It's very kind of people to read something I've written and then ask me why I am so blue or why what they read here had a thread of sadness running through it (wonder why I thought of the movie "A River Runs Through It" when I wrote about the thread of sadness). The truth is, there is no sadness and in fact there is nothing to be sad about. What comes across as sadness perhaps, is this sense of resignation...and resignation isn't the right word either. Let's just say it's placidity, at least on the surface of things. Underneath, deep underneath the surface, what churns is a battle between acceptance, contentment, playing the hand one was dealt with panache, with wry, self-directed humor or rejecting it all in favor of something better, the clichéd search for more verdant abundance.
The problem with being so connected on a virtual, social platform is the Rashomon like multiple interpretations of one's state of mind by one's peers and by one's loved ones. Out come the perenially positive advice givers telling me how tomorrow will be another day, how whatever I am feeling will pass, how to change my attitude to something more positive, more "happy" in their eyes. Some quote the scriptures or the saints at me while I watch amused, thinking, that's not it. Some relate personal experiences where they were beset with worries and emerged unscathed. I have already been to those places and have passed beyond.
I have learnt valuable lessons from each experience and know now at this halfway point in life, that this is indeed life. There are good days and bad and in the end there's the mean that takes the high points and the low points into account.
Writing it all down is what helps me understand. I never learnt anything from all my institutions of learning unless I wrote down my own version of the things I had read. So in this blog I write how I feel, I come here to "play Jesus to the lepers in my head" as I say at the very top of the blog. It's a recalibration of sorts. It's believing in myself and knowing that all of this, some version of it, has happened before and will happen again. No smile ever stays frozen on one's face and no sadness remains unmitigated.
So if it all appears tinged with blue, perhaps I've been holding my breath a bit too long. I am reminding myself to breathe and to just go on putting one step in front of another, addressing the concerns of the moment, nothing more, nothing less.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Nothing: Part 24
I was feeling ashamed of having spent my Sunday doing absolutely nothing until I read something about not feeling guilty about things like doing nothing. So I stopped feeling guilty and continued doing nothing at all.
The list of nothings included several back to back episodes of LMN (Lifetime Movie Network) movies - with names like "Vows of Deception" and "Deadly Honeymoon". It's amazing how capable these movies are of sinking their hooks deep inside. There was one where a neighbor woman kept walking into her friend and neighbor's home, at all odd hours, and replacing her insulin vials with vodka. The poor woman kept getting DUIs after being sober for over ten years. The wicked neighbor wanted to steal her husband and her life. And there are so many stories of women sans conscience or remorse all meeting a deadly "Fatal Attraction" like ending in the end.
I was watching a commercial where a woman stand up comic was poking fun at the concept of television for women saying, "Sure it's television for women, women are constantly getting kicked around, raped, murdered, abused..." It drew laughs but most of the time the writers of these short movies show women being portrayed as victimizers rather than victims! Is this underscoring a much debated and oft-repeated conclusion that women are their own worst enemies? I should pay attention to the gender of the writers of these scripts.
The hubby, who was also spending his Sunday doing nothing, got snagged by some of these "deadly" shows on LMN too!
I think I'll spend the next Sunday watching Spike TV to see what they think men like to watch.
When these movies got too repetitive I started watching back to back episodes of "House" on Bravo. This show is becoming a real addiction. Hugh Laurie is excellent in his role as the cantankerous and obnoxious Dr Gregory House. I am also amazed at how convincing an American he makes.
Loved a line where he called himself a "rational" man and his best friend a "rationalizing" man. How interesting a distinction.
I did eventually get tired of the idiocy of non-stop TV watching and walked around doing this or that around the house, practicing the medley "The Memories of Stephen Foster" (specifically Old Folks at Home, Oh! Susanna and Old Black Joe) for my upcoming violin concert, followed by a vocal practice session where I tried to improve my rendition of Raag Desh.
As I practice my music I wonder about how I can make the session less mechanical. I do "homework" at the moment, doing whatever my teachers have told me to do before getting ready for the next class but I am feeling like quite an idiot doing just that. I need to have some conversations with people, I need my own insights, I need to bounce ideas off someone, but I've always been lonely in my chosen pursuits.
