Something happened recently which caused some concern over whether I have the propensity for brutality. LJ assured me I'm not brutal in a malicious way, just that I'm not satisfied with veneers. I want to know what's really there, what's beneath, so I apply pressure; I give people a little squeeze and watch what comes out. Like tubes of paint. Some are yellow on the inside, some green, others you could wring until you're blue in the face and still, nothing.
The tube metaphor is over-simplified but, right or wrong, I've noticed I can be judgmental of the ones that seem to come up empty. The colorless ones. The holes. Perhaps there's nothing wrong with being empty. It may, in fact, be part of the natural order of things, of decay. But I've had a different experience of humanity and can tell you without hesitation that most people don't have a clue what or who they are - how valuable, how utterly irreplaceable, how color-full - and I can't help but feel this a terrible waste. It's a fucking tragedy.
I suspect some readers might balk at my description of the empty ones and my assertion that a lot of folks (not you, of course) are ignorant of some very basic things. Who the hell am I? How can I tell? Holes are often obvious. The incredible lengths people go to to cover up what they view as their deficiencies make them so. These deficiencies, real and imagined, are like landfills where people dump all kinds of shit: their shit, other people's shit, but mostly bullshit. It can be smelled for miles away in any direction.
People who are full of shit can be annoying, but there are few things I have less patience for than people who pretend or presume to have experienced something pure or sacred when truly they have not. This is evident in those of us who label ourselves artists and poets when we have nothing to say (having been present so infrequently as to be unable to bear witness even to our own lives) and no craft with which to say it other than what we graft or imitate from others (which is no craft at all, but mimicry. And toddlers do this with more zeal and accuracy than most adults).
I include myself in this category. I have, at various points in my life, considered myself a musician when I was and am not. I may not even be a poet. But I do aspire to poetry. And to music. And to honoring those whose contributions to these arts have been real - even if the only honorable contribution I can make is silence.
5 comments:
Thank you very much, Erin!
(Ivan from Russia)
Thank you very much Ivan. :)
I loved reading much of your poetry, thank you for making it public. I want to make a critical comment:
"blood from a stone"
"I want to know what's really there, what's beneath, so I apply pressure; I give people a little squeeze and watch what comes out. Like tubes of paint. Some are yellow on the inside, some green, others you could wring until you're blue in the face and still, nothing."
This sounds like a stubborn, impatient and judgmental approach to discovering something about another. Anyone will reveal truth under the right conditions. And those conditions require love and artfulness on the part of those who would know something about another.
If you point a gun and tell someone to sing it'll sound fake and worthy of contempt. Most of us have a psychic gun at our heads. The moment we're afraid we sing when we want to cry or laugh when we want to yell or dictate a resume when we'd rather be hugged.
There's a dark beauty and truth in this gigantic charade that one can find, I think. Navigating out of these waters is a task for a life, and an adventure. I don't like the tube squeezing metaphor nor the notion that some are bloodless.
Josh, first of all thank you for your thoughtful commentary. You're most welcome to share your thoughts here.
I agree with your description of intimacy. All in all I've found that the easiest way to allow others to be themselves with me is to simply be myself. But, like I said, I have a tendency to squeeze. This is why I characterized my actions as being worthy of possible reproach - for brutality.
And I'm not sure about the bloodless. You're entitled to your opinion, but I've met enough vampires at 30 to feel confident that no matter how I allow these types to "open up" I won't find other than more vampiricism. This is often evident at the get-go. You may disagree but I've found people to often reveal themselves in moments (what is time anyway than a collection of moments/choices?). Am I qualified to judge? Is my perception clear enough? Not all the time, but sometimes. Should I care about why they're acting that way? Do they deserve compassion? A second chance? Sure. Am I going to wait for them to come around or waste a lot of energy reaching out to them or worse, trying to change them? Hell no. Am I judgmental and discriminating for this? Yes. At least I'm being honest. Everyone makes choices, consciously or unconsciously, about who they choose to give themselves and their entirely precious time to. This person, yes - that person, no. Are they equally worthy? And I can't find anything wrong with protecting your own life-blood from those who would try to suck it (nature hates a void). It's your right, being alive.
Ok, I think I see what you're saying. What people do we choose. I think you're totally right to avoid the vampires, the narcissists, the addicts, et cetera. I've learned to avoid them too unless they've got their eyes open and they're working on it. I'd like to know everyone, though, and be emotionally invincible.
I think tragedy is an aspect of choice, whether it's the choice of partner to come to know or friend to invest in or discipline to pursue. Because by choosing we bury other possibilities, as you seem to suggest. I've noticed there's a touch of grieving that comes with every choice I make.
Also, the future is so foggy, and easily a mirror for our own imagination, but we have to look into it to choose, and what a whimsical and ghost ridden basis on which to exclude the possibility of whole worlds of experience forever.
It's interesting what you say about moments but I think people reveal themselves in the course of their lives. There's the 50 year old alcoholic who abused her kids and then finds redemption helping teenagers get sober, the Vietnam vet who killed babies and then organizes the peace movement, the murderer who personifies sainthood after ten years of prison. And then there is the person who spent a life in low grade petty jealousies but also happy friendships and helpful work and never left her less than exciting marriage.
I'm less interested in her. If I could know everyone intimately for every moment of their lives I'd be most interested in the bloodless stones in the moments when they are still or might always be bloodless. I want the heaviest stones, the most disgusting, because for me, whether they'll sink or sleep forever, they personify the question of redemption, which is for me a general question I have about how we live as a species.
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