Showing posts with label trust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trust. Show all posts

Everybody Lives Alone

(March 28th, 2012)


A wise friend of mine once shared this quote by Hunter S. Thompson online, and I have spent a lot of time puzzling over it, off and on, over the years, and it ultimately ended up reinforcing and further shaping many of the thoughts that I’d been developing for a long time already:

“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”

And it also stirred up some new thoughts. Because what is anything worth, no matter how well you know yourself, if nobody else can truly understand the depths of your own mind? This troubles me, to some degree, but it also gives me hope, because I think that this idea is such a profound realization. You can never, ever truly know another person’s deepest mindset, but the most genuine among your acquaintances should have a character powerful enough so that their truest thoughts and feelings manifest themselves somehow into your relationship with them. Even if you can’t truly know, you can get a very powerful understanding, to the point where you can often accurately predict something they’ll say or do, and connect with them at a profound level. You’ll get something of a sense of how this person really thinks and feels, and you will feel that much closer to them for this, even if you cannot ever fully understand the depths.

Surely you’ve noticed this, that you can sometimes predict (with striking accuracy, even) how a friend or loved one will react to some bit of news, or a shared thought of your own, or even just a joke? It could be coincidence, of course, some of the times. Many people may react in very similar ways to the same stimulus. But if it happens often, especially to a wide assortment of stimuli, then you are probably on to something. You have probably come to understand this person to a level deep enough to be considered a more powerful relationship among relationships. And this connection should be realized, and treasured, because it is a rarity worth every bit of consideration. Any person that you can relate to on a deep enough level to not only get along with (vastly important on its own) but predict their reactions to events is a beautiful thing among beautiful things.

People are so complex! Even the seemingly simplest person must possess a mind and character complicated enough to stump even the most analytical person. It’s not easy to connect so deeply with a person, but the resulting treasures are absolutely invaluable. And yet even among the most familiar of friends, two people who have shared themselves with one another to the deepest of their abilities, there must be an unimaginable amount of inner thoughts and feelings that can never be truly expressed, and even more so that can never be truly understood. Imagine your own mind—how many thoughts are constantly stirring, how many feelings are welling up inside you at any moment of any day, and consider how few of those thoughts and feelings you have actually shared in their rawest, deepest form with another person. When you assume that any other person your gaze falls upon has just as many thoughts yet to be shared, then surely you will be awed by the enormity of even a single other mind and the bountiful treasures there to be known and shared. And what better measure is there of a life’s fullness than how many people really connect with it, and to what depths they truly understand it? Of how many lives are touched positively by the influence of another? Of how many hopes and dreams are reinforced by the connections with similar peoples’ pursuits and the sharing of mindsets that can mutually assist each other?

But in the end, as much of a difference as it may make upon the cherished people in your life, no amount of understanding and familiarity can truly bring them into your head, into the deepest depths of your mind’s wanderings. They will never know how you truly feel about any single thought you’ve ever shared with them, despite any number of years of faithful friendship, kinship and/or love. They simply can’t, as you simply can’t truly experience theirs. Just as every person lives their life alone, utterly and completely, locked within their own mind’s interpretations of the perpetually unfolding events that made up their existence, at the bitter end of it all every person will die alone with the sum of their experiences. But this is where the beauty lies… it lies in the trust and comfort of your friends and loved ones, because even though you will never experience even a split second of their true mind, you can feel as though you’ve shared many years’ worth of experiences with its unfiltered acceptance. And the difference between the actual mindset and the feeling of having shared the mindset is, although impossible to gauge, all but invisible when you truly love and trust a person. The trust is of utmost importance here, of course, because your trust is what separates the doubts of whether or not you truly know this person as well as can be known about another separate human being and the euphoric feeling of believing that you actually do. And the demonstrable evidence, such as sharing many interests and beliefs, witnessing their reactions to events which support your understanding of them, enjoying similar jokes and stories, connecting with each other’s thoughts, and even just simply enjoying the comfort of each other’s company and lifestyle, go such a long way in developing such a relationship. You can get as close as is reasonably possible.

You are still living your life utterly alone, however, despite any number of the grandest relationships with your fellow humans as can be imagined. Even if every single one of the dozens of close friends you may have knows you so well that they can give you the most perfect gifts, suggest the best movies and music and books, share with you the most enjoyable memories, and finish your sentences for you, they still don’t know your true mind; they will never know the true thoughts in your head. They will never know the true pain you are feeling at any moment, or the true depths of any joy. Nobody will ever know your true feelings about something, whether it’s a restaurant or a song or a movie or another person or even them. It could be that you have actually shared your thoughts as they truly are, but a person just cannot know this to be true, to no fault of theirs. They have to believe that what you have expressed toward them is the accurate portrayal of the true feelings. Right or not, at its core, this is the foundation for all relationships, and rawer sharing brings more opportunities for this connection to achieve the highest possible connection.

It comes down to so much trust, in the end, and so this trust is, of course, pretty much the single most valuable aspect of any sort of relationship. Because it is an unavoidable fact that one will never know for sure, the next best thing is to feel as if it is for sure, and this can only be achieved if one trusts that you really are sharing with them the closest thing to the actual reality of the situation as possible. Have you ever shared an inner thought with someone who refused to believe that it was real? Or maybe you have shared a false thought with someone who did not even hesitate to take it as truth? The more clever and devious people can make quite a living from this extreme of trust and many, if not all, of the people might not ever even suspect any sort of dishonesty. And on the other hand a person might be unfailingly honest in all of their sharing and yet face the constant skepticism of their closest friends. No matter how trustworthy you are, a person has no inherent obligation to trust you and it must come from the complex workings of your relationship with them. This trust should work itself out, given enough time and enough honesty and enough demonstrable experience.

