Thinking about transcending

  

Back to base. Thinking about ‘transcending’, the word, what it means, what it means to me.

Checking out the Merriam Webster online  on ‘Transcending’ yields up:

‘transcend

transitive verb:

1 a: to rise above or go beyond the limits of  b: to triumph over the negative or restrictive aspects of: OVERCOME

2: to outstrip or outdo in some attribute, quality or power

intransitive verb: to rise above or extend notably beyond ordinary limits

Examples of transcend:

1 music that transcends cultural boundaries

2 She was able to transcend her own suffering and help others

3 Her concerns transcended local issues

Origin of transcend:

Middle English: from Latin, transcendere – to climb across; transcend, from trans, and scandere, to climb

First known use: 14th Century

 

Related to transcend:

Synonyms: beat, better, eclipse, exceed, excel, outclass, outdistance, outgun, outmatch, outshine, outstrip, overtop, top, tower (over), surpass’

The words that resonate with me: to rise above, go beyond the limits of, triumph over the negative or restrictive aspects of, extend beyond ordinary limits, to climb across, eclipse, exceed, surpass and outgun. They suggest a strength of spirit, resilience, creativity and ability to find a source of power to go that extra dimension.

This for me relates to managing grief, pain and difficulty; finding solutions in the workplace; taking a creative approach instead of an old one; finding a fresh perspective;  being able to find ways of managing and climbing across obstruction or restriction; ways such as:

• writing: poetry especially, but any writing that helps you understand and cut through – letters, emails, journals, blog posts, essays, long cathartic dumps of free-writing, submissions that clarify and come up with a strategy and creative solution to a problem
• reading the right book: whatever it is – fiction to escape, non-fiction to understand, learn how to or make sense of; either form to learn about life, yourself, writing and another’s world
•  listening to the perfect music for the moment, again whatever it is and thank goodness for ipods and other portable music sources that enable us to find the right song for the moment and play it now.
• images and photography: creating an image that captures where you are, seeing an image that another has captured that echoes the world for you just now, wishing you had a camera for that image you have to capture in your mind’s eye to carry with you as the cameo of your current state of being
• family and family history: past, present and future, those you have loved and lost and cherish, those you can see and hold and hang onto and connect with, those you have never met that mean so much to you somehow through your lineage because they are part of you
• friends: people you chime with that become part of you through some serendipity or synchronicity of meeting – in the workplace, online, through your family, through your various interests in the world.
• blogging to find a way through and beyond, to communicate and share this vision, to appreciate the unique visions of others and how this might inform and shape your own.

Hence my themes, categories and tags here in this special space.

The words that don’t resonate with me are the ones mostly about out-doing somebody else. ‘Transcending’  for me is not a comparison or a competition; it’s a personal journey of finding the extraordinary, the extra-special, the extra-creative way of managing and living positively and the difference this can make.

It’s become an intuitive personal mantra, my theme and centre, honed from experience but always developing into the future. I welcome you to join in the journey of exploring more about transcending, how the ‘ climbing across’ might be negotiated and the difference it could make. I welcome your thoughts here. 

‘The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.

Some things can’t be changed; they’re part of the show.’

Stephen Cummings – ‘The Brighter the Light’

Good Bones (Liberation Blues Acoustic Series)