.
Listen, it is ringing now. It is your genius. Pick it up.