I need to feel unstuck and would give anything for that soaring, euphoric feeling that hasn't paid me a visit in a very long time, not since the day I started this blog and called it - Epiphany. Well, I need the next epiphany. I need sustained gusto, sustained enthusiasm, without resorting to something that prevents serotonin re-uptake.
This thing called "small pleasures" is much discussed these days. Everyone is talking about looking for small pleasures, about slowing down, stopping, smelling whatever (roses aren't always around)...so I am trying. The only problem is about sustaining such pleasures once they are found.
Walking around several blocks of NYC at the lunch hour on Friday was different and hence fun, but won't doing it everyday become mundane and routine? Should I start taking the subway to Central Park or walk to different parks around the neighborhood next? The only problems is - I hate riding the subways and I only have an hour for lunch. I can't possibly lose myself in a book in a park when the time spent is weighing on me.
Cooking? But then there are messy kitchen counters and dirty dishes, also ingredient shopping and perennial barbs from the hubby if all purchased ingredients don't get utilized. Small pleasures appear to be as perishable as the luscious green vegetables and fruits I found at the very pleasurable Whole Foods Market during my Friday rambling.
Well, I just added Dominique Browning's blog "Slow Love Life" to my list of blogs I follow. She appears to be on a quest for small pleasures and I could use some inspiration along these lines.
The list of nothings included several back to back episodes of LMN (Lifetime Movie Network) movies - with names like "Vows of Deception" and "Deadly Honeymoon". It's amazing how capable these movies are of sinking their hooks deep inside. There was one where a neighbor woman kept walking into her friend and neighbor's home, at all odd hours, and replacing her insulin vials with vodka. The poor woman kept getting DUIs after being sober for over ten years. The wicked neighbor wanted to steal her husband and her life. And there are so many stories of women sans conscience or remorse all meeting a deadly "Fatal Attraction" like ending in the end.
I was watching a commercial where a woman stand up comic was poking fun at the concept of television for women saying, "Sure it's television for women, women are constantly getting kicked around, raped, murdered, abused..." It drew laughs but most of the time the writers of these short movies show women being portrayed as victimizers rather than victims! Is this underscoring a much debated and oft-repeated conclusion that women are their own worst enemies? I should pay attention to the gender of the writers of these scripts.
The hubby, who was also spending his Sunday doing nothing, got snagged by some of these "deadly" shows on LMN too!
I think I'll spend the next Sunday watching Spike TV to see what they think men like to watch.
When these movies got too repetitive I started watching back to back episodes of "House" on Bravo. This show is becoming a real addiction. Hugh Laurie is excellent in his role as the cantankerous and obnoxious Dr Gregory House. I am also amazed at how convincing an American he makes.
Loved a line where he called himself a "rational" man and his best friend a "rationalizing" man. How interesting a distinction.
I did eventually get tired of the idiocy of non-stop TV watching and walked around doing this or that around the house, practicing the medley "The Memories of Stephen Foster" (specifically Old Folks at Home, Oh! Susanna and Old Black Joe) for my upcoming violin concert, followed by a vocal practice session where I tried to improve my rendition of Raag Desh.
As I practice my music I wonder about how I can make the session less mechanical. I do "homework" at the moment, doing whatever my teachers have told me to do before getting ready for the next class but I am feeling like quite an idiot doing just that. I need to have some conversations with people, I need my own insights, I need to bounce ideas off someone, but I've always been lonely in my chosen pursuits.
I need to feel unstuck and would give anything for that soaring, euphoric feeling that hasn't paid me a visit in a very long time, not since the day I started this blog and called it - Epiphany. Well, I need the next epiphany. I need sustained gusto, sustained enthusiasm, without resorting to something that prevents serotonin re-uptake.
This thing called "small pleasures" is much discussed these days. Everyone is talking about looking for small pleasures, about slowing down, stopping, smelling whatever (roses aren't always around)...so I am trying. The only problem is about sustaining such pleasures once they are found.
