REALITY REPAIR OF THE HUMPTY DUMPTY FALL
By
Bill Cottringer
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses, and all his men,
Couldn't put Humpty back together again!
~Well-known nursery rhyme.
This well-known children’s nursery rhyme was really about a cannon and not an egg-man; however I have come to know this little poem as representing the original struggle of human beings from their original “fall” in the Garden of Eden. The central problem in our common journey that defines the mystery of life is how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again? This is a problem we can spend our whole lives trying to solve, without always being able to reach any reasonable conclusions.
Whichever way you may choose to interpret this central problem or what brought it on, it still needs fixing and we have not ever been very good at doing that. Religions, governments, schools, social service agencies, nonprofit organizations, businesses societies, countries, and civilizations have all died trying.
The problem is that we all suffer from some degree or another of “brokenness”—pieces of fear, worry, meaninglessness, incompleteness, separation and uncomfortable distance from the joy, peace and security we sense we once had and desperately want to restore—in reunion with the oneness of God, from where we came and to where we are going. And therein ends the common consensus and starts all the differences of opinion as to how to accomplish the needed cure from education to money to power to drugs to spirituality and even war.
The curse of self-consciousness (the natural consequence of disobeying God in the Garden of Eden by eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil) is what started this ever-growing sense of a self separate, exclusive and apart from everything else around us, including God. Although this “reality” is an illusion and delusion, it is the most convincing, mighty, all-pervasive one there is.
Our reality repair challenge of this symbolic Humpty Dumpty fall involves some critical realizations:
• This little Humpy Dumpty scenario applies to us all and it challenges every individual and institution in the world to deal with it. No one can reach the finish line and wind until we all do. Teamwork is the only workable way.
• All our successes in life build a tall wall around what we know and this ego-pride wall makes our personal beliefs and ‘truths” nearly impervious to open scrutiny and being fairly evaluated and properly dismissed. Never-the-less we can’t give up on learning how to better put our broken pieces back together again to be whole.
• We can’t really know or understand the real meaning of something (like the widespread application of the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme) until we accept the reality that what we think we know isn’t always so, with a ‘so what?” response. A general purging of incorrect and incomplete half-truths provides some wiggle room in our minds to rethink what is left behind, creating new and better realities full of positive potential.
• Progress at seeing the fall clearly and being more effective in putting the pieces back together again requires something we can’t really do all by ourselves—make a transition from being a self-centered and arrogant pretender to becoming real, humble and equal to all other things.
I think I get more peace of mind and heart, when I force myself to slow down to notice what I have been failing to notice all along—seeing that things are moving in the right direction, just needing a little nudge, now and then. Some nudges worth remembering:
• We all fell off a wall and broke in many pieces, and we all approach fixing Humpty Dumpty in different ways we can teach and learn from. This is the very same creative process that started life and continues to drive it back towards God.
• When we work on fixing our own individual head, heart and body brokenness in a humble, patient way with the gifts we have at hand, the results will speak for themselves.
William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security in Bellevue, WA and also a business and personal success coach, sport psychologist, photographer and writer living in the peaceful mountains and rivers of North Bend. He is author of several business and self-development books, including, The Prosperity Zone, Getting More By Doing Less, You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too, The Bow-Wow Secrets, Do What Matters Most, “P” Point Management, and Reality Repair Rx coming shortly. He can be contacted with comments or questions at 425 454-5011 or bcottringer@pssp.net
William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security in Bellevue, WA and also a business and personal success coach, sport psychologist, photographer and writer living in the peaceful mountains and rivers of North Bend. He is author of several business and self-development books, including, The Prosperity Zone, Getting More By Doing Less, You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too, The Bow-Wow Secrets, Do What Matters Most, “P” Point Management, and Reality Repair Rx coming shortly. He can be contacted with comments or questions at 425 454-5011 or bcottringer@pssp.net