But trust is a wildly complicated thing. In the end, the best that you can really do is be as honest and trustworthy as possible while reaching out to find those people who you’ve realized, to the best of your abilities, are trustworthy themselves, and have the capacity to trust in return. You’ll never know for sure, but you will get an ever-deeper and more intricate understanding of them as a friendship grows, and an effective grasp of the depth of this relationship will hopefully only ever increase. The people in your life whom you hold most dear will understand you, down to your core, ever more accurately and deeply as this trust builds. And the same should be reciprocated. As your lives carry on and your shared experiences grow, so should your relationships and the resulting connections that bind them.

And yet you will still be living utterly alone despite any number of the most perfectly formed relationships. They will help immensely, for sure, but they can never truly fill that void that perpetually separates the depths of your mind with the rest of the world around you. Nothing can bridge that gap that divides the entirety of the physical world, including the trees and the chairs and the streets and the computers and all of the other people within it and all of the other thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams that they hold dear, from the abstract interpretations that your mind utilizes to make sense of it all.

And so you need to be comfortable on your own terms. You need to be able to occupy yourself, and enjoy your own company when you find yourself alone for any length of time. You need to understand yourself. Not in the “normal” sense—because of course you’re you, and of course you spend every single moment of your life within… well, you. And that’s exactly the point, really. You need to understand yourself so fully, so completely and fundamentally that you are entirely familiar with your deepest thought processes, your most intricate decision-making. You should have access to all of the activities which will fulfill your personal desires in all of the times when you are alone with your own self. Whether this constitutes reading books, or playing video games, or listening to music, or taking walks, or surfing the internet, or watching a movie, or writing, or calling/texting friends, or housework, or simply exploring the wanderings of your own mind, or whatever else might the case, it is so fundamentally important to be able to live your life, in the random periods where you, yourself, are your only company, just as fully as if it were being spent with a crowd of fun-loving friends. The specific experiences will differ, of course, because you can’t really enjoy the festivities of a burgeoning social gathering when only you are around, but at the same time, you can’t really enjoy the comfort and satisfaction of a good read while dozens of drunken friends are stumbling around and over you. Knowing and understanding yourself, in all foreseeable (and ideally even the unforeseeable) circumstances, is crucial to always holding within your own grasp the ability to satisfy the demands of your ever-hungry desires.

The same friend who shared the opening quote once told me that confidence is “realizing yourself.” And I’ve also puzzled over this throughout the couple years since it was shared my way. In the end, I don’t think I (or perhaps anyone) could have said it better, or more simply. And how beautiful that is, that such a simple explanation turns out to be the truest and most meaningful of all. To realize yourself, I believe, is to be so utterly comfortable with who you are, with what and whom you enjoy and appreciate in this world, and with what you enjoy thinking about, and with what you enjoy sharing with other people, every one of whom is in the exact same boat as you—cruising along, trying to grasp the meaning to it all while of course experiencing as many shared joys as possible.

The inner workings of life and relationships are so complex because the interests and expectations of people can vary by such a wildly vast degree. This makes truer connections that much more difficult, but that much more rewarding. Because despite all of the possible combinations of beliefs and interests a person can have, to connect with another and intertwine these ideas so finely is perhaps one of the most rewarding endeavors that can possibly be achieved. But a line should be drawn between sharing and conforming—nobody should ever have substantial control over your personal actions. You should do what you want, pursue what you want, see who you want, talk to who you want, hang out with who you want, think what you want, believe what you want, drink what you want, say what you want, play what you want, read what you want, travel where you want, buy what you want, stay up when you want, wake up when you want, watch what you want, dream what you want, and so on (all within reason of course), and any person who has any say in any of these matters should work with you for a respectful, cooperative understanding (because they should respect your history and your fundamental traits!). Anything less screams of mistrust, and therefore eternal conflict, and what else, if not trust, is the general idea in the first place? You can spread your wings together and fly off to whatever heights your mutual efforts can bring.

People tend to reflect on past decisions and say “I don’t know why I did that.” And this suggests a deep problem, because that is precisely the sort of thing that you should want to avoid. You should understand situations, and your own internal struggles, more than well enough to make the properly thought-out decision right then and there, without having to back-track in a confused daze at some point in the future once you realize some overlooked implication. And in those (hopefully) rare occasions when you genuinely didn’t have the resources (time, for example) to really properly analyze, then you should have next to no trouble in realizing, once you DO have the proper time to consider, precisely why you acted in some way. You should be able to reflect on some unfortunate outcome, and on its causes, and think to yourself, well I did that because (insert informed realization here). You should never ultimately not know why, if you truly understand yourself. And if you find that you really don’t, then you have a fresh goal to improve upon. Reflect on what this insight can do to assist your well-being in the future so that you can make the right decisions at the time of reckoning.

I’ve always been intrigued by that oft-repeated phrase, “everybody dies alone.” Many curious thoughts have been exercised in wondering about this, about the many various contexts in which it is used, and what it really means for us. Other peoples’ mindsets will always remain second-hand knowledge to you, at best, and yet at absolutely every last single moment you WILL know what you yourself is thinking and feeling. And that makes the concepts of deep friendships and true loves so overwhelmingly incredible, that you might understand another human being so well as to connect with them at a level deep enough to get along and understand each other beyond the interactions of the vast majority of the people you will ever meet in this world.