Walking around several blocks of NYC at the lunch hour on Friday was different and hence fun, but won't doing it everyday become mundane and routine? Should I start taking the subway to Central Park or walk to different parks around the neighborhood next? The only problems is - I hate riding the subways and I only have an hour for lunch. I can't possibly lose myself in a book in a park when the time spent is weighing on me.
Cooking? But then there are messy kitchen counters and dirty dishes, also ingredient shopping and perennial barbs from the hubby if all purchased ingredients don't get utilized. Small pleasures appear to be as perishable as the luscious green vegetables and fruits I found at the very pleasurable Whole Foods Market during my Friday rambling.
Well, I just added Dominique Browning's blog "Slow Love Life" to my list of blogs I follow. She appears to be on a quest for small pleasures and I could use some inspiration along these lines.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Floccinaucinihilipilification: Part 23
We spent most of the weekend at the student concert where I performed a short composition in Jhap Taal, followed by a longer teen taal composition in Raag Bihag. If you are interested in knowing how I did then you can see the videos here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGKT7XXNSeo
here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyoKhnSdq9Q
and here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=574cUY6Dwj0
I get a bit winded toward the end. So this tells me I need to practice those longer notes, riding on a single breath, with even more diligence. But I am happy to report there were no pins and needles while sitting cross-legged.
It does feel rather surreal to see myself sitting there wrapped up in a chanderi sari, singing a composition or two in Raag Bihag, to the accompaniment of tabla and harmonium.
It's an image of enhanced incongruency when viewed with this:
alongside this:
Same person? No wonder it was such a struggle for me to come up with a vision board.
That was the other thing the three of us did together on Sunday; constructed a vision board for ourselves.
Anoushka was excited about the project although there were some thoughtful frowns followed by a statement that she didn't really desire anything more, that she already had everything she wanted. I was stunned and proud to have raised such a "self-actualized" child, already at the peak of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I have seen that in action as well. She always has a very hard time figuring out if she wants anything at a store, even when she's given a generous budget. The most she can think of is jelly beans!
But the prospect of using poster boards, glue sticks, magic markers and glittery stickers was too tempting and she got into it with gusto. She even got done in record time with a vision board that would put most adults to shame. She found the exact images she needed and got to work with her scissors on the stack of magazines we had laid out for the purpose. The scope of her vision is broad: earth conscious, environment conscious and her desires - all reflective of a broader, optimistic and altruistic nature. Like I said it put me to shame because I am not now, nor was I ever (not even at her age) AS concerned about the world and the life on it as I was about myself. Let's hope this will last in her.
Mine was a struggle and a stretch. It's hard to put down on poster board, a kaleidoscopic, eclectic vision, a fragmented vision that has always lacked laserlike accuracy and focus. I like too many things to be tied down to one vision. I do know that I want to write and that I want to be passionately involved with music and the arts. I dabble, I aspire to continue dabbling but dabbling is never good enough for revenue generation and someone with loans, a family, a desire for a secure future and a comfortable present always needs to act with revenue generation in mind. That's the sadness that runs through it all. But I did my best with it. Let's see how close I get to what I envisioned.
The whole idea of the creation of a vision board might seem hokey to most of us. And in cynical, boredom filled moments, so it seems to me. But I occasionally rouse myself from the stupor by saying, "Visualization works, you know it works, it has always worked for you, so get back to it!" More than anything else, the activity brought us all together for a pleasant Sunday afternoon.
The last thing I did over the weekend was finish reading Julian Barnes's masterful musings in "Nothing To Be Frightened Of". The thing that we're talking about here is death. How much I've liked a book is usually evident from the number of pages I've dog-eared from the bottom. I've mentioned somewhere else on this blog that I like dog-earing pages to which I want to return from the bottom (this is less offensive to me than marking up the book by underlining). The number of brilliant insights in this book are too many to enumerate.
I mentioned one to Anoushka, as we stood around in the kitchen toasting slices of bread for breakfast. I told her I read something that she probably wouldn't understand yet, but it was interesting. She wanted to know what it was I read. So I told her that the author in the book I was reading said that when he was a child he used to think that when he grew up he'd be the one in control, he'd be the one 'wielding the whip'.
