[Courses] [Spineful Living, lesson 1: Dreams]

[Sheryl]

> On Tue, Apr 03, 2007 at 10:19:08AM -0700, Carla Schroder wrote:
>> 1.  an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as
>> power,
>> honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its
>> attainment: Too
>> much ambition caused him to be disliked by his colleagues.
>
> Well, that *is* the kind of "ambition" I was talking about, and I don't
> want any part of it.

The purpose of this post is not to put down your dream or beat up on
Christians.  What I'm going to say could be said if you wanted your two
best friends to become vegetarians, for instance.

This is where I think the baggage of language becomes important and why I
think Carla did a service talking about the various meanings of ambition.

In my book, you're exhibiting a very strong ambition even in the #1 sense.
 You feel you have the Truth, and other people don't, and you want to
change them to be more like you.  You're hoping to change them in some
profound way through your actions (prayer or writing).  You're seeking the
most basic power that exists  -- power over other people.  And you want
power over something very intimate and personal to them.

As long as respectful boundaries are maintained, there's nothing wrong
with that.  It describes everybody from Mother Theresa to every school
teacher.

You also want to express your creativity, write and "create beauty". 
That's  seeking honor/distinction/honor/fame.  You have to have some of
that or nobody will read your stories.  Stories which stay in a desk
drawer and are never read don't change anybody.

And speaking with no negative connotations whatever, "I will strive to
create beauty" is very ambitious.  You have to have enough ego to say that
you *can* create beauty, and enough gumption to strive for your goal. 
That's ambition.

You may not be seeking money, you may not be acting out your ambition in
the corporate world, but IMO you are ambitious.  And there's nothing wrong
with that.  I'm an artist.  I'm ambitious too.

IMO ambition has gotten a very bad rap here, along with being labelled a
"guy" thing which can do some real damage.  The oldest trick in the MCP
book is warping the language so that women don't get to embrace fully
everything that is human.  Men don't have to compete with women if they'll
buy into that mindset because they'll take care of it for them by cutting
themselves off at the knees (and each other -- women can be fierce
enforcers of faux feminity).  "Mother may I" is an exhausting game, and
it's one that men don't have to spend time on because they are the
default.  They already give themselves rights to everything human.  Women
don't.

Ambition is nothing more than saying "I want x, I can get it, I'm going
for it".  The fact that some people consider ambition "masculine", or some
people have ignoble ambitions, is not our concern.

A dream without ambition (the willingness to strive for its attainment) is
a dream that never comes to fruition.  It's being 60 years old and telling
your grandkids for the umpteenth time that you really wanted to be an
actress, but maybe you don't tell them that you never took an acting
lesson, tried out for a part, or relocated to an area with better
opportunities.  It's Cinderella sitting around and waiting for the fairy
godmother to come along and sprinkle fairy dust to make things happen. 
It's the same line of baloney that has been used to keep women passive for
millenia.

Just my $0.02.  Nobody has to agree, and I'm fine with that.

> What are my really, truly, heart's desires?
> 1) That my two best friends become Christians.  Nothing much I can do
> about that except pray.
> 2) To write (fan fiction) stories that bring people closer to God, by
> showing examples of love that isn't erotic, but brotherly and
> self-sacrificing.  Stories with "good dreams", so to speak.  Stories of
> redemption.
> 3) To create beauty, and elegant things-that-work (which includes
> programs)
>
> Kathryn Andersen
> --
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