What it means to “rise above”
There's so much nuance in common phrases like this — and so much of our conditioning informs these terms for us.
Recently, I was sitting under a tree, and as a bird flew by overhead I was hit with another layer of meaning for this idea of "rising above".
The new meaning flowed through my body in a way I've become familiar with over the years. The feeling of finally understanding something that had previously been slightly askew in my mental space.
I remember the first time I experienced this feeling: I was maybe 9, in the backseat of my parents Acura Legend, at 25th and Arbutus in Vancouver. At the time, I could never keep straight the order of "f" and "k" in the word "breakfast". I pronounced it "breafkast". But on this day, my dad spoke of breaking a fast — and suddenly it made sense. The context clarified my confusion immediately, and permanently.
Since then, it's been a palpable and very frustrating feeling for me when I'm missing data. When I can tell that there's one simple piece of information that would make everything fall into place and make sense.
Resolving that feeling is total bliss. The datum penetrates my awareness, and it's like a great unfolding in my mind — all the confused bits are clarified, and fit themselves neatly into place inside my understanding of myself and the world. The new knowledge moves back in time through decades of not-quite-getting-it, extrapolated across mental intersections that are directly or indirectly related to whatever the topic might be.
This was the feeling I experienced under the tree, watching the bird.
The bird had "risen above". The bird had a bird's eye view.
And in that instant, my understanding of what it means to "rise above" shifted from "be better than" to "take an overarching view of".
I had always thought "rising above" meant being (or pretending to be) higher/better/above a person or situation. It was an arrogant, superior, bypassing, egotistical notion in my mind. It felt...dismissive. Of myself and others.
The new-and-improved understanding — to zoom out, to see the bigger picture, to not get bogged down in the mundane details and to connect instead with something greater — feels much better, and more true.
What a relief.
With love,
Steph
