Thought That Came Unbidden

I’ve been thinking a lot about transgressions lately. Injury and violation can come directly to you in many forms both tangible and undeniable – everything from the mashed foot to the bruised arm to the black eye – and subjective and dismissible – hurt feelings, shame from public humiliation, recriminations for having trusted and found that trust misplaced.

Injuries, too, can come in the form of suffering brought on by actions directed at or taken out on someone you care about; the parents of a murder victim, while still alive, suffer greatly and have genuinely been injured as a result of their child’s death.

The subjective injures just as surely as the tangible.  Many a thinker propounds the view that you are as you feel (or think (and the universe save me from readers of The Secret)) so if you feel injured, put upon, used, abused, or betrayed unless your expectations of your own greatness and entitlement are completely out of whack mostly likely you have been done wrong.  And very often it took you by surprise.  Or, more likely, you knew it was coming but you just didn’t want to acknowledge it; the “pretend it isn’t there and it’ll go away” school of coping that causes so many women of a certain age to say things like “cancer” and “gay” in that stage whispery tone that attracts more attention than it deflects.

And we remember these things, these injuries and betrayals. We hang on to them against all reason and purpose, and often long after, most likely, the person who did us injury has long forgotten not only about doing the injury but about us at all. A lot of times we hold on to these lists of grievances like treasures, taking them out of our figurative pocket and looking at the much creased paper on which they are written in a vain attempt to figure out why these injurious actions, which have not changed, were committed against us in the first place. What is it about us that made this person do that thing? Are we deficient in some way? Did we do something we shouldn’t have? Fail to do something we should? Did we bring this on ourselves? Why us? The litany of questions goes on and on but this is the one at its base: why us? What we fail to realize is that much of the time these injuries, these abuses, have absolutely nothing to do with us personally.

Many times an action that cuts you to the quick, one that slices flesh away from bone, that bruises in a way that lasts, physically or emotionally, happens simply because you were in the way of the actor.

I could not guess at what percentage, high 90s perhaps, of the interpersonal physical violence that occurs on our little blue marble happens simply because someone with more power, daring, or rage decides he wants what you have. The thing of it is that in his scenario You don’t really exist. You are not Jane or Emma or Bob; you are fulfilling a role. That role is prey. Victim. Hapless innocent in the wrong place at the wrong time paying not enough attention to the sweaty guy in the corner and hey maybe isn’t it a little hot in July for a hooded sweat shirt and long pants? Mr. Sweaty Predator Guy doesn’t give a flying shit that you had a bad day, or your car is broken down, or that your toddler smiled and said her first word today. He doesn’t know anything about you as You. He sees you, much of the time, as “you as someone possessing what I want.”

In much the same way that the mugger, car thief, or rapist doesn’t see you as You neither does the asshat who rams your knee with his briefcase and doesn’t even look back to apologize. Your humanity doesn’t exist for him because he is so totally focused on his own needs, his own wants, and his own world that you just aren’t there.

Emotional transgressions are no different. Someone does something, makes a decision, refuses to make a decision, says something, reveals a secret not through malice but because it serves some internal need and, most likely, this person never even gave a thought to what effect it would have on you. She’s met her need and moves on often not even looking back to see you standing there, shattered, your dignity and self confidence in shreds.

And even though you hurt, even though you feel dead and dry and cynical and like you’ll never trust anyone, least of all yourself, again the reality is that same percentage applies; that much of the time the effects of someone’s actions are secondary to getting their own needs met and that it could have been anyone standing on the X on which you now find yourself.

What makes a difference in those subjective, dismissible, emotionally interpretable situations is not the other person’s actions, intent, nor, as I used to believe, even the effects of those actions. No, what makes the difference in those situations is your investment. As Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

What is most difficult to reconcile is the other single digit percentage of the times when someone has done you wrong; those times when you’ve told someone exactly what it would do to you if they pursued a certain course of action and they go ahead and do it any way. Can you blame someone for putting her own interests before yours? Most certainly not. Enlightened self-interest is the key to survival.

That doesn’t mean you have to like it, though.

So the next time someone says “It’s not about you. It’s about me.” best believe them. Because no, it isn’t about you. Most of the time even when it appears to be about you it really is all about them.

I picked up a book, one I’ve had for a while but have never finished, off a shelf at home a couple of weeks ago. It’s a dense book, non fiction, that includes a lot of ideas that take a bit of processing. Physically this book isn’t easy to read either: the type face is an older style and one that I don’t find very friendly in a size that makes me believe that finally I’ve reached that point in my life where my arms are starting to be too short.

But I’ve been working my way through this book starting from the beginning because I know only vaguely what is in the first couple of chapters. I turned a page today and startled myself. There scrawled in the margin in pencil was a note that I’d made at least a dozen years ago the last time I tried to read this book.

My handwriting hasn’t changed much, and neither have my thought processes as I was having the very same thought reading this page now that I’d jotted in the margin previously.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately how time and experience change us. Probably it’s part of that whole figuring out if I’m going to the reunion thing.  More, though, I think I’m trying to figure out if it’s possible to learn from my mistakes in my life time.   It’s corrollary to the “I’d like to be old when I die” school of thought:  I’d like to find out along the way instead of having all the answers at the end of the game when they do me no good.

Random thoughts on a barometer-funky Thursday.