Anoushka interrupted me then to say, "But I don't think grown ups have any control, any freedom. They always have to do things they don't want to do and listen to bosses or others."
I stared at her, speechless, because she had preempted the next bit of what I was going to tell her about what Julian Barnes said! He had said that when he grew up he learnt that he wasn't wielding a whip, that in fact he was nothing more than the tip of the whip!
I don't know what it is about A, maybe the fact that she's reading at a level three grades above her own or that she is just more thoughtful than I ever remember being. But she certainly surprises me a lot.
I think I'll be compelled to write some more about the rest of what Julian Barnes mused in this book but two minor things serve as some validation:
He said here, quoting from his own journal from twenty years ago:
And finally an utterly useless word that entered my vocabulary through this book, but does say it all in 29 letters: Floccinaucinihilipilification, meaning to estimate as worthless. You'll still have 111 letters leftover if you wanted to discuss this on Twitter.
So here we are, once again awaiting NOTHING.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGKT7XXNSeo
here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyoKhnSdq9Q
and here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=574cUY6Dwj0
I get a bit winded toward the end. So this tells me I need to practice those longer notes, riding on a single breath, with even more diligence. But I am happy to report there were no pins and needles while sitting cross-legged.
It does feel rather surreal to see myself sitting there wrapped up in a chanderi sari, singing a composition or two in Raag Bihag, to the accompaniment of tabla and harmonium.
It's an image of enhanced incongruency when viewed with this:
alongside this:
Same person? No wonder it was such a struggle for me to come up with a vision board.
That was the other thing the three of us did together on Sunday; constructed a vision board for ourselves.
Anoushka was excited about the project although there were some thoughtful frowns followed by a statement that she didn't really desire anything more, that she already had everything she wanted. I was stunned and proud to have raised such a "self-actualized" child, already at the peak of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I have seen that in action as well. She always has a very hard time figuring out if she wants anything at a store, even when she's given a generous budget. The most she can think of is jelly beans!
But the prospect of using poster boards, glue sticks, magic markers and glittery stickers was too tempting and she got into it with gusto. She even got done in record time with a vision board that would put most adults to shame. She found the exact images she needed and got to work with her scissors on the stack of magazines we had laid out for the purpose. The scope of her vision is broad: earth conscious, environment conscious and her desires - all reflective of a broader, optimistic and altruistic nature. Like I said it put me to shame because I am not now, nor was I ever (not even at her age) AS concerned about the world and the life on it as I was about myself. Let's hope this will last in her.
Mine was a struggle and a stretch. It's hard to put down on poster board, a kaleidoscopic, eclectic vision, a fragmented vision that has always lacked laserlike accuracy and focus. I like too many things to be tied down to one vision. I do know that I want to write and that I want to be passionately involved with music and the arts. I dabble, I aspire to continue dabbling but dabbling is never good enough for revenue generation and someone with loans, a family, a desire for a secure future and a comfortable present always needs to act with revenue generation in mind. That's the sadness that runs through it all. But I did my best with it. Let's see how close I get to what I envisioned.
The whole idea of the creation of a vision board might seem hokey to most of us. And in cynical, boredom filled moments, so it seems to me. But I occasionally rouse myself from the stupor by saying, "Visualization works, you know it works, it has always worked for you, so get back to it!" More than anything else, the activity brought us all together for a pleasant Sunday afternoon.
The last thing I did over the weekend was finish reading Julian Barnes's masterful musings in "Nothing To Be Frightened Of". The thing that we're talking about here is death. How much I've liked a book is usually evident from the number of pages I've dog-eared from the bottom. I've mentioned somewhere else on this blog that I like dog-earing pages to which I want to return from the bottom (this is less offensive to me than marking up the book by underlining). The number of brilliant insights in this book are too many to enumerate.
