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Nearness, Distance, Invisibility
Sep. 14th, 2009 05:43 amAt a certain point, in high school, I realized I was a person. In a deeper sense than being someone responsible for algebra and French and my weirdness. It was when someone confided in me, someone who seemed capable of making sense as a person in a way that my peers, ever enigmatic, did not. And at that moment I felt like something vast and important had been bestowed upon me. I could be of use to people. It was like being entrusted with the care of something. But this feeling was hard to hold on to. Even in the context of the relationships in which it occurred, it didn't seem to mean anything; someone's confidence did not mean they were my friend. In the presence of more interesting company I became invisible, the importance melted away, the moment of meaning was meaningless in the context of normal life.
Yet I never lost my belief that becoming open to another person is the best thing one can do--aesthetically, emotionally, and because that was what was strikingly missing from every interaction I had after a certain point. Superficiality makes things go smoothly; professionalism and prudishness require it in most spheres. The act of talking about anything remotely personally weighty with someone is disparaged as "dumping" and "emotional vampirism." We glide around invisibly. (Andre: "We don't see the world; we don't see ourselves; we don't see how our actions affect other people" - My Dinner With Andre, near the end.) This invisibility is comforting in a way, because it lets us avoid having to deal with our troubles when we're out in the world, lets us avoid the anxiety of revealing them to soneone else; but--fan though I am of avoidance--this is not ultimately what anyone needs.
I know I'm supposed at this point in my life and career to be jumping on the bandwagon, but I cannot. Not that I know where that leaves me. I expect that for these things to be otherwise every institution in society would have to change, I have no idea in what direction. This was no small part of my decision to go to a college of 400 people--but people became numb to each other there, too, and it too initially felt quite impersonal.
It is possible that a reverent attitude towards people is just hard to come by. I accept invisibility in certain groups because it seems like it couldn't be otherwise; and because I would prefer not to be abused. And when someone seems particularly reverent of others I find myself wondering whether there's an ulterior commitment. (This is important: if someone's kindness has its source in a religion they might not be as open as they seem, and might have strange moral judgments.) Of course, distance is necessary, civilizing, and in many aspects of life empowering. Dreams come from stepping back and re-imagining the self. But I haven't stopped feeling like I need a new kind of religion; a kind that isn't institutionalized or institutionalizable--and what I mean by this is a method, a trick, a means of holding on to that feeling of blessedness (or Eliot's "refining fire"): in Andre's words, "a new language, a new way of speaking between people that's a new kind of poetry; the poetry of the dancing bee that tells us where the honey is."
Yet I never lost my belief that becoming open to another person is the best thing one can do--aesthetically, emotionally, and because that was what was strikingly missing from every interaction I had after a certain point. Superficiality makes things go smoothly; professionalism and prudishness require it in most spheres. The act of talking about anything remotely personally weighty with someone is disparaged as "dumping" and "emotional vampirism." We glide around invisibly. (Andre: "We don't see the world; we don't see ourselves; we don't see how our actions affect other people" - My Dinner With Andre, near the end.) This invisibility is comforting in a way, because it lets us avoid having to deal with our troubles when we're out in the world, lets us avoid the anxiety of revealing them to soneone else; but--fan though I am of avoidance--this is not ultimately what anyone needs.
I know I'm supposed at this point in my life and career to be jumping on the bandwagon, but I cannot. Not that I know where that leaves me. I expect that for these things to be otherwise every institution in society would have to change, I have no idea in what direction. This was no small part of my decision to go to a college of 400 people--but people became numb to each other there, too, and it too initially felt quite impersonal.
It is possible that a reverent attitude towards people is just hard to come by. I accept invisibility in certain groups because it seems like it couldn't be otherwise; and because I would prefer not to be abused. And when someone seems particularly reverent of others I find myself wondering whether there's an ulterior commitment. (This is important: if someone's kindness has its source in a religion they might not be as open as they seem, and might have strange moral judgments.) Of course, distance is necessary, civilizing, and in many aspects of life empowering. Dreams come from stepping back and re-imagining the self. But I haven't stopped feeling like I need a new kind of religion; a kind that isn't institutionalized or institutionalizable--and what I mean by this is a method, a trick, a means of holding on to that feeling of blessedness (or Eliot's "refining fire"): in Andre's words, "a new language, a new way of speaking between people that's a new kind of poetry; the poetry of the dancing bee that tells us where the honey is."