And yet every single last one of us, despite any number of everlasting friendships and true loves we’ve made along the way, will die utterly alone. Completely, entirely within our own consciousness, alone with the sum of our vast collections of experiences and thoughts and beliefs and feelings, joys and sorrows, successes and failures—every single last bit. And yet there will probably be many people at your bedside in the final days, at the bitter end of a life long lived, trying their best to enjoy their final moments with you, trying to provide comfort to you, and to themselves, trying to glean the best of the final moments that your physical existence has left in this world.

And still you will die alone.

But not necessarily lonely, which is the essential key. You could have spent the most fantastic, fairy-tale-incarnate life imaginable with a significant other, and raised a houseful of healthy, successful children now living at least as much of a wonderful life, and have a host of diehard friends there to be with you for every last breath that they have the opportunity to witness, and all of them may hold you in the highest possible regard right up to those final moments, and still you will die alone. Alone, but yet in the most wonderful company a person could reasonably hope for. And the incredible thing here, what makes this entire idea so resonant in its beauty, is that you can live an entire life locked within the confines of your own head, forever aware only of what your own senses convey to your mind, understanding only of what your own mind is able to puzzle out of experience, appreciative only of what in your own experience is able to be understood. And yet all of these people want to be by your side, in the end. They will want nothing more than to show you, at the very end of it all, that they truly cared in some way. That they appreciate the life you have shared with them, even if the closest thing they ever experienced to your truest self was the briefest occasional glimpse into the true heart of your consciousness through a deep, honest, compatible relationship over the span of years that you were entitled to enjoy together.

And so, even if you really are entirely alone inside your own mind as the very last vestiges of your life flicker away, you will be able to relish in the joy that you shared such a full, joyous life with so many people who are there with you in the end to provide care, and love and comfort, and to let you know that you are not alone in the physical sense; you have made impacts, you have shared memories, you have divulged thoughts and feelings from deep within yourself and have been the recipient of so many similar thoughts and feelings that others have been more than happy to share with you in return. And I can only imagine that these precious connections, as intangible as they are, are perhaps the most valuable things that can be achieved in this life. As utterly alone as any of us are as we experience this miracle of life, the only real thing that we can ever be sure that we have truly experienced to its fullest, we will bask in the warming light of companionship at the end of it all, and know that we had been basking in its light the whole way all along even if it felt at so many points as if nobody in the world really cared or understood what we were going through at any moment

We are all alone, alone on this perpetual current of life on our individual little rafts, tossed and turned over so many waves and random turbulences, but we have the capacity and the will to meet up with as many other rafts as we can make time and effort for, and share in the incredible experiences that it will never stop sending past us. Being alone does not have to be so lonely if you are willing to cast out your rope and link up with as many other similarly lonely people as you can stand, and enjoy your loneliness together.

Posted by Unknown | at 10:15 PM | 0 comments

By the Sheer Force of My Will

(August 8th, 2011; revised April 1, 2012)



I just want to grab some people and shake them with a perfect blend of vigor, urgency and compassion and say “Listen to me; it doesn't have to be like this. You can have what you want. For that matter, you can know what you want. You can seek it and obtain it. You can establish a plan of action and you can implement this plan. You can make it this way. You can make yourself how you want to be. You can surround yourself with people who appreciate and complement you and bring out such traits ever-further. You can even work together with these people for some of the goals you share. You have more influence than you know!” And because they probably won’t genuinely take this gesture to heart, I wish I could transport some of my will somehow across the space between our minds and help them in the ways that I know they can be helped. If only they would open up the door, or at least unbolt it.

But I have only so much influence on another person by the sheer force of my own will, as powerful as this is. Someone needs only to be willing to pursue similar wavelengths to open potential’s door to infinity—but it takes two… and I am (as everyone is) only one. Yet every time I close my eyes she behaves exactly how I wish she would and we are doing together precisely what I believe we should. I at least have this power. This power can make so much difference within the fantasies of hopes and dreams, but means next to nothing in reality if the other does not reciprocate in some way. And so if I’m sitting out on my back porch, enjoying my own company, then the act of closing my eyes and spreading my mind’s wings brings as much hopeful thought as I could possibly care to allow. And this ability we all have is so truly incredible, and I cherish this ability with every fiber of my being. In imagination you can have absolutely whatever you want. But it doesn’t bring anything tangible, as only another person can. It doesn’t help to actually bring this person forth and willing to share their undivided attention with you. And so again it comes down to the incredible depths of the communications between two people who are each dealing with the wild complexities of their lives and their own minds and pursuits therein. But an overlap of pursuits holds immeasurable potential if only two people can merge their devotions in such a way to hunt it down together. And there is absolutely every possibility for this to be real, the wildest dreams realized, a fairy tale incarnate, even in the most apparently troubling cases. 


But she hesitates… they hesitate, even best friends hesitate, forever hesitating, so often seeming too reluctant to make just that little bit more of a connection which could bridge whatever gaps are keeping each other from enjoying some goal both know the other shares. And so I’ve been left for so long in this awkward position, trying to gauge what’s real among all of these connections I hold so dear and what is only a figment of my own wild imagination. 


I wonder endlessly what is it really that holds a person back from pursuing the most promising of pursuits? Of course there are potentially many, many legitimate reasons for this. But what are these reasons in each specific case? Are they really so severe to just shy away from anything more meaningful than the barest, most shallow sharing? I think in most of these cases they are unnecessarily extreme feelings of reservation, considering all the beauty that is there for the sharing and all the people that have every reason to provide for you (and for themselves) this everlasting connection. I am of course pointing at both romantic interests and friendly interests. Although the former is generally much more dramatic of a case, they really do share almost every sense of this idea. Just as romantic partners need to connect and share their thoughts and their interests and their devotions to each other, so do friends. Interests still need to be shared, devotions still need to be expressed. Their context is different, of course, but don’t let the connections slip away because what you think is a true friendship needs no maintenance.

