Three Features of My Own Full Humanity.
“The power to resist someone else’s narrative for your life is all that really matters… May we tell a story that reflects the full spectrum of our humanity.” – Courtney Martin
I don’t really even know what you mean by ‘my humanity’, but I do know that if you ask for three I must give you six; under the light of revelation, any feature of my humanity will have a shadow lurking behind it.
Reading is an indulgence I partake of regularly and with relish; a favorite story is Shibumi, by Trevanian. One of its central themes is the cognitive dissonance that thrums within all humanity: we are both good and bad at the same time. Our actions have both positive and negative consequences. Addressing this dichotomy Jesus wondered “Can both bitter and sweet water flow from the same spring?” Our internal response is, of course, NO, and we strive to be the sweet water without ever considering the impossibility of our task or even if we’re the spring he’s talking about. The history of humankind is a story of our denial of this elemental truth and our repeated shock when we gag on bitter from a source we thought sweet. My humanity follows this same tired narrative.
1.) I am kind. My wanderings and interactions and readings have led me to believe that nothing else is worth my energy but a philosophy of kindness; it’s what I would want on my epitaph if I wasn't having my ashes poured into Goose Creek where it riffles and dances over the shallows below the trout pond at Lost Valley Ranch. I work in healthcare for the purpose of being paid for my kindness. The shadow behind my warm solicitations is my fear of conflict; my energetic kindness is a passive-aggressive defense against selfishness – both the naked, unashamed selfishness in the seething masses surrounding me and my own, hidden navel-gazing. Projecting this false-self spreads me thin; it’s an un-natural act that, when I’m alone, leaves me exhausted and withdrawn. I am kind – and very, very selfish.
2.) I am strong. Physically and mentally, if I set myself against an obstacle, it will move. The key phrase here is “…if I set myself….” As I age, I find I do not sell my energies cheaply; I am quite choosy where I apply my force. It has also become easy to be too picky, not engaging in anything beyond what’s required. I casually fend off the flotsam of a disengaged life, never setting myself to a great task. What haunts me is the paralyzing fear of failure: I don’t know if I could bear to select a cause, focus my intensity on it with ear-ringing effort, only to lie panting against its fixed position or worse, prostrate from a ruptured aneurysm. This is not strength - this is fear of weakness; this is arm-flailing, eye-gouging, mad-shrieking survival instinct from a fear that’s “like water in my bones.” I’m wasting my life for fear of wasting my life. I am strong – and very, very weak.
3.) I am smart. “Smart” is a very nebulous and contextual schema. Someone once said “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.” I like to be the smartest person in the room; it makes me feel good about how small-minded and unimaginative I am. If I read books to fill my brain with other people’s ideas, then trot them out in front of a crowd that only reads tabloids, I look like the smart one. If I behave shamefully and think of creative ways to hide my shame, I’m smart like a fox, in a short-sighted, self-absorbed sort of way. I am smart – and very, very dumb.
G.K. Chesterton was asked what the biggest problem facing the world was: he replied, “I am.” The humanity I project to the world is an inflated puppet that looks kind and strong and smart, while I live in the shadows, selfish and weak and devious, frantic with fear that the mannequin will fall over in front of the crowd if I don’t labor relentlessly to prop it up. The tension of pretending to be human eats at me like a cancer; most days I want to let it wither then scamper away to live in a van at The Slabs, where I can kick my deflated movie-prop skin into the scrub and inhabit the angry, fat, slovenly bastard my shadow relentlessly demands is my real humanity. My shadow self will sit in a tattered lawn chair, darkly fondling a pistol, circled by buzzards, watching the heat shimmer over the Arizona sand while drinking whiskey from the bottleneck, bitterly whispering over and over, “I am.”
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