I mentioned one to Anoushka, as we stood around in the kitchen toasting slices of bread for breakfast. I told her I read something that she probably wouldn't understand yet, but it was interesting. She wanted to know what it was I read. So I told her that the author in the book I was reading said that when he was a child he used to think that when he grew up he'd be the one in control, he'd be the one 'wielding the whip'.
Anoushka interrupted me then to say, "But I don't think grown ups have any control, any freedom. They always have to do things they don't want to do and listen to bosses or others."
I stared at her, speechless, because she had preempted the next bit of what I was going to tell her about what Julian Barnes said! He had said that when he grew up he learnt that he wasn't wielding a whip, that in fact he was nothing more than the tip of the whip!
I don't know what it is about A, maybe the fact that she's reading at a level three grades above her own or that she is just more thoughtful than I ever remember being. But she certainly surprises me a lot.
I think I'll be compelled to write some more about the rest of what Julian Barnes mused in this book but two minor things serve as some validation:
He said here, quoting from his own journal from twenty years ago:
People say of death, "There's nothing to be frightened of." They say it quickly, casually. Now let's say it again, slowly, with reemphasis. "There's NOTHING to be frightened of." Jules Renard: "The word that is most true, most exact, most filled with meaning, is the word 'nothing.'"Haven't I implied the same (the bolded part) with each one of my "Nothing" posts? Ok, just kidding, just being facetious. But even the earlier part of this quote from his own journal gives one so much to think about. Precisely, the NOTHING, to be frightened of.
And finally an utterly useless word that entered my vocabulary through this book, but does say it all in 29 letters: Floccinaucinihilipilification, meaning to estimate as worthless. You'll still have 111 letters leftover if you wanted to discuss this on Twitter.
So here we are, once again awaiting NOTHING.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Nothing: Part 22
"Are you comfortable?"
An innocuous question like that left me feeling surprised and somewhat stunned when a friend asked me that at a meeting over coffee.
My emphatic answer and accompanying smile was an attempt to convince her that I was indeed comfortable and our conversation continued. We talked about all our experiences during the intervening years, just like two friends meeting after a very long time would. And yet there was the echo of her remark, ricocheting around my brain..."are you comfortable, are you comfortable?"
Perhaps it hit me because I don't think I ever feel "comfortable". Not around people, not when I am by myself, in a word - never. The balance is almost always tilted toward some strain or some stress. I am always filled with a weird sense of hyper-awareness about my physical boundaries, of the space I take as I move through the world.
I feel a sense of awe at people who sit back on a couch or even on a park bench and look as though they are not feeling any tension in the legs that are extended forward with such ease, the arm that casually rests on the back of the seat, shoulders that find a natural slope of relaxation and are not squared against a hostile world. I am envious of that ability to merge with one's surroundings, to feel at home anywhere.
When I was younger I was always worried about creasing my ironed clothes. As I grew older I never felt certain about stepping in with a segue that would carry a group conversation forward. I was either quiet or tense about making a point in a voice that would be heard before someone steered the conversation away to a place where the point I was nurturing in my brain, for several minutes while someone more voluble was making theirs, would appear like nothing but a non sequitur or a meaningless digression. Some folks would notice and ask me to speak up more often, to put in my two cents, while I smiled and said I was "listening" and "absorbing".
I was also never sure about my hands, I never knew what to do with them when standing around at a party or in a circle of friends. I would worry about whether they should be in my pockets, on my hips, folded across my chest, hanging limply by the sides, clutching something, twirling something? I just didn't know what to do with them. The pockets grew to be quite a comfort zone. So much so that for the longest time I was known to bring tea or water or plates of food to guests at home with one hand, while the other was stuffed in a pocket. I remember feeling very annoyed with relatives and wondering what the big deal was about using two hands where the usage of one sufficed!
I suppose some people are just born square in a world that only accepts round pegs. I sometimes feel like I've spent whole life whittling away the squares, wanting to force a fit, or having accomplished said "fit" finding myself asphyxiated and boxed in, wanting nothing more than the freedom to be my square self, come what may. How is a natural ease with oneself possible when the fight is always so acute?
