Hello Reader,
Can you keep a straight face?
As, with a fool’s overlarge smile, I proclaim, “I”m proud to be a member of society!” ?
Me neither.
Sometimes, out on the open highway, among fields or in mountain valleys, I have an interpretation: I sense a cluster of cars far ahead of me, a cluster far behind me, and here I am, no cluster, alone in my big bubble. Maybe it’s even true, I don’t know.
What I know is that at work or play, in various parts of society, my default is to see myself in a bubble of one: There’s everybody else, and then there’s me, different. And I know this default interpretation of mine is wrong. To reduce this concept to simple high school terms: Even the most popular cheerleader or confident student council member would nevertheless, on occasion be binary: “There’s all the other students, and there’s me, different.”
I only clued in when I was in high school myself, in tenth grade. That’s when my English teacher, Mr. Wong, one the very few teachers I still remember, had a semester long theme: Alienation and Isolation. Words that apply to not just hermits, but to all of us. I finished his class knowing that for years to come my temptation to lapse into my default of “Alienation and Isolation,” would remain, always and forever. All I can do is make such lapses fewer and fewer, by using my intellect and fierce self discipline: I will tell myself, “Don’t be silly,” as often as necessary.
Because Alienation and Isolation are a natural universal things, it is easy to write poems and popular songs around them, and these we took in Mr. Wong’s class. As for songs, Sounds of Silence was one. I am a rock was another. Both are by Simon and Garfunckle. Average people who never abuse alcohol could relate to Johnny Cash as the alcoholic singing Sunday Morning Coming Down. As for poems, from Mr. Wong we took a poem about being in fog, another about a boy amongst conformity who committed suicide, and another about a citizen with a number for a name, which ended,
“Was he happy?
The question is absurd.
Had anything been wrong,
we most certainly would have heard.”
What we can never hear is the sound of folks collapsing into their default.
For me, the default seems to click in when I am Hungry, “Angsty,” Lonely or Tired. HALT. Self-discipline helps, as does a sense of humor. I suppose typical student angst (unfocused fear of the state of the world) is first cousin to Alienation. As it happens, the “A” in HALT commonly stands for Angry. (HALT can be a warning signal for misuse of gambling, a substance or sex)
How silly I was as I first arrived, alone in Calgary, when I viewed the glass elevators and futuristic elevated glass tunnels as being only for “those real Calgarians,” not me, as I humbly stayed down on the sidewalk. I think if I was a “new Canadian,” then it would be easy to see the community as {(real immigrants + real natives) and little old me.}
That sort of thinking would be both normal and silly. Better to do whatever it takes: Play music, read poems, volunteer with high school students, anything, rather than be so mistaken.
Sean Crawford
Spring
2019
Footnotes:
~The Calgary tunnels, like so many gerbil tubes, are to beat the cold. Called the “plus 15” (elevation) system. In Edmonton they have the “pedway.” In Houston, someone told me, they put their tunnels underground to beat their fierce heat.
~I’m thinking today of “social isolates”: Surely they are conflicted between wanting community and wanting to be alone. Here is a passage about the hero in Lee Child’s mystery-thriller The Hard Way, page 2:
QUOTE
That put him against the cafe’s outside wall and left him looking east, across the sidewalk and the width of the avenue. He liked to sit outside in the summer, in New York City. Especially at night. He liked the electric darkness and the hot dirty air and the blasts of noisy traffic and the manic barking sirens and the crush of people. It helped a lonely man feel connected and isolated both at the same time.
UNQUOTE
~Here’s a link to a warm fuzzy story behind that unhappy Sunday sidewalk song.
~Here’s a link to a nice post, inviting the reader to feel “yes” and a sense of community, from February 2019 about how writing on her blog would “hold memories” and “change perception of time” and “extend time.” Well expressed. I couldn’t comment on it myself, because the comment thingy would not take my URL, but you may have better luck.
Update: I FOUND A QUOTE, from the Wall Street Journal bestseller by Cait Flanders, The Year of Less, page 82, regarding the first staff Christmas party she had attended while into sobriety:
QUOTE
I bought a new turquoise dress and a pair of black patent leather heels. This is what twenty-eight-year old women should wear at parties, I thought when I tried the dress on in the store. When I walked into the party, however, I felt like I was the only person pretending to be a grown-up in a room of actual grown-ups. Everyone was drinking and laughing and falling over, and yet looked beautifully put together. I wasn’t drinking and I didn’t feel at all like myself in that outfit. I knew then that I did not fit in here anymore. I spent the majority of the party hanging out in the kitchen with a few friends, looking over their shoulders and feeling jealous about how much fun everyone was having without me.
UNQUOTE
One might tell me she was perfectly correct that year to feel like a minority one, yet the very next year…
QUOTE
…I wasn’t exactly thrilled about being the only sober person in the room, but I was excited to spend time with everyone, especially the core six. I tried to mingle with some of the new members of the team, but it was not my strong suit anymore…
UNQUOTE
My conclusion, dear reader, is that what had changed in the year between the two parties, was not outer reality but her inner attitude at feeling equal and the same… an attitude within everyone’s control.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment