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10月13日 ReflectionsEvery once in a while I find myself in a rut. I can always tell when I'm in one, but I can't always see a way out. I'm feeling in a rut right now. In many respects I am generally content, and I am happy with who I am. But happiness is a complex condition that is influenced by our observations and interpretations of the world around us as well as our personal circumstances, and this in turn has a large effect on how we view and deal with things, and greatly impacts our moods and our level of satisfaction with life in general. And that is true whether these influencing factors stem from work, finances, friendships, family, love, or even something as simple as whether we feel acceptance, caring, and compassion from our communities and those we love. At times these observations, thoughts and circumstances lead me on a quest of deep inner searching, questioning and introspection.
I have observed in my time that caring, empathy and understanding are not commodities that are doled out in equal measure amongst all people. Instead, they are oft reserved for the less deserving. For while some bask in springs of endless love*, warmth and understanding of a nurturing and supportive association of fellow beings, others are left to fend for themselves in the bitter cold of the marginalized periphery -- a no-mans land where you are on your own and loneliness your sole companion. Who then is it that falls on one side of this divide and who on the other? It is not always as straightforward as one might think.
(*) By "love" I do not restrict the notion to romantic love but rather love in a larger context that caring people of any disposition have toward one another, be it romantic, familial, friendship, associational, or other.
I have heard it said that love is like a harvest in that you reap only what you have sown in the hearts of your fellows. But like a field, love's tilth sometimes proves barren and does not yield its bounty despite the application of earnest sacrifice and long hard labours. And though it were possible for overwhelming perseverence, hard work and patience to fashion desert into oasis, would the reward justify the cost? Are such efforts wasted in vain, only for the sake of the aesthetic of noble toil? Are such investments exercises in futility, spent on unproductive and unworthy ground? For even with the most fertile and pristine of land, good harvest is not always assured. But good ground has no prejudice toward whom it surrenders its fruit. It bases its response only on the actions of its caretaker; his labours, sweat, and attention spent on its care. The fields care not for their caretaker's words spoken softly and convincingly in sweet and mellifluous tones when its furrows are dry. The field cares not for whether he is tall or stout, black, white, or brown. Nor does it care whether his teeth gleam with unnatural whiteness or with his manner of dress or style with which he wears his hair. The field thrives or dies based solely on his tender care and by his practical actions. To fields, words and stories and tall tales are nothing but empty rumblings of an impotent lord.
In human relationships, there are those whom good fortune has blessed; who find no matter where they strike their pickaxe or run their hoe, the ground unfolds into rolling meadow and yielding earth. But what of those whom fortune sees fit only to present rocks and crags to till? Is it a cruel play of the fates? Karmic retribution? Divine trial, or test of faith?
I believe in none of these things. I believe only in the certain, consistent and inexplicable folly of man's fallible heart to choose style over substance, a good story over a good deed, and respect deception and dishonesty while rewarding openness and sincerity with incredulous disbelief and disdain. We have become too accustomed to games and deception and can no longer fathom that people with good hearts and pure intentions can still exist, and accept that these people are not strange, they are not the enemy, nor are they fodder for exploitation and abuse. But, some are so threatened to admit to or accept the existence of such good souls that they immediately scramble to put up defenses or rush to disprove or discredit the good deeds or actions of such beings simply to avoid peering inward into their own darkness for fear of seeing the ugliness of their own flawed character. What all I have seen proves to me is that the allegory of love as a harvest is false. Love is not like a harvest. For fields are wiser than people, for they do not make superficial judgements and allow themselves to be misguided by their eyes and ears but rather judge and reward only the actions of their custodians. A field does not forgo substance for style, and cannot live by soothing words but by caring hands and caring deeds. Fields do not reward goodness worthy of bountiful harvest with failed crops. Fields do not relegate those who toil endlessly on its care to a lowly class of pack animal worthy only of the whip, while heaping praise, appreciation, and bounty onto those with no asset other than ability to speak of giving, and falsely claim credit for hard work and sacrifice without ever actually having done it. The ears of the fields are deaf to the sterile manure shovelled by mouth-running talkers and benefit naught from their ineffectual and un-nourishing words, benign sentiments, and broken promises. The fields appreciate only doers and deeds.
And what of people? Unlike the fields, people oft suspend their better judgement and choose to live in conscious denial on little more than a good-sounding lie. Yet some others I have observed possess an unnatural ability to milk an overwhelming share of life's nectar with nary an investment in deeds of kindness, generosity or good. Predator and prey tangled in a twisted tango of sordid existence. While others yet, removed from this deadly dance, stand as observers and look helpless on the ensuing carnage only to cry over the wounded hearts and tortured souls of the innocent/stupid, and sacrifice and give a great deal of themselves in aid without ever receiving a fraction of their kindness in kind nor harbour expectation thereof. There is a perplexing inequity in life's laws of love, and it is because people are not wise like the fields.
Recently I have come once again to feel somewhat disconnected from my life and surroundings. Day by day I feel the distance between me and the world around me expand and feel once again as though I stand alone in an open sea. I can't seem to be able to relate that well to others, and I don't think others really relate that well to me. I'm feeling that many of my interactions with others have come to be at arm's length. I perceive some of their sentiments to be superficial, ingenuine. And whatever caring that seems to come feels strained, contrived. Were I not to know any better, I could easily dismiss these feelings as sampling bias, but I do know better. I have readily observed differences in treatment.
I am not sure how it comes to be that no matter what setting or what time in my life, I eventually find myself on the precipice of this relational discrepancy. Is it because that out of respect, I try not to pry my nose deep and uninvited into the business of others that I fail to secure a trusted position? Is it that in order to fit, one must impose his full weight and burden on others so that his position is entrenched by a sense of invasion that then begins to feel like friendly occupation? Or is it the theory that a friend that owes is less dispensable than a friend you owe, be it a debt of money, deed or gratitude? ...despite the fact that that friend thinks not of the debt nor keeps score? Perhaps in the end, it may be that it is a much easier and more familiar proposition to wallow in muck than to rise up and walk among the gentry. After all, there is less chance among swine for swine to feel out of place.
The signs of marginalization begin with tiny but perceptible differences in treatment, a slight but awkward strain, a growing superficiality and questionable but observable concealment, and finally the give-away marker: the precipitance of exclusion. It is heartwrenching and demolishing to be so plain, open, honest, caring, giving and un-needy yet to still find oneself on the outside looking in.
Is the gulf of philosophy/outlook really that wide between me and what surrounds me? Am I really that foreign or different? As I begin to feel that life is able to relate less and care less about me, I begin to relate less and care less about it. And when I start to feel this way, the ties that bind me loosen and unwind. Many times in the past this has been a signal to prepare for a big upheaval; a significant personal change; the dawning of a new day, a new cycle of disappointment and disillusionment to begin anew. I am an anachronism; a misplaced set of ideals; a square peg in a round world. Where does one go when no place fits?
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