Not everybody is out to hurt you. In fact, I would argue with anybody that the number of people that are likely out to hurt you is a miniscule fraction of what seems apparent on the surface. And among those people who have really hurt another, surely only a small fraction of them actually set out with the intention to do so. The vast majority of cases are probably unfortunate circumstances, perhaps even fallout resulting from the disasters of the very mindsets I’m trying to disclaim. Despite any number of emotionally abusive experiences somebody might have been through, this in no way speaks for everybody else. It only speaks for those specific cases. And while such an assortment of terrible experiences certainly does need to provide you with some degree of logic, and reason, and an understanding of the factors that played out in this way (most importantly so that you can recognize them sooner next time), they do not condemn every other human being on the face of the planet to inherently behave in the same manner. And this is where attitude, experience, and judge of character most importantly come into play. You want to avoid the oh-so-loathsome jerks as early as possible, of course, but you also need to be able to recognize a genuine, heartfelt interest if it happens to wander by. And so your standards need to be suited to the best combinations that you feel are worth your time pursuing. Caution is extremely important! But the general ratio between reservation and willingness is woefully lopsided in most of the cases I’ve seen.

Richard Marx sings this idea rather beautifully in his song “Loved” when he says “What good is being strong and hiding in some harbor if you and I end up all alone?” Being “strong” is a useful safety mechanism, for sure, but it should not be so extreme that nobody can ever truly get through to you. At another point in the song he sings “The two of us, we’re really children hiding underneath the armor that we wear.” And we are all children, in the sense that we have these base instincts, these ingrained desires to find those true romances and those deepest friendships. And what keeps us from them, so often, is this armor that we all construct over ourselves as we mature, perhaps usually either in response to an emotional tragedy or in anticipation of one. It can be so easy to let this coating of armor get out of hand and ultimately end up keeping everybody at such a distance that they can’t genuinely make a deep connection with you. Then you’ve traded one extreme for the other, because while it’s true that when nobody can get close to you nobody can hurt you so deeply, it’s also true that you will no longer enjoy such rewarding relationships.

It is so frustrating to be, in essence, paying for the mistakes of so many others in the past. This is what it feels like when, time after time, a person ultimately decides against any further pursuit out of the fear of a repeated occurrence from their own history. And I try my best to understand… I truly do, but my understanding can only go so far when I am standing here with my arms and my heart and my mind held so wide open and I’ve advanced as far as I can on my own terms alone. When I am utterly and completely ready to take a risk and take hold of what seems so ready and real and so full to bursting with potential, then it’s all clear as day to me. It’s time to make something more of this highest of possible beauties right here in front of us. But no amount of the most genuine showcases of deeply felt and deeply longed-for emotions and desires that a person is absolutely ready and willing to confide in and with another can truly convince them if they are, in the end, just not willing to give up the time of day. The sheer force of will is only going to ricochet off of a mind completely closed to a new idea. In this case it’s just not enough… and it can never be enough as long as this remains the case. It is a futile endeavor, has always been and will always be, whether or not you realize this is the case. What good is your puny willpower against the awesome might of a powerfully sheltered mind?

I want to cut her chains. I want to set her free from her fears and her constant hesitation. And it’s not just for the end result of romantic companionship… no, I genuinely want to help rid her of this, these fears and reservations and hesitations, even if I am not the object of her wildest dreams come true (as nice as that would be)… because I know that it’s unnecessary, this hesitant mind-set. I know that she’d willingly appreciate more if she willingly believed that such a thing was still possible. I know that this would benefit her at least as much as it would benefit me. And I have my laser chain cutter, right here in my hand, charged up and prepared, all set to go. I am ready and willing to do this. But I have to be able to get close enough to her, for it is only effective at so much range. Willpower alone can do nothing to free her. I need access to her.

When there is a rift between two people, a gaping chasm separating them by some daunting distance, then no amount of sheer willpower—although within one’s mind this is all they need—will close this gap and bring them into each other’s arms. They need to actually act, together, to bridge their interests and desires. One alone is not ever going to be enough to do this; at the very least the other needs only to stand at the bitter edge to accept the final pieces of this bridge and plant them securely into the ground. Even if I am entirely willing to put every last bit of effort into this on my own, I still need that welcoming gesture on the other side. That open invitation is the most crucial piece of all. In the absence of even this small effort the poor person fighting so hard to construct a bridge into the other’s mind is going to fall every single time without a suitable foundation to latch on to.

And I understand (some of) the reservations. I understand that there is a fear of not having found the “right one” whether or not you think you may have found it at the time—because, well, there is always, in all likelihood, going to be someone who comes around eventually who is seemingly (on the surface) “better” than your current “investment”. It’s wildly unrealistic to ever think that you have found the absolute best possible person to share your life with. Although I respect the idea of a “soul mate” as far as the devotion and appreciation invoked are concerned, I do not believe that this concept is actually true—because you will never know! But there is a critical factor to consider here, which is that no matter how promising a passing interest (or even a somewhat-well-known interest) appears to be to you, outside your current devotion, this might all be an illusion. In all likelihood, they appear more “attractive” than they actually will be if you were to run off together for more than a single night. The “game,” in such cases, most of the time, changes drastically once it’s no longer a “game” to those involved—when one or both people want a long-lasting companionship. This is one of the most fundamental necessities, I think, for two people to genuinely appreciate what they share—that, even when another potential interest comes along, the risks of giving up what has proven itself to be a worthwhile and beautiful romantic (or friendly!) connection do not outweigh the risks of dropping it all for the chance of this spontaneous spark. Assuming that a partnership has its share of “good” and “bad,” (more good than bad, hopefully) then the effort put toward reinvigorating this current companionship should be far more advantageous than the effort put toward dropping it and actually successfully developing and maintaining a “better” one based on some random fling and its subsequent rush of emotions.