It makes for quite the duality of existence. The public side where I often succeed in appearing like the person I am forcing myself to be; pretending until it feels natural, pretending until the pretense feels like anything but pretense, and the intensely private side that manifests in the discomfort that some rare, perceptive souls can sense, in something as unnoticeable as the way I am sitting across from someone at a cafe table!
Speaking of "perceptive souls", aren't we all in search of the one that would see and understand that part of us that our layers of pretense have not been successful in masking? I think we spend our whole lives searching for one such. They say love makes the world go round and things like "love is all you need". Not really, unless it's a facetious way of saying what makes the world go round is finding the love who gets to the heart of "your" matter.
I have continued my tradition of listening and absorbing, now through virtual conversations and chats. I notice that as soon as one starts a conversation the responses that come back in reaction to what you said or did, or what went on in your life in the last minute, hour or day, are often detailed ones about how that person would have reacted, what they would have thought or done, had they been in your position. The sounds of wanting to be known, to be heard, to be understood and defined are clamorous. We are all selling clues, offering them up cheap on the social media market, and yet there are no takers, no buyers, only sellers.
All of it just ending in a dissonance that stays unresolved while people try to fit in and stand out all at once.
It was interesting to watch this John Cleese documentary: The Human Face, the other day. It was about facial expressions and how crucial they are to social interactions and communication. The story of a little girl who was born with the Mobius syndrome, a facial paralysis that left her unable to smile, was a cause of serious concern for her parents. They feared the worst for her when she started school. They worried about how other kids would see her, treat her. She underwent surgery that gave her a smile and her world was set right. That is how important smiles are.
The other interesting case in the documentary was of a Cambridge student who had a form of Asperger's syndrome. His problem was an inability to understand and interpret facial cues. He didn't know what a downturned mouth meant, what frowns meant, what it meant when someone was wide eyed. He felt like a misfit because he couldn't tell what people were communicating with their expressions! So he made a study out of it. He prepared a mental inventory of what each expression possibly meant. He taught himself. He "pretended" to know until he really got to know. Now he fit. Now he wasn't isolated.
And so we try, we are social animals, we depend on each other, we seek connections and sometimes the manner in which those connections will be made have to be learnt. They aren't always inborn except in a lucky few. Others have to learn how to compensate for deficits, or add corners or slats in order to fit. Perhaps the person I envy, who looks oh-so-comfortable at a party, or on a park bench or at a cafe, is also just pretending. Or maybe comfort in social situations is not a problem for them but mathematics or spelling is. Together we all add up and fit, I suppose.
Perhaps that's why we've grown up reading so many fairy tales about the princess asleep in some palace tower, asleep and oblivious, or silent while elsewhere in the tale there's a prince or a knight who has to set forth on a quest and find various clues along the way until he finds the key to her heart.
Digression (as if one can digress from nothing): Funny how the Princess is always the passive, sleepy or silent one, awaiting the Knight or Prince who knows what makes her tick.
An innocuous question like that left me feeling surprised and somewhat stunned when a friend asked me that at a meeting over coffee.
My emphatic answer and accompanying smile was an attempt to convince her that I was indeed comfortable and our conversation continued. We talked about all our experiences during the intervening years, just like two friends meeting after a very long time would. And yet there was the echo of her remark, ricocheting around my brain..."are you comfortable, are you comfortable?"
Perhaps it hit me because I don't think I ever feel "comfortable". Not around people, not when I am by myself, in a word - never. The balance is almost always tilted toward some strain or some stress. I am always filled with a weird sense of hyper-awareness about my physical boundaries, of the space I take as I move through the world.
I feel a sense of awe at people who sit back on a couch or even on a park bench and look as though they are not feeling any tension in the legs that are extended forward with such ease, the arm that casually rests on the back of the seat, shoulders that find a natural slope of relaxation and are not squared against a hostile world. I am envious of that ability to merge with one's surroundings, to feel at home anywhere.
