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Steven Kalas | HUMAN MATTERS
Don't believe them when they say life is 'limitless'
The sign promises "Unlimited income." If I would like to have unlimited income, I should call the number on the sign. I presume, then, that someone would answer the phone and arrange for me to have unlimited income. Hmm.
But, what is unlimited income? If there were such a thing as unlimited income, you would have thought that Bill Gates or Donald Trump would have figured it out by now. But, nope, it's the person or people who have put up this plywood sign on a suburban Las Vegas thoroughfare.
And I think to myself, who would believe this sign? Human beings apparently have a universal and unending vulnerability to snake oil salesmen.
You remember: The carpetbaggers of the ol' West, the con artists of the Great Depression -- they would hold up the bottle of magic elixir and promise you that one spoonful each day would cure you of gout, depression, nervous disorders, constipation, headaches, ulcers, rheumatism and biting your fingernails. It also could be rubbed into the skin for relief of muscle ache or backache. Used as a shampoo. Clean your grout. Remove gum and grass stains from laundry. Increase your gas mileage.
All for the price of one dollar.
It reminds me of my favorite "commercial" from the glory days of "Saturday Night Live," when Gilda Radner and Chevy Chase argued back and forth: "It's a floor wax" "No, it's a dessert topping." And Dan Aykroyd pops into the camera and announces, "It's both!"
Today's carpetbaggers don't hawk bottles of elixirs, they seduce us with an idea: Limits are illusions. There are no such things as limits. Which is to say there are no limits.
A colleague gives me an eight-page paper titled, "You can be, do, and have anything you want." There it is again. No limits. If I wanted to be a wombat, I could. If I wanted to fly, I could. To hell with the laws of aerodynamics. If I wanted to have a megahit reality TV show titled, "Watching Steven write his column in his underwear," then I could.
It's all about the right thought. In fact, it's called "New Thought." Enlightenment. If we're smart enough, all limits evaporate. Or, better put, we convince ourselves there never were any limits.
To say this teaching is factually false is the beginning and the end of my good manners. The idea of limitlessness is ontological absurdity. Worse, it's a teaching that is guaranteed to make you at once vacuous and miserable.
I have a different message for myself and the world: finitude. Want to be fully and authentically human? Embrace finitude. Want to live creatively and happily? Acknowledge limits.
If I run long enough, I'll fall down. Can I run much farther than I think I can? Of course! Can I run forever. Nope. If I try, I'll fall down. It's one of my limits.
Someday I'll lay down and not get back up. I'll die. And no amount of positive thinking is going to change that. Mortality is one of my limits.
It's not true that I can be, do, or have anything I want. Are there possibilities for me beyond my imagination? Absolutely! Does it behoove me to push myself beyond the self-imposed limits of my imagination? Agreed! But that doesn't mean I can be, do, or have anything.
A Buddhist parable says, "He who has many friends has no friends." Yep. Again, limits. If everyone is my best friend, then I don't have a best friend. There is only so much of me to go around.
Finitude is the best argument for marital monogamy. If I try to love a second woman the way I love my mate, I find that I love neither woman as much. I have limits.
Any significant spirituality must begin with the confession "I am not God." That fact is a limit. And, for me, a relief.
The modern-day propagation of "limitlessness" is an invitation to dead-end delusion and harried hubris. A tragic ego-inflation. Conversely, embracing limits is the very heartbeat of true humility.
Limits will not be vanquished, outsmarted or denied. However, limits can be transcended. But the only way to transcend limits is to first embrace them. Which is why I don't merely disagree with New Thought, I'm openly hostile.
The idea of limitlessness is a nefarious seduction, no matter what the felt motive of its proponents.
Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling Wellness Center in Las Vegas and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns appear on Sundays. Contact him at skalas@reviewjournal.com.
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I agree wholeheartedly with what you've said here - as I most often do. But I have to take exception with one part. My grandpa sold tonic throughout Ozarks in the early part of the 20th century, and by mail order into the 1950s when he died. But we wasn't a snake oil salesman. He got a recipe from a pharmaceutical company in Kansas City, bought the herbs from them and mixed them in a building behind his house. In a time when people were eating what they could afford, and they couldn't afford things like vegetables in the winter or meat every day, his tonic really was good for what ailed a lot of them. Essential vitamins and minerals, sold a a live performance in the park where, without the cost of a ticket, people could come and watch singing, dancing, skits, and jokes. Gather with their friends. Bring the kids. Laugh, enjoy themselves, and go home feeling better at the end of the evening. There were, and are, a lot of snake oil salesmen out there. But just because they sold a tonic that was 'good for what ails you' didn't automatically make a guy that. Just thought you'd want to know.... and thanks for bringing your words into the world each week. Your column is a little like LOST. If you decided to close it down one day, there'd be a vacuum for lots of folks.