Personally, I don’t care much about “evolutionary advantage” or any other such nonsense that some (even respectable) proponents like to go on about. I understand the concepts. I understand (though I have disagreements) that a man is “evolutionally advantageous” by “sleeping around” with any number of women—if only because his genes pass on, and (assuming a heartless fling) he is not assumed to be responsible to any major degree. Whether any number of us owe our existence to such a mind-set of the past, we do not live in a foraging society anymore… at least as far as “we” refers to the people that I know and who might ever read this. I think much of the argument is lost on modern society, by the very values which we’ve established as most treasured and sought-after in response to this ever-changing world. Both parties benefit, in the long run (and especially when a family is introduced into the equation, whether in reality or as a mutual desire), by sticking together; through thick and thin, for better or worse. Emotions run rampant all over the place, and I have difficulty imagining that this was ever not the case. But of course I don’t know—I didn’t live in the distant past. I am biased by today’s society, where I feel so strongly that all troubles can be conquered with the right amounts of efforts from all parties involved. And this applies until one party really has lost the majority of this connection for some tragic reason. But, although this really does happen sometimes, one should think long and hard about what this decision entails, if they really do feel like this is truly the case. It very well might be the case, unfortunately, but this should be one of the very last resorts. It is oftentimes one-sided, this decision—and the sheer force of the “victim’s” will is powerless to overturn this decision once the other has already crossed over into hopelessness and abandon.

As the complexities of our minds grow and evolve, so do our depths of feelings and the capacities in which we share and indulge them. Maybe it’s true that monogamy is vastly more suited to women, if only (but not entirely) for their child-bearing responsibilities, but this in no way proscribes gentlemen to behave oppositely—because a woman (and especially a woman and child) benefits immensely by a genuine, trustworthy, dedicated man. And this is what is frustrating more than anything else—that the men least clearly suited to provide this assistance and true commitment are the ones—sometimes—seemingly most sought after. Despite all of my efforts and concentration to understand it, this apparent trend simply baffles me. But because the attraction is perhaps so rooted in evolutionary biology, there is only so much I can do to influence others onto the “right” path and only so much judgment I can place on those who have perhaps very little control over their subconscious drives. Again, willpower on its own does not induce the changes necessary to prove that this total commitment is the “right path” on which to march onward. Nevertheless, it is endlessly frustrating and it doesn’t need to be this way.

She (or anyone else) only needs to step off her throne long enough to open up a door, or a window, or… something. But it’s not going to happen, this time. If it ever might have been a real possibility then that time came and went, at some point I was utterly clueless of. I realize this now. And I realize that I should have realized this long ago. But it took an incredible blow to rattle my senses back to right, and that blow is still resonating in my core.

Because when I’ve raised myself up so high, and have brought this person up with me the whole way, over so long a time period with all this hope and determination and goodwill and the feelings I’ve been solidifying all the while, only to eventually realize that the other person has in reality stayed chained and rooted to the ground the whole time… it’s a truly staggering blow. I am struck by the realization that I carried this person up with me to such incredible, hopeful heights with nothing more than the sheer force of my will—which of course holds no actual power over the harshness of reality. I cannot will another to share this with me when they were never actually even there, no matter how deeply I had convinced myself otherwise. Their presence was only an intense illusion created by the very feelings I felt so deeply and truly believed that they were accepting all along. At this point all that I’ve built up below me, full of my cherished hopes and dreams, cannot withstand the force of the realization of this falseness. The pillar shatters at its foundations, and it all crumbles down, and I am helpless but to fall with the jagged pieces.

Falling is fatal from such height. And I’ve been falling for a while, now; such was the effort that I had invested. The crater I’d make if I fell all the way to the ground would be devastating from all this distance I’ve been tumbling through. It would probably destroy the vast majority of my hope’s potential, and I would perhaps become one of these very people who seem doomed to perpetually hesitate at the sight of potential’s inviting doorway—so obviously entranced by the glimpse of such beauty on the other side but forever unwilling to sacrifice for it, to take anything more than even the smallest forward step. And this frightens me more than almost anything else, because clearly I have such a deep appreciation for the way things should be, for the way that people can relate and embrace each other and each other’s deepest qualities. But that is not going to happen. Although the structure I built up in this pursuit was destroyed, the blueprint still originates within me, and these fundamental beliefs that are the building blocks of a friendly or a romantic interest have not been damaged so much that they are also destroyed. They just need to be retouched a little bit, revised so that I can spot this illusion if it ever creeps up again before I’ve set myself up to fail so crushingly. And so as soon as I reacquire my senses I will stretch out my wings at long last well before I reach the bottom. I’ll make my way back over to some peaceful, inviting, safer waters, where I can remain secure for a time until I feel like I can better judge the true character of the object of the next pursuit. I am ready for this to take as long as is necessary to actually succeed next time. And so for now I just need my very own wings to save me, because at the end of any deep thought process one must realize that this is all they can truly count on.

I am ready to fly. In fact, I can feel these magnificent wings beginning to unfurl at this very moment.

