How can things go wrong when the day is so beautiful? The sun is shining. It’s warm enough to wear shorts and totally appropriate sunglasses weather. One could even be comfortable sitting on the grass somewhere and watching children play or the rowers row on the Schuchyll.
I don’t know about other people, everyone but me seems to have this figured out, but I always(!) have trouble thinking up and creating a sweet Halloween costume. I consistently come up short and have to make due with what I can put together that night or in the frantic days leading up to some epic party. It’s like the death knell to hear, over and over again, and when everyone else’s costume is perfectly creative and obvious, ‘what are you?’ Come on! Clearly I’m this! I want to say. I guess it comes down to a perspective problem, which I seem to have in almost all situations and contexts. Once I had a friend say to me, ‘did I miss something? where the fuck did that come from?’ and I thought back, I tried not to react from anger, but instead to consider why he wouldn’t understand what I was saying. And then I realized that in the midst of our conversation I had thought about 4 things in between what he said and what I eventually said, I leapt, and what came out of me almost was completely unrelated, logically, to what I was responding to. Our minds are amazing and frustrating that way. Always trying to piece things together and box them up and organize the constant information that would otherwise drown out logical or rational thinking, but in doing so, they necessarily have to make leaps and connections that may or may not be there. You know when someone repeats back to you what they think you said or meant, and your reaction is one of ‘huh? what? how would you ever get that from what I just said?’ But it’s all really about the mental roads in their brains that have pieced together the information you just gave them in such a way; it’s really a wonder we ever communicate with each other at all, if you think about it. We all have so many filters, so many layers and such complex roads and defaults and presuppositions, that when people try to communicate with us, we basically and necessarily don’t, and can’t, know exactly what they mean. I think that is so unbelievably interesting, and begs the question: well, are the people we call friends or lovers just those with whom we have similar mental tracks, such that we must misunderstand each other less than those we think of as enemies, or annoyances, or mere acquaintances? Do we only think we’re as close to those people as we are, but really we all just go through life misunderstood and misunderstanding everyone else? Has anyone, ever, in the history of language, truly heard what someone else said, and knew precisely what she meant? And if so, how is that possible? How would we ever know? All of that to say my costumes always make sense to me; I don’t understand why everyone else can’t seem to see what I am!
A friend recently told me she feels universally misunderstood. I don’t exactly know how to reply to that. If it’s something she’s feeling, clearly there are missed signals and miscommunications and wedges of isolation that only she feels or sees there. I didn’t think I misunderstood her. I don’t know why she would feel misunderstood in general, by me or anyone else. But therein lies the aforementioned problem; all this time I thought I ‘got’ her, meanwhile she was thinking the exact opposite. We communicated in ways that I found relatable. It seemed like we were, at one time, close friends. I don’t have the easiest time making such friendships, so that I thought we were relatively close, compared to other people with whom we coexist in the world, meant both that I misread her and she misread me. On some level though, doesn’t the fact that we were simultaneously missing one another’s signals seem that we were, in one way, on the same page? The bottom line for me though is that I truly believe all the people we consider close in life are those who just have the most similar interpretations of words and looks and tones and feelings and actions as we do. Basically, we just have more like lenses through which we view the world than those with whom we are less close, those we just totally don’t get on with, those with whom there always seems to be a disconnect in any interaction.
Fickle. That’s just it; the epitome of life, summed up in a funny word. Life is fickle. People are fickle. Weather, plants, animals and cars. Appliances and wine. All of it. Friends and loves. Maybe we’re all like etch-a-sketches: once we have ourselves drawn to our liking, and things somewhat figured out and acceptable, we get shaken up and have to start all over again. I suppose that’s why Buddhism says that inherent suffering in life is trying to hold onto things, trying to keep life static, because that is one thing it can never be. There are just too many moving parts to stay still; besides, what kind of life is that, anyway? Have you ever felt stuck somewhere, with someone, in a job or a an apartment or a friendship? It’s just the worst. That’s not life. That can’t be life. I vacillate between thinking existence is totally random and pointless and knowing that we’re all here to do something, to have some effect, that’s meaningful. Maybe it’s both. Could it be both? Enter Taoism. It is and it isn’t! Could we combine all the good parts of all religions and philosophies, distill it into a few universal truths, and operate knowing those?
One of my favorite of these random tenets is “Nothing is Personal.” Everything everyone does is really about them, not you. We all just trigger reactions and emotions and feelings and thoughts in other people that have little or nothing to do with us, personally, and everything to do, AGAIN, with their mental roads and predispositions and synapses. Things that were nurtured and natured into them and compel action based on self-preservation, whatever that person’s method of self-preserving is. Sometimes it’s to pounce and hurt; sometimes it’s to spread themselves out, sexually or emotionally or socially, among as many people as possible; sometimes it’s to renounce humanity or seclude themselves to keep from relating to others. After all, it’s people that love us and hurt us; make us laugh and make us ache; force us to appreciate life and or make us despise existing altogether. It’s natural to think that the best reaction after being attacked or hurt or disemboweled by someone else, especially someone we care about or have let in, is to withdraw and close up. The way flowers close up when the sun doesn’t come out. The way animals give you the silent treatment after you leave them home alone for a day. The way sea coral dies when you touch it. As if we need another struggle, it seems like that’s a fundamental one – to stay open and loving and compassionate after the ones closest to you have wounded you inside, intentionally or not. Have deflated your sense of security in them and humans in general. It’s all about keeping it in perspective and not taking it personally. Everything seems personal though; could it be and not be all at once?
I wonder if anyone else wonders why all they have is questions and never answers.
Song of the day: Seeing Angels, John Butler Trio
No comments:
Post a Comment