FROM CRITICS TO CONNOISSEURS
We have a critical situation here. Although I’m not as big of a sports fan as I used to be, I still keep a casual eye on my hometown professional baseball team. They are historically terrible but this year, they made the playoffs and are having success. An article caught my eye about how the opposing team had specific individuals to blame in their teams loss to my hometown team. I don’t know why I decided to read it, but I gave it my attention. The writer, who was obviously a die hard opposing team fan, critically detailed 5 individuals to blame for this one game loss even though the series had now been tied between the two teams at one to one. He was merciless in articulating the shortcomings and inexcusable mistakes committed by these players.
After reading the article, I really tried to figure out what was this writers point? What was his message? What good did he bring about in trying to better his team’s situation? His situation or the fans? I am being critical of a critic. Pretty ironic.
We all dream of bettering our world. Most of us strive for the best possible outcome for our world, humanity, and the good of all, which includes ourselves, and this is admirable. Every situation that can be improved can be achieved through a higher vibration. We are slowly learning this as a species. I believe the days of improved performance goaded by guilt, shame, blame, and accusation are slowly fading away. As well as the attention we give to people, who are mostly self assigned, that have taken it upon themselves to shine that negative light on what they see and despise. The critic.
I’m not saying that we can’t express our displeasure with things that don’t seem to resonate with ourselves, but we don’t need to keep giving it our attention and our focus. We all have our likes, loves, and dislikes but we learn to gravitate to what enhances our experience. This is where we become the connoisseurs. We become agents for the things that nourish our lives. We are willing to share our positive experiences and outcomes with those who open to it. And we ourselves are open to this process from others. The beautiful part about this whole interactive process is that there is no obligation to have the same individual focus of all the available modalities to thrive between ourselves. What excites me and adds value to my life may or may not be the same experience for someone else.
I’ll be the first to admit, in my teens and through my twenties, I wanted people to love the same music or bands that I loved. The same entertainment or comic that I followed. The hilarious or adventurous movie that I had just seen. But it seemed the value of my experience was tied to what other people thought after they experienced it for themselves. Which led to other feelings of disappointment if they didn’t value it like I did, or even weirder, if they liked it for completely different reasons than I did. Whoa!? They didn’t have the same perception as I did? Wild! I learned to love what I loved, be who I was, and to be okay with other perspectives that didn’t match.
The world, politics, and media around us is intensifying its critical narrative. Almost every article or news headline tells you how to think about events. You are not capable of figuring this out for yourself. Why the way you think or feel is probably wrong, we have experts to prove it. Disregard your own senses and the world around you as you see it. We know better than you. This is the critic’s narrative. This message is now manic because it is. The grip is tightening but in the process, people are forcefully being squished out of this grip.
Enter the connoisseurs. We are now gravitating to learning, reading, watching accounts of people who love their work, their craft, their art, even their general knowledge and wisdom. It’s the passion that draws us. We don’t need to have the same feelings of enrichment for the actual activity, but the good energy around it. The things that enhance their lives, make them thrive, fill their proverbial cups. These are the people we want to be around. These people are the connoisseurs of life. The inspiration to action and positive change.
What I have learned is that there is now a shift. We are shifting from a win/lose metric and value system based on scarcity, fear, control, competition, manipulation and most importantly, the lack of acceptance to be one’s true authentic self versus the world dictating who we should be. We are entering a world, not yet self-evident by public overtones, but by individuals who resonate that a shift is occurring. The shift to a world that values uniqueness and authenticity. One where we, as individuals, make this our new operating program within ourselves. From this change we will be ready to make it within our relationships, communities, and administering principles based on this concept of valuing uniqueness and authenticity intertwined with evolving consciousness, morals, values and principles.
I’d be amiss to say that the road is all butterflies and rainbows but there is a lot of hard work still to be done and distractions to be overcome. The shift from “survive” to “thrive”, from critic to connoisseur has been and will continue to be bumpy. But the goal is to THRIVE. To be advocates for passion, learning, evolving, experiencing and the exploration of the beauty the world has to offer. In cosmic terms, this shift is ordained, foretold, and destined. We just need to see it, feel it, and activate it.
Comments