Posted by Unknown | at 1:47 AM | 0 comments

Reweaving the Tattered Threads

(July 23rd, 2011; revised April 4th, 2012)



























Have you, or has someone you’ve witnessed, ever fallen out of touch with a dear friend, whether for obvious ugly reasons or for more subtle, gradual ones? I know I’ve seen this far too many times, personally. Thankfully it has not happened to me on so many occasions, but I can’t really say the same for most people in general. From what I’ve witnessed over the years, I think that so many people are too willing to let go of a connection that should be treasured as nothing else in this world has any right to be treasured. And especially in this day and age, with the advent of all this technological prowess, this needs not ever be the case. There is so much opportunity for communication, and friendly relations with fellow human beings brings so much vast, priceless beauty into our lives like nothing else can, and only the most extreme of unfortunate cases should have even the possibility of the power to sever such incredible connections.

So often people seem obliged to just sit around and proclaim that a certain person will call or text them if they “really cared.” But this attitude is woefully self-righteous, because that other poor person has every right to feel the exact same way. Does either person really have a more justified reason to be so stubborn? In some extreme cases, maybe a person has made a dozen calls or texts or emails or some other method of reaching out that have all gone unanswered—in this case they may have a strong point, if no reasonable attempts have succeeded in getting through. If a person is refusing all attempts at communication, then there’s only so much one can do. But this person could still keep on keeping on, if only because there may be some legitimate reason for the lack of communication. In the most dramatic cases it really might just mean that the other person is simply uninterested in any further communication—unfortunate, but it happens. In such cases the burden of reciprocity really does fall on this other person to make some sort of effort in response. You can only reach out so many times before the very act of doing so becomes such a burden that it begins to reduce your own feelings of connectedness toward nonexistence.

There should be a balance. If you want to converse with someone, you should be able to call, text, or otherwise make contact with them with a reasonably likely chance to be received and responded to. And if not in a reasonable amount of time, for some valid reason, then you should be able to expect a return call, text, email, or whatever other means of communication in the near future. It shouldn’t be a constant one-sided battle, and it shouldn’t boil down to a persistent stubbornness from both sides to be the one to receive the effort at some cryptic time of day. It should be a shared connection. I don’t think there is a more effective, efficient way to retain such a blazingly glorious of worldly appreciation. It takes two to truly effectively converse, and no party should assume the default “advantage.” Ideally, you would initiate contact with your friend just as much as your friend initiates contact with you (all other things being equal) and gender, race, age, circumstance, and the like should not have much of an impact on this ratio.

But yet I’m always hearing complaints from friends that other friends don’t ever contact them. And I usually ask “well, have you tried contacting them?” to which there is, most of the time, some half-justified excuse about having already tried some number of times, without some desired response, and in most cases this person, the self-proclaimed “victim”, is now just sitting around and feeling like they shouldn’t have to be expected to make any more attempts. Fair enough, I suppose, if you really are willing to accept the likelihood that most of the communication is now over—because that is the probable outcome with such an attitude. Your own attitude is likely to be reflected upon the other, and this is one of the many, many situations in which optimism simply trumps all other mindsets.

There are far too many potential factors that may be involved and may be able to explain in completely rational and understandable terms why a person has not been responding as promptly as another person feels they should be. Work, condition of phone or computer, available funds, family life, and random disasters are just a few of the more generic examples. But maybe you know, somehow, that none of these genuine factors are among the underlying reasons for their lack of response. In this case we are back to where we were earlier, where at some point the burden of reciprocity falls on them. And while they might just simply be ignoring you, this is not the most rational and reasonable thing to assume (and I am assuming that your closer friends would not, by definition, behave like this toward you). At this point things rely very heavily on how well you know this person and how they interact with others (with yourself, most importantly). If your judge of character is even slightly effective, then you should have already filtered out such troublesome people. But to be filtered out so early on is a hefty assumption that such a person is so blatantly obvious in their reckless relations with friends; most of the time you probably would not have seen this coming. And so this is an extremely difficult matter to puzzle out. In an ideal world this simply would not ever be the case, but, alas.

There is another similar yet very different problem, in which someone has not lost physical contact with a dear friend but has lost the emotional connection itself. Because there really are some valid reasons for a loss of contact with another—namely one or both moving or any number of significant lifestyle changes which may render the communication practically futile. This is where I categorize most of my own lost communications. Although I’m not proud of any of them, I understand that the factors of life just play out in such a way sometimes. I at least have never been in a fight that drove a friendship away entirely, thank goodness. They are not tied to any feelings of resentment or other harsh realizations. But the crucial idea here is that the communication should still be possible; regardless of the severity of the situation, although something as extreme as a friend moving thousands of miles away AND somehow losing all communicative resources does pretty much cancel all possibilities. Of course at this point it’s literally unavoidable, and so you really have no choice but to move on to those connections that you actually have some control over. This argument is, of course, not about those hopeless cases. If they ever did reach back out to you, as their situation improved, things would rapidly approach normal again.

And so stressed again is the idea that a deep, meaningful connection between two (or more) people is absolutely precious considering the insane complexities of any individual mind and the immeasurable factors of this far-reaching phenomenon of life and the thick, tangled mess of its intertwining vines of influence in and out among the billions and billions of the individuals which comprise it. The ranges of interests and mindsets and thoughts and devotions of the humans inhabiting this world are intense and wildly eccentric and so I find it one of the most incredible luxuries that any set of people can really connect on a level deep enough to truly understand and appreciate each other’s company. Don’t give this up! Don’t let petty disagreements and unbalanced responsibilities tarnish this most powerful and meaningful of pursuits. If you have to make the call four times out of five, so be it. If the other person comes to the same conclusions, and feel like they are making the call four times out of five, then this won’t even be an issue because you’ll both be grabbing hold of the reins of communication whenever a desire is felt and then the only concern that’s left to deal with is when you both try to call each other at the exact same time and only get set back by a busy signal (or straight to voicemail, as land lines lose their relevance).

