Bloody Noses and Bruised Egos

Unity:  Agreement; harmony; a single undivided thing, seen as complete in itself.

Individual:  A person considered alone, rather than as belonging to a group of people.

Some thoughts from the First Tradition which reads "Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on A.A. unity."  

(Referring to the individual) "The A.A. member has to conform to the principles of recovery.  His life actually depends upon obedience to spiritual principles.  If he deviates too far, the penalty is sure and swift; he sickens and dies.  

(Referring to the group) Most individuals cannot recover unless there is a group.  Realization dawns that he is but a small part of a great whole.  He learns that the clamor of desires and ambitions within him must be silenced whenever these could damage the group.  It becomes plain that the group must survive or the individual will not."

When I left sincity I . . . well . . . left sincity.  For a time I really tried to stay in contact with all of my friends; often friends of many years standing.  What happened, of course, is that it didn't work out as smoothly as I had hoped.  I forgot that I was the one who had left the group.  The group was fine.  I was a tiny cog in the great machine and - while I was missed - I wasn't critical to the operation of the system.  I was important but not that important and certainly not as important as I thought I was.  

This, as you can imagine, pissed me the fuck off.  I was resentful that some people didn't make as great an effort to stay in touch with me as I spent to stay in touch with them.  This is perfectly logical - my life had changed completely and the change in their lives barely caused the needle on the Geiger counter to flicker.  All of this irritation distressed me.  These were my friends and I loved them dearly and the last thing I wanted was to plant, water, fertilize, and nurture these negative feelings.  The necessary sea change in attitude took a long time to evolve.

A buddy here in SoCal says this: "I need A.A. a lot more than A.A. needs me."  When an individual in The Program annoys me; when the behavior of a particular group annoys me (ahem, ahem, cough, cough, I'm looking at you Live 7 A.M. meeting) I do well to step back and try to balance my personal wants and needs with the those of a group or a district or an area or A.A. as a whole.  I find that I'm happier when I'm more concerned with all of us than I am with one of us.  I'm damned important and I need be true to myself but it's the organization that needs to thrive.

Like almost everyone I'm manuevering through a much altered world as we endure the pandemic.  Like almost everyone my initial reaction is to push back on changes that I don't like and complain about the changes that are affecting me in ways I don't want to be affected.  Me! Me! Me! in other words.  Like most good A.A.s I'm working my ass off trying to see the good, to be grateful, and to see that the bad is actually good even if I can't see how at the moment.

I had to laugh at this story percolating through our news media right now: there's a petition going around to censure a political official with the main bone of contention being anger at the distribution of the CoVid vaccine.  One particular political group is especially pissed about this.  Like 80% disapproval. This is the particular political group that is also very suspicious about the vaccine, so suspicious that many of them aren't going to take the vaccine.  Like 80% won't do it.  The disconnect is hilarious - I'm pissed I can't get the vaccine which I refuse to take.  This is bitching for the pure pleasure of bitching.  Most people think they are great drivers while also thinking that most other people are terrible drivers.  What's the old joke about a fictionalized ideal community: Everyone who lives there is above average?

Anvil:  A heavy iron block used in the blacksmithing trade as a surface upon which metal can be struck and shaped. 

Last quote from Traditions One and Four: "On anvils of experience, the structure of our Society was hammered out.  Children of chaos, we have defiantly played with every brand of fire, only to emerge unharmed and, we think, wiser."  None of this came easily, that's for sure.  There were a lot of bloody noses and bruised egos before the Traditions came into play.