January 22nd, 2007

The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. -Dorothy Nevill (history, travel and memoir writer)

Um ... yeah, well, I guess I'm not much of a conversational artist, then. I mean, I know what to say and what not to say (and when), but I don't exercise the ability much.

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I want to talk about stupid.

I know stupid. I've been stupid often. I see stupid in just about everyone else at one time or another.

I mean to say, we are all stupid now and then, but the stupid that I show is the stupid that I am most familiar with. Sometimes I don't just accept the stupid, I learn it and live it. I welcome stupid into my heart and let it be me, let me be it.

(I can be really really smart, too, but that is beyond the scope of today's rant.)

I keep returning to this theme, so it must be a common human trait (I was about to write "failure" but if everyone does it, it is just a description of the way we are ... not a condemnation.) OK, so let's get this started:

Have you ever been with someone else and noticed some little dynamic between you two that kind of stung or made you antsy? I don't mean you or they did something wrong or one of you said something inappropriate, I just mean that some little interpersonal dynamic that would otherwise be harmless somehow pickled your peppers. You know, just a sudden reminder that you and this other person are not identical?

Sure you have. So have I. So has everyone else. So what do you do? Do you think to yourself, "Hmm ... oh well, never mind" and then try to bury it and forget it like it never happened?

Sure you do. So do I. So does everyone else. And THAT IS STUPID. Normal Newtonian laws of physics apply here: When you sweep stuff under the carpet, it just piles up. Same with those little irritants and quirks. Emotional stings don't go away all by themselves.

But if you think that maybe you can get away with ignoring your tinges of anxiety or uneasiness, there are two ways it can go:

So does this mean we should bark and "lay down the law" every time we come across something that gets under our skin? Should we stop everything we are doing at that particular moment to protest that the little interpersonal situation that has arisen is not acceptable to us, and we need to rectify the situation?

Absolutely not. Every time some little thing happens, we shouldn't stop and burden others with it, but we also shouldn't bury it. So does it sound like we're stuck? If we can't bury it, but can't mention it ... what do we do?

:-)The Answer:-)

Self-reflection, grasshopper. Stop and actually THINK: Why does this hurt? Why does this bother me? And I'll tell you another little secret that I also have trouble remembering: You don't actually need to involve the person you are with in the self-reflection. Do it quietly ... secretly, even. I mean, do YOU really want to listen to your buddy Al at the hockey game as he tells you about his personal mommy issues and how that has made him a suspicious jealous man in his 40s?

But that act of seeking an answer to the anxiety: Looking inside yourself for what ails you is instructive, just as long as you remember some basic facts about it:

Example

OK, my thoughts turn to my friend Sean (yes, despite all I do to him, he still remains my friend): I once sat watching TV with him and he plunked himself down eating ice cream out of a glass. I didn't say anything at the time, but it irked me. Really got under my skin. Scraped my skin, scorched my scalp, uh ... scrambled my scapula. But I shuffled it off to some far corner of my mind and ignored it.

But it came back with a vengeance some other time when I was pissed off at him about some other thing that I had ignored until it became a crisis, and I told him that it was stupid and disgusting, and Just Plain Wrong to be eating ice cream out of a glass. And what was his frigging problem anyhow?

Let's take this forward a decade or so: There was nothing wrong with his eating ice cream from a glass. If I had stopped to think about it, I would have realized that it bothered me because it would have led to some serious admonishment from my mother if I had done it when I was growing up. It pissed me off because, basically, he "was allowed to" and I "wasn't allowed to". Stupid. And if I had come to that realization, I probably would have gone and got a glass of ice cream myself. But instead I let it simmer into more fodder for an explosion.

* * *

OK, that's enough for today; I could go on with this, I suppose, but I believe my point has been made. It's not like I haven't said something similar before ... but maybe if I keep proselytizing enough about it to others, I'll get it myself some day.

God knows, it's not like I don't need it!

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