This conscience entanglement with your fellow humans is perhaps the most valuable commodity on the planet. You can’t get it anywhere else, and its depth is typically in some way proportional to the time and intensity you’ve spent with the person. If you drop everyone from your contacts list who hasn’t independently contacted you within any prior week, or month, then you may soon find yourself without a single long-lasting friend. Obviously there is some filtering going on between those friends that don’t necessarily need to say something on any particular day to remain in your esteem and those friends who will be remorselessly forgotten after some arbitrary period of non-communication—so why the extreme differences? Clearly it’s because of the depth of the connection, and the expectations you have placed on their friendship, but just as clearly this very depth had to come from somewhere in much the same way these failed attempts did. And so it comes down to the details that set some certain connections apart from the rest, and this is where your own judgment truly comes into the equation, for you can set these parameters to whatever reasonable, considerable levels you feel are adequate to suit your desires. But be wary, because any drastic requirements are going to be exaggerated when applied to the real world full to its brim of unimaginably complex interactions among its inhabitants. Expecting more out of some people is only going to increase the likelihood that they will not live up to it. Perhaps it is better to just play it by ear, in a sense. The frequency with which a person contacts you is just the result of a complicated chain of causes and effects which somehow trickle down into their allocation of time and devotion they feel compelled to express toward you. Who is anyone to demand any more than this?

I really don’t feel like there is any situation in which a person should lose all hope in another’s eyes—because everybody has the capacity to better themselves, and not only has this capacity but also the inherent desire to do so. So when presented with the opportunity to reconnect with a distant acquaintance, no matter the extent of the distance, be it mental of physical or some combination of both, you should grant them at the very least the attention necessary to determine whether or not the prior issues have been improved upon. I like to think that in most cases this will indeed be true, but in the worst-case scenarios you will (hopefully) quickly realize whether this really is not the case. And if not, if things really are still so unfavorable, if the deciding factors have not improved in any substantial way, then it should be no difficult feat to simply revert back to the non-communication that existed just before the attempt. But the attempt itself is absolutely worthwhile. The possibility of a reconnection is priceless in the face of nothing at all. And you should be always on lookout for the opportunities to do the same thing—give an old friend a call. Take a browse through your contacts, and you’ll probably find someone you miss communicating with. What’s the harm in giving it a shot? They may be one of those people sitting around wondering why their friends are not taking it upon themselves to put forth some effort. Frustrating as it may be, it could make the difference between a friendship slipping away into distant memory and one rekindled by the simple act of speaking or typing a few friendly, heartfelt words.

I like to reflect upon the lyrics of Richard Marx’s gorgeous song “Better or Worse,” in which he sings “Everywhere I look around, it seems when things break down it’s easier to just throw them away. But a promise left to die can sometimes still surprise, and start breathing in the morning’s lighter day. And the hearts that learn to bend are the only ones who mend when they’re broken.” The song may be intended for a romantic couple, but I like to slightly twist lyrics so that they apply just as well to other similar things. It’s not much of a leap, really. The same fundamental appreciations exist between friends and romances; they just reside within different contexts and priorities. But they apply just as well. He later sings “And I am going to love you, even when it hurts.” because, well, it is going to hurt. This hurt can be used to some soul-searching advantages.

A similar idea is expressed in Don Henley’s beautifully written song “Heart of the Matter” in which he sings “I’ve been trying to get down to the heart of the matter, but everything changes, and my friends seem to scatter but I think it’s about forgiveness… even if you don’t love me anymore.”

And Aaron Lewis sings his heart out in his first solo album’s song titled “Vicious Circles” when he croons “We run in vicious circles until we’re dizzy with disdain, and there’s miles and miles between us, yet we still remain.” Because once you’ve established such a connection, it doesn’t matter where in the world you move to, or what you do, or how much time passes between communications—your memory has recorded the companionship, and your lifestyle has been affected in some way so that the potential will always remain. Nothing but your own stubbornness or unwillingness will keep this from you, provided the other party returns the efforts in even the smallest imaginable fashion.

These masters of poetic thoughts have captured the essence of this idea, that there are incredibly valuable factors running much, much deeper than one’s desire to be the center of attention in a relationship. Problems should be considered, addressed, and mutually sought after for correction. Trials effectively dealt with will help to weave the threads ever more powerfully. If some friends have wronged you in some way, as long as it has not been so profoundly horrible as to cause you to curse their name for all time, then forgiveness is always a viable option. It’s okay to hurt over somebody. It’s okay to miss their face, their laughter, and their joking mannerisms. It’s okay to long for the time when it seemed as if hardly anything was ever on their mind but to find out where you were and what you were doing, and to offer their company or invite you to theirs. These are positive hurts, because it reminds you of how much another person ever meant to you. And just imagine how many people might be feeling the same way about you.

If you are clutching the tattered threads of a dear friendship in your hands, realizing the damage that has been done before it’s too late, then before the connection is severed completely you have every reason and every opportunity to reweave the fragile, precious strands into an even more powerful bond. Do this carefully, and do it together, and the strengths of this connection have every right to be more deeply entwined and as stable as possible. Sometimes all it takes is a humble acceptance of a shortcoming on your own part (and perhaps also their humble acceptance of a shortcoming on their part), and the stage is set for the possibility of a revival of a truly personalized partnership unlike anything you can find anywhere else. The uniqueness of each individual means that every single such connection is remarkably valuable in its own right, and cannot be substituted in any other way. Each one is unimaginably precious and should only be discounted entirely under the most extreme unfortunate circumstances when nothing within reason can be done by either party.