When I was younger I was always worried about creasing my ironed clothes. As I grew older I never felt certain about stepping in with a segue that would carry a group conversation forward. I was either quiet or tense about making a point in a voice that would be heard before someone steered the conversation away to a place where the point I was nurturing in my brain, for several minutes while someone more voluble was making theirs, would appear like nothing but a non sequitur or a meaningless digression. Some folks would notice and ask me to speak up more often, to put in my two cents, while I smiled and said I was "listening" and "absorbing".
I was also never sure about my hands, I never knew what to do with them when standing around at a party or in a circle of friends. I would worry about whether they should be in my pockets, on my hips, folded across my chest, hanging limply by the sides, clutching something, twirling something? I just didn't know what to do with them. The pockets grew to be quite a comfort zone. So much so that for the longest time I was known to bring tea or water or plates of food to guests at home with one hand, while the other was stuffed in a pocket. I remember feeling very annoyed with relatives and wondering what the big deal was about using two hands where the usage of one sufficed!
I suppose some people are just born square in a world that only accepts round pegs. I sometimes feel like I've spent whole life whittling away the squares, wanting to force a fit, or having accomplished said "fit" finding myself asphyxiated and boxed in, wanting nothing more than the freedom to be my square self, come what may. How is a natural ease with oneself possible when the fight is always so acute?
It makes for quite the duality of existence. The public side where I often succeed in appearing like the person I am forcing myself to be; pretending until it feels natural, pretending until the pretense feels like anything but pretense, and the intensely private side that manifests in the discomfort that some rare, perceptive souls can sense, in something as unnoticeable as the way I am sitting across from someone at a cafe table!
Speaking of "perceptive souls", aren't we all in search of the one that would see and understand that part of us that our layers of pretense have not been successful in masking? I think we spend our whole lives searching for one such. They say love makes the world go round and things like "love is all you need". Not really, unless it's a facetious way of saying what makes the world go round is finding the love who gets to the heart of "your" matter.
I have continued my tradition of listening and absorbing, now through virtual conversations and chats. I notice that as soon as one starts a conversation the responses that come back in reaction to what you said or did, or what went on in your life in the last minute, hour or day, are often detailed ones about how that person would have reacted, what they would have thought or done, had they been in your position. The sounds of wanting to be known, to be heard, to be understood and defined are clamorous. We are all selling clues, offering them up cheap on the social media market, and yet there are no takers, no buyers, only sellers.
All of it just ending in a dissonance that stays unresolved while people try to fit in and stand out all at once.
It was interesting to watch this John Cleese documentary: The Human Face, the other day. It was about facial expressions and how crucial they are to social interactions and communication. The story of a little girl who was born with the Mobius syndrome, a facial paralysis that left her unable to smile, was a cause of serious concern for her parents. They feared the worst for her when she started school. They worried about how other kids would see her, treat her. She underwent surgery that gave her a smile and her world was set right. That is how important smiles are.
The other interesting case in the documentary was of a Cambridge student who had a form of Asperger's syndrome. His problem was an inability to understand and interpret facial cues. He didn't know what a downturned mouth meant, what frowns meant, what it meant when someone was wide eyed. He felt like a misfit because he couldn't tell what people were communicating with their expressions! So he made a study out of it. He prepared a mental inventory of what each expression possibly meant. He taught himself. He "pretended" to know until he really got to know. Now he fit. Now he wasn't isolated.
And so we try, we are social animals, we depend on each other, we seek connections and sometimes the manner in which those connections will be made have to be learnt. They aren't always inborn except in a lucky few. Others have to learn how to compensate for deficits, or add corners or slats in order to fit. Perhaps the person I envy, who looks oh-so-comfortable at a party, or on a park bench or at a cafe, is also just pretending. Or maybe comfort in social situations is not a problem for them but mathematics or spelling is. Together we all add up and fit, I suppose.
Perhaps that's why we've grown up reading so many fairy tales about the princess asleep in some palace tower, asleep and oblivious, or silent while elsewhere in the tale there's a prince or a knight who has to set forth on a quest and find various clues along the way until he finds the key to her heart.
Digression (as if one can digress from nothing): Funny how the Princess is always the passive, sleepy or silent one, awaiting the Knight or Prince who knows what makes her tick.