Am I Part of the Cure, or Am I Part of the Disease?

Years ago, these lyrics from a Cold Play song stopped me.

I was driving alone when the song came on the radio.  As I heard it and let those lyrics seep in, I immediately knew my answer, and it devastated me.

It wasn't that I was some ugly and violent part of society's disease.  I wasn't trying to hurt anyone.  But in a split second, I saw that being part of the disease could be much more passive.  I was well-meaning cog in so many wheels of dysfunction. My job felt like dysfunction, my relationships were dysfunction, the growing separation between my insides and my outside: total dysfunction.  Even though I so desperately wanted to be part of the cure, I stopped being able to fool myself into believing that I actually was.

In the decade or so since, my life has changed drastically, and for the better.

Then this past week, I was driving along and that same Cold Play song came on the radio.  And those same lyrics poked at me, drawing out the answer for this point in my life.

And all I got was silence, blankness, neutrality.  I had this sense that I'm neither disease or cure.  I could feel a sense that blindly cooperating with dysfunction was no longer my MO, but at the same time, I didn't feel any great sense of myself as part of the cure.

And that really opened a question for me: What does being part of the cure even mean?

Obvious examples came to mind: Malala, Maggie Doyne, Greg Mortenson.  People whose lives presented them with a choice, and the choice they made became an unfolding of goodness and love, a path of inspiration for others.  People who seem to be living a sense of Dharma in the highest degree are the ones that come so quickly to mind when I think of what being the cure means.

But what would being part of the cure look like in my ordinary little life? I can't see one of those big decisive moments when I could have chosen some path of healing or service.  And even those special moments when I did have a crossroads and chose fully with my heart, they were quiet moments, powerful in a way that was just significant to me, maybe a couple of other people.  Can I really consider that being part of the cure?

Way back when those lyrics first rocked me out of my comfort zone, I had a fantasy that writing would be my way to be part of the cure.  I could write positive waves into the world around me; I could inspire, or enlighten, or just add something unique and good into the mix of things.

But, as the years have passed, I've noticed the goodness I feel in writing gets pinched or corrupted if I think at all about what it would mean to anyone else.  When I'm writing for any sort-of result or reaction, the whole process becomes a mess of egoic dysfunction, no sense of cure-making at all.

And I keep feeling a crazy little secret hiding in all of this: the attempt at cure-making is no cure at all.  The rhythms of my life seem to show this one over and over.  "Don't try so hard, just be... just Be."

But is this enough?  When I look around and see so many things that break my heart, is it enough to just be, to just live my beautiful and blessed life, to enjoy it and love as best I can?

For now, this seems my only choice, and no denying that it's a great choice.  And even so, I feel a sense that the question isn't over, that it might never be over.