I think that the nature of these connections—which require so much effort from all sides involved—simultaneously makes them extremely difficult to establish and maintain but by the very same nature they are luxuries far more valuable than any worldly possession you can ever get your hands on. So don’t let them go so easily. Fight to keep at least some strand of friendship between yourself and anybody whose companionship you have ever appreciated. You will never find the same connections again, but you can build up throughout your time on the Earth as many intertwining threads as you are willing to keep hold of and weave as intricate and as powerful a rope as you are willing to put effort into. This rope, signifying so many relations you hold so dear with our fellow members of humanity, will always be there to hold on to, to grasp when life takes one of its unfortunate turns, there to help you right yourself and appreciate the things that truly matter because they truly care about you. And your life will be demonstrably fuller and more meaningful and more rewarding because of your efforts, and by these efforts so many countless other lives will be just as demonstrably fuller and more meaningful as well. Because, of course, just as you will benefit from their devotions, so will each of these recipients benefit in kind, because of you and your efforts, and the incredible sum of joys and sorrows and memories that are yours to share together if you would only work together to reweave the tattered threads of a once-flourishing bond of friendship.

Posted by Unknown | at 5:57 PM | 1 comments

The Sea of Uncertainty

(Originally written on December 30, 2010)



There are, to put it lightly, unfathomable depths in each individual person's mind. A staggering complexity, shaped by an utterly unique set of experiences, that can only ever be glimpsed, from the outside, in pieces. Desires and motives that can never be fully comprehended. Emotions that will never be truly revealed or accurately understood. And each one is entirely subject to interpretations by each other. How can you ever really know if you've read something right? If you've displayed something right?

Take about seven billion of these, intertwine them in unimaginably complicated tangles, and you have an extremely vague model of the sum of the world's consciousness.  It's like a thick, sticky sea of uncertainty we're all flailing around in.

I think it's fascinating, the endless possibilities that exist among even a handful of people. And I find it SO incredible that any two people can get along on a deep level. I think this is one of the most fundamental and meaningful endeavors for us all: pursuing these relationships, and always expanding on them. If you can pass those boundaries that divide the good acquaintances from the wonderful friendships, then you're definitely onto something--one of the most rewarding things you can possibly have.

But so many people have built their walls with so much resistance. To some degree, sure, this is crucial. You don't want the wrong people mucking about inside your walls, breaking all your stuff. If you develop your standards, and stick to them, then the filtering process shouldn't be too difficult. Put some sensors, coded to your standards, outside the door. The ones who get through should be that much more worthwhile and genuine. And then you can share with them, open the deeper doors even further. Explore each others' minds. There is an unquenchable desire to explore. For me, at least, and I can only imagine that this is the norm. Everyone's mind is a treasure trove of mysteries and treasures to share with those who can appreciate them. It's all so interesting, what's inside someone's head. What occupies their thoughts, what interests them, what motivates them, what thrills them, what piques their curiosity? These are some of the things I love and long to share more fully, with anyone and everyone who will have it and give it.

But sometimes it's so hard to be granted access. For whatever reasons, some people have reinforced themselves so much that they can't even get out themselves. The right balance can be so hard to find, but I think it is pretty obvious when you know someone who has. Something profound clicks, and the treasures just start flowing effortlessly.

I try very hard to leave the doors open. Unlocked, at least. Rather than shut, lock, bolt and block them, I want to mount sensors around the entire perimeter. Laser-equipped, motive-sensing, character-judging sensors. This way any deceptions and unfavorable intentions will be seen and alerted to me long before the door is reached. Have them activate an impenetrable force field, so that the genuine people can still come and go. Put a spotlight on the evildoers, so they can't fool anyone else on the way in. This would be ideal, having a system so self-sufficient it can just operate in the background without constant intervention. If everyone developed this for themselves, I can't help but think that the general, day-to-day connections between anyone and everyone would be so much more efficient, rewarding, and understandable. I think it's important to not block the doors. You'll never know what/who you're missing out on. Just be careful…

I do sometimes worry that my own standards are too strict, but I've tried hard to work on that. I'm trying to be always reasonable and open-minded, and am always searching for the same.

Of course there are still some bugs to work out. Sometimes something still slips through some unseen, unprotected crack, and then it's like a virus… plaguing me with false hopes and doubts and confusion. When the level of trust is not equal… mutual… there is chaos. And you have to find a way to kick it out and fix that crack. Find out what went wrong, what slipped through the sensors, and hope that it doesn't happen again. Recalibrate the system. Improve it.

But sometimes, on those exceedingly rare occasions, someone wanders in who can provide a truly wonderful gem of a relationship. And for these, every bit of trouble along the way suddenly becomes worthwhile. All the struggles of weeding through all of the rest pay off, even shine light on those gems, those wonderful friendships. They'll shine so much more beautifully this way, maybe even illuminate things that you'd never have noticed otherwise. Even the deepest abyss, if they'll venture down there with you. Make use of their goodness, with your own goodness!

The bulk of trouble is in the filtering process, and in the effectiveness of not being fooled by false goodness. And the trouble with not being fooled by false goodness is at least partly in our understanding of ourselves. Exploring the depths of your own mind is just as vital and rewarding (at least!) as the depths of others. There are certainly depths of our own minds that we do not fully realize. The deeper, darker, better-forgotten parts. Those things you shoved away because you could never quite rationalize them into the bigger, brighter picture. It can be a scary place down there, and you can only explore for so long before the weight of all that is above you grows unbearably crushing. So you come back up, but those murky, shrouded depths never quite lose their curious pull. I think it's important to always bring something back with you. And never stop perfecting the defenses. And explore carefully. But never stop! And when you travel down those depths, bring some more light with you. The depths need not be so frightening!

XD

Posted by Unknown | at 5:08 PM | 0 comments

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