I saw recently on Facebook one of those disappearing notices, or else I would have posted it here, too. In essence, it showed a picture of a fish in water and quoted someone saying something to the effect of how the fish has never proven the existence of water – that when we are completely surrounded by something, it becomes transparent and we don’t even know that it’s there.
As I’ve discussed before, I really struggle with what seems to be validity in a complaint that I can be a little too insistent on seeing the world a particular way and not giving space sufficiently for others to have their own worldview.
I generally fall on the side of reasoning which states that, actually, I am very open to finding a better way of doing anything – I just rarely find it. When I do, I tend to be an early adopter, not a resistant fuckhead. But, in general, it is difficult for me to allow the equality of ways which do not work equally well – and by equally well, I don’t mean a way which gets you what I want for you, but gets you what you claim to want for yourself. There is no one, it seems, more vociferous about the sovereignty of their own way of being than someone whose life is obviously not manifesting a level of self-actualization that fosters general happiness and contentment.
But, yes, I have a disclaimer, here, in that when I say living a self-actualized life that fosters general happiness, I don’t mean a life in which your job is going well, but you are too fucked up to be available for a relationship, or you’ve lowered your expectations to the reality of your life so that you’ve redefined “content” and “self-actualized” – but no one is fooled by that, people. Not even you. I mean a life where nothing needs to be perfect, but you are able to pursue any path needed to realize the job which satisfies you, the relationship you crave, the activities which reveal your talents, the community which supports your highest form. Though some of these elements may not be fully developed, a life that is working is a life wherein there are no barriers to these things which are substantive enough to keep you from them.
As also said before, even so, I honor the truth that everyone has to follow their own way and that there’s validity in being malaised, just as there is in being content, I am a little too sensitive to be surrounded by the pain which radiates out from people living a compromised, crippled existence. That sensitivity is a soul gift, but my historic response to it is a conditioned curse – but the only thing I know in lieu is just to avoid those lives, which makes it a small world.
My discussions with the Drummer have fallen into the trap of not fully walking away, yet definitely not wanting to be associated with the pain ick factor that comes with trying to watch someone defend an indefensible position and call it independence. I once again am reminded of the difficulty of trying to show fish water, which I can see not because I am not surrounded by my own water, but because I’m in another tank. Or whatever bad analogy I can apply. The point being that I know about my own water only by inference in seeing others’, and although I may not know as much about it as I want to, I know, at least, that it’s there. I am exhausted by the obvious fallacy in a response which says, “Water? What water? I can’t see anything, so it’s not there, and I don’t know why you are trying to undermine me by telling me that it is”.
In the end, what can you say to such a fish? You just hope that one day, a leap of some kind brings them out of the water sufficiently so that they get it, and can finally start exploring what it is upon their return. So long as they don’t wind up on the floor, gasping futilely for breath, that is. Or dismiss entirely the clarity and evidence witnessed in that fleeting moment, because the implications and seemingly counter evidence – which is really not evidence, but conditioning of environment – are so overwhelming, that it’s easier to dismiss that one moment, no matter how powerful, than the bulk of the rest of it.
The Architect used to sometimes ask me why I would think that he would prefer to do or sit in an energy/action that was so counter to his better interests – that no rational person would do that. He’s right. No rational person would. But who among us is actually rational? We make decisions which support our beliefs and the level of cognitive dissonance that we feel willing to handle. More than that, though, all that muck is the water….we’ve been sitting in it for so long, we don’t even recognize that it’s there, that it’s not part of us, that it’s something which might be changed, that it’s not an ongoing reality, or that it doesn’t even register in our understanding. But for all those reasons, I can’t prove to you that it exists, except by inference in its manifestation in your life, no matter how clearly I can see it.
I let myself get overly tired in the past couple of days, which has led to a physical depression from lack of sleep and weird sleep cycles. Plus, it’s rainy and empty in town. I’ve had to talk a lot about the whole Oakland thing, and like with my car accident, there was an unexpected swell of emotion that came up around it – I think that as much as I have said it’s obvious, I have not been fully aware of the toll it took. As part of the evaluation process for one aspect, I had to have a psych eval and there were a lot of questions about my background. One thing that came up for me and I told him was that I worried about those questions – not because of what they would reveal about me, but because I wouldn’t want anyone to be able to use something like that to say that nothing happened to me there; that my experience and reactions weren’t entirely justified in relation to the situation. That would not be just, or true. Whatever my cracks, and even given the intersection of those with that situation, that place and those people were some of the most toxic elements in the world. It’s also a problem because these things are never collaborative; it’s not like if he says something that I think is a misunderstanding or misrepresentation that I can get him to take it back. Much like some of my blogs, once an assessment has been reached, it’s out there 😉
NOBLE BATTLE MAIDEN 