My freshman year in high school I read Michel de Montaigne's "Of the Inconsistency of Our Actions". Though I probably missed every theme of his essay at the time, I loved it. I couldn't tell you why, but I loved reading his ideas. I even connected his thoughts to the Wizard of Oz, and how we are all, at some point, the lion with out courage, the tinman with out heart, and the scarecrow with out brains. The teacher thought I was all wrong, but I stuck to it.
Montaigne's essays dripped of existentialism: human condition, the purpose of man, emotions, actions, the very things that make up and drive our being. No wonder I loved him. I've revisited him again recently and still love it. Now, however, I have a greater capacity to understand because I've experience much of what he writes:
"Such as make it their business to oversee human actions, do not find themselves in anything so much perplexed as to reconcile them and bring them into the world’s eye with the same lustre and reputation; for they commonly so strangely contradict one another that it seems impossible they should proceed from one and the same person..."
In my most recent endeavor (my new for-profit, 9-5, typical, routine, risk-free job) I've found Montaigne's observations to be quite true and frustrating. I noticed how I handled customers and projects on Monday differed greatly from how I handled them the next day. Or the next. And the next. But it wasn't just me. It was my coworkers. It was frequenting customers. No one was consistent.
I'm not sure what it is about human beings needing consistency, though I have plenty of theories, but I crave the stability of relationship. I know I'm not the only one because too often I hear, "When you get to know me better, you'll know such and such", as he or she needs to prove there is something constant about them, or even I begin most sentences with "Usually..." or "Typically...", as though I myself can promise constancy.
Is it constancy that projects our living and breathing, proof of our being alive on this very planet?
Or is it constancy that brings security and comfort? And if so, can there be any security in inconsistency?
And for those who grapple with faith, is our Supreme Being, our Providence constant? Does she ever change? Or is it just we who change and we catch a new glimpse of our Divine Guide from a new point of view? Or is she as mysterious, constantly shifting, without shape?
I can't answer these. And part of me doesn't want to, for what questions would I have left? I do know that in the core of us we need something constant or something grounded, something beyond ourselves to which we can move towards or away from, but always knowing Someone is there. And as hard as it is to admit it, I can't be that grounded being for myself. The only thing consistent about me is my constant need for grounding, a place from which I've come, have wandered from, and am seeking again. Daily.
And perhaps this is what love is. A grounding. A way for providence to say, "Feel free to move towards me. Feel free to move away. I am still love, and I still offer love, regardless where you find yourself. And nothing, not inconsistency, nor groundlessness, would ever keep me from loving you".
