This is very difficult.
A dream . . .
I was at the university campus getting ready for a test, concluding my last course. I had already assumed my passing and confirmation and was playing with it in my mind. I was giving my answers to his questions.
I did a sample test answer on what later became the same piece of paper from the actual test. His test was overlaying the sample I had filled out.
The professor was not too coherent. He was an arrogant man who judged his students work-quality by how closely they would adhere to his beliefs—which was more about the definition of words and not so much about their meaning and content.
I always sought content and understanding in my studies, it was remembering the words themselves I had trouble with. Like remembering a melody, but unable to recall the lyrics that went with it.
I took his test, turned it in, and then I waited for my turn with the professor to discuss the test results. My turn came and as the professor spoke I got the sense that I might have turned in my sample test by mistake. I felt my work might have confused him.
He was not a sympathetic person and he didn’t like me very much. I’d not ever insulted him, but neither did I give him the acknowledgment and high regard he wanted and expected as “The Professor”.
“You failed by five points.” he declared.
The next thing I knew I was leaving the campus feeling like I had been betrayed, invalidated, and misrepresented. I was angry, broken, and disappointed in myself for having failed the test. That failing grade completely upset my plans for the coming year. I felt that his judgment violated my essence.
Now I had to tell my wife, Dorette, and humiliate myself because of this failure—diminishing her vision of me.
I felt like everyone knew that I had been rejected, that I had failed, that I had lost everyone’s respect and regard. I was humiliated deep into the core of myself.
I was leaving the campus and saw Jan sitting on a bench. I didn’t want her to see me either.
She said, “I heard that you failed the test.”
I didn’t want her to know, and felt she, too, was judging me. Again, I felt diminished in her eyes. I was too humiliated and smothered in the pain of it to see that she wasn’t joining in on the judgment, but was far more understanding and forgiving than I expected.
Jan was Dorette, though I was too buried in my heart to understand and accept that in the dream. I just wanted to get away from anyone having such knowledge and consequently ‘that’ image of me.
I couldn’t accept that it might be possible that I could fail, especially under the scrutiny of such a closed minded, arrogant, and judgmental professor, who failed to pass me solely on the grounds that I was different.
This dream-story is something like what my psyche went through with Dorette—the time I was rejected in my job after ten years at NEL, and how I felt diminished in the eyes of my co-workers—no longer receiving standing in the group, no regard and no respect.
This experience and its circumstances almost broke my spirit. It certainly brought attention to my naked and vulnerable soul right before Dorette, our friends, and my children’s eyes.
I carried an open wound. I was experiencing the death of my ego. My self esteem diminished, self confidence was nowhere to be found. It took many years for me to resolve this experience. At the time I didn’t want anyone to see me, especially Dorette. I needed to get away from familiar eyes, reminding me of the reality of my weakness and failure.
I was not psychologically aware at this time, nor was I mature enough for forgiveness—from others or myself.
The scars, the dialogue of ego’s dying, it will never leave my soul and may have been the most important lesson of my life. The battle between ego and consciousness is eternal and ongoing. This gave me a real view into the window of my true self.
One of its many gifts has been my ability to step back from myself and feel the hurt—having a more objective and pragmatic understanding of ego regarding myself, as well as others.
It has allowed me to see that there is forgiveness in understanding from those who truly love and respect me, me, and my radical and honest disregard for arrogance and pretentious judgment of others.
“Just because a bug can fly high doesn’t change the fact that it is still a bug.”