It’s Mother’s Day and that sort of pisses me off. Not just because I think that being a good mother is an incredibly hard and terribly underappreciated job and that if yours did right by you then it’s only courteous to show her your appreciation in ways both subtle and obvious and unconfined to a day created, managed, and largely promulgated by the greeting card, flower, and candy industries or that if yours did wrong by you then going through the motions and getting dressed up for an expensive brunch during which you hold your tongue and give yourself an ulcer all for the sake of conforming to some bullshit 1950s Ozzy and Harriet vision of the American family that never really existed anyway is kinda dumb. No, Mother’s Day pisses me off because it is the perfect chance to point out a subtle yet pervasive way in which American culture is totally fucked up.

It could very easily be said that American culture is phallocentric. One need only point toward the number of corporations headed by women (mighty few) or the wage disparity faced by college graduates upon entering the work force (hint: women are still making about $.76 for every $1 that their equally wet behind the ears and inexperienced in the work force male counter parts are making).

A case could also be easily made to say that American culture is heterocentric. What other explanation could there be for the fact that a gay or lesbian person has to go to a lawyer and spend hundreds of dollars to have his or her wishes set out in a set of documents that might very well be ignored by the State anyway simply to procure the same rights that some drunk off their asses straight people can get by wandering into any one of the hundreds of all-night wedding chapels in Las Vegas and slurring a few “I dos” in front of witnesses who get paid by the ceremony? If you can think of one please, let me know.

What everyone seems to ignore on both Mother’s and Father’s day is this: America is parentcentric.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe whole heartedly that it is an inalienable human right to reproduce. No one should be told they can’t have children because of the color of their skin, their religion, their economic or social class, their sexual orientation, where they were born, their marital status, their IQ, or any of the other reasons why The Powers That Be have throughout history attempted to or successfully denied reproductive rights. But having children is a choice not a biological inevitability.

Whether you biologically reproduce or you choose to adopt and raise someone else’s offspring, being a parent is a choice you make. You take on the responsibility, theoretically, of your own free will. Granted, there is enormous societal pressure to become a parent but the last time I checked there were no laws (religious prohibitions against birth control aside) requiring any person to do so.

So why is it then that corporate America is allowed to discriminate against people who choose not to become parents?

Mother’s Day, and sometimes Father’s Day, brings a slew of articles about companies and their parental (not maternity, thank you; we now give fathers time off too) leave policies. Today’s Washington Post did an interesting piece on adoption policies and how many companies are now treating the adoption of a child in the same way they treat an employee’s biological reproduction when it comes to time off. One fairly large company gives its employees four weeks of paid leave, in addition to the employee’s accrued vacation and sick leave and any leave without pay available under the Family and Medical Leave Act, so that parents can “bond” with their adopted child. Another offers three months of leave, six weeks of which are paid, plus monetary compensation based on some actuarial table of what it costs to deliver a biological child.

So someone tell me when the fuck do I get my six weeks of paid time away from work for making an optional life choice?

Can I get my six weeks because I need to “bond” with my adopted shelter dog? Maybe I could have that six weeks to concentrate on perfecting the query letters for the novel I just finished? What about if I decide that I want to take that time to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity? How about because I’ve decided that I need to spend some time “bonding” with myself while destressing on a beach in Bora Bora?

What Mother’s Day and Father’s Day really make me wonder, though, is what would happen if all the people who have chosen not to be parents simply stopped putting up with this bullshit and demanded the right to leave early because they have to spend time with the pet (you try getting a dog into cleats and a batting helmet; the little league game excuse only goes so far) or if we refused to be imposed upon because we’ve got a hot date with a book of erotica and a bottle of wine, two things which can be just as important as the families our colleagues with kids scoot home to on time, waiting for us and we’re oh so sorry but no, we really can’t work late…again.

Being a good parent isn’t easy. It’s your job to make sure that not only does the kid physically survive but that she gets educated, grows up with decent morals, and is set on a path to becoming a responsible, thoughtful, contributing member of the our now global society. No two ways about it: it’s a damn hard thing to do. But in the end, it’s still a choice and every choice has consequences. Isn’t it time that figuring out how to incorporate the kid into your life on your own time be factored in as one of them?

This article cross posted to Amphetameme

I’d say that normally I’m not a complete bitch about the little things except that would be wrong: I am a complete bitch about some little things.

I have no idea why language matters so much to me or why I’m so fascinated by it, but it bothers me when people who should know better misuse and abuse the language in even the smallest way.

Take, for example, this lovely paragraph from The New York Times’ story on the fire in Griffith Park in Los Angeles:

Rich Keller, a 14-year resident of Shannon Road, the only street still under evacuation orders, said he was anxious to return home. He watched Tuesday afternoon as the fire seemed to die down and then flared up, forcing he and his wife to flee. This morning, he watched as the smoke died down and helicopters and planes swirled overhead, dumping water and fire retardant.

“Wildfire Rages in Park in Los Angeles”, By Randal Archibald, Published: May 9, 2007, The New York Times

Now…raise your hand if you can tell me what’s wrong with this excerpt. I’ll wait. And while I’m waiting I’ll contemplate poor Mr. Keller and how the fire forced he to flee.

Yes, our command of the language has become so poor that something as basic as this appears in the Newspaper of Record (at least, I’m sure that’s how the folks at the NYT think of themselves).

Go visit the article if only to see the picture of the fire turning the clouds of smoke behind a lighted Griffith Observatory deep orange. Sometimes the most brutal things are also the most beautiful.