Bone Deep

Last time I wrote,  Lil Nas X and I talked about the crowd’s seemingly perpetual need to weigh the world according to its particular view. The point was that different is not necessarily synonymous with wrong or bad.

He hears, “I like this, I don’t like that, do this here, don’t do that” in relation to his music production.   My life path includes discovering that I soaked up the crowd’s words so deeply that it has been an effort to even have any clarity for what I like and don’t like.  Strangely, from this, I developed an ability to fit in anywhere, yet I carried a feeling of not belonging. This led me to some unhealthy, “I-don’t-actually-like-it-here” places.

Today is the flip side of that thinking, which is that we have much in common on an emotional level underlying all the particular likes and dislikes which separate us.  Author, speaker, and educator Alain de Botton has built an international school teaching emotional intelligence.  He says, “It’s deeply poignant that we should expend so much effort on trying to look strong before the world when, all the while, it’s really only ever the revelation of the somewhat embarrassing, sad, melancholy, and anxious bits of us that renders us endearing to others and transforms strangers into friends.”  (The School of Life: An Emotional Education).

Whether or not you agree with Botton, the urge to “make an effort to look strong,” most assuredly precludes connection, based on the hidden thing that is taking that effort.  He is saying that it is the things we hide which actually make us alike and able to bond.  But if they are hidden they can’t be seen and if they can’t be seen they can’t be known to others. In other words,  one cannot be known if one cannot be seen and one cannot be seen if one hides.

Oh, I get that it would be impossible to reveal all of our feelings or concerns all the time to all people, indeed, no one needs that.  Also, being kind and polite and considerate instead of losing our shit in front of others is a wonderful value as a general rule.  But what if we had  a bone-deep understanding that belonging to the human race means belonging to a set of anxious, cranky, whiny, cringy, cynical, emotional, insecure kooky gits.  Incompetent, annoying, etcetera. . . we are essentially composed of flaws, coping methods and a variety of gross liquids, gasses and solids. Would that help us to stop hiding?

What if, when that thing hits, the fear or confusion or weakness that we hide in an effort to look strong, we really understood as something common to all humans. I’m thinking it can be liberating.  To operate with an awareness that there is most likely not a single negative thing that we can think that hasn’t been thought before.  I’m speaking of accepting the reality here, not accepting ill treatment which springs from the realities.

Kierkegaard said, “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” I wonder if our urge to hide comes from some mistaken notion that life is actually a test  and to pass we have to ignore or deny quite a bit of the reality we experience.  Like there is an alarm bell that goes off inside after being cringe (adults without kids won’t get that phrase), “warning, warning, life point average heading to D.”

Also, what if all that emotional energy spent hiding could be put to use striking a balance between sharing and accepting normal human goofiness and developing our better natures in the bargain.  Because humans are also loving, gracious, interesting, intelligent and merciful, just not all the time.  Personal acceptance  of our individual perceptions could help us offer the same to others. I am reminded of the bestselling author Kabril Gibran’s poem “Faces,” which ends with “I look through the fabric my own eye weaves, and behold the reality beneath.”

Recently, my 18 year old son shared some of his writing with me that exposes the reality beneath his face.  He has given me permission to share it here:

I don’t have any answers, and nobody else has any questions.
I’m in a cycle of survival.

Nobody said thriving was easy, and shit that makes me sick  and queasy.

I can barely handle daily tasks, how am I supposed to deal with all the other shit the world asks.

I wanna go back to climbing trees and thinking the scariest thing in the world was little yellow bees.

Can I go back to believing that angels are protecting  and preachers don’t wish death to me.

I wanna feel the breeze on my face without worrying that I’m not enough of an ace.

For one I need to feel like I won’t fade away the second people decide to give me a third glance.

I’m so tired. My body is a temple but my brain feels like a palace that’s on fire.

My mom and dad try their best but I wish they could just take a break from me and get some goddamn rest.

I get lots of love and respect from my friends, but I feel like it’ll go away once they realize I’m not all that they expect.

It’s pretty dark in my head, the lights are dim lately, but at least I’m not dead.

I wish I said that last part because I believe it’s actually a good thing. Why can’t I love like an adjustable light switch? Turn it down, turn it up, if it’s too much you can just ditch.

Instead it’s all or nothing, I can forget you in a day or you’ll live rent free in my head and in the end all I’ll feel is regret.

Bryson Frankfort

On one hand, hearing about another’s gooey insides can be scary and painful, but for me, I have not a single worry about this kid.  Writers the world over bleed their ink, and this kid is aware of his inner world at such a young age.  I believe he also knows the faces he sees aren’t just the words they have spoken or the things they have said in the current moment.  They have worlds inside. I would find it hard to believe that anyone hasn’t felt some of these things in their lives at some point.  Cannot hard days be lightened a little if we know we are not alone?   Makes “trying to look strong,” seem like a waste of energy after all.