This Weeks Theme: Perspective

photo from piggypolish.com

 
Wow, what a week...

Does it feel to anybody else like it hasn’t slowed down since, I don’t know, around this time last week? The theme, I think, has been “perspective.” It’s weeks, such as this, that really make me grateful that I’m capable of discerning and variegated perspectives, and yet it’s also weeks, such as this, that make me wish more people were capable of consciously discerning and variegated perspectives; I’m surrounded by far more of the latter than the former, on a daily basis.

I think that, because of how the perspectives of two very distinct people that are surrounding me right now, I feel, for whatever reason, that this next week is going to be very telling, in a lot of ways. One of the two was very direct, in a very indirect way and the other is just prone to whiny'ness, and that might affect me hypothetically, which: holy G~d! The subtle conscious behaviors of people that are inexplicable and, just, disturbing, it's just like, "Why!?" and, for some unGodly reason, the world actually listens to them, like they matter, they don't. I will pointedly, and assuredly declare, once and for all, they don't matter. Not all people matter, some people were put on this earth to provide a more challenging, and demanding test for those of us that do matter. I know that's a 'political incorrect' statement but, lets face it, 'political correctness' was sooo last decade. 

Do you ever stop and think about how the seemingly insistent banality of a single week or day or few moments can challenge the fabric of permanence, what we’ve become accustomed to can be imposed by little more than thought, and the correlating emotion to collaborate it?

It’s just kind of, like, “f*ck it;” and it’s not necessarily born of anger or frustration or exhaustion, it’s just, “alright, what’s next?” If we don’t ask ourselves then G~d or the universe will eventually strongly suggest that we stop living somewhere in-between and make that particular change. And, it’s never a general change, it’s not like because you’re floating around in some state of limbo it’s time to hit reboot and start completely over, although a considerable number of people seem to live by that aphorism; G~D is not going to strongly suggest you to make a change that isn’t already apparent to you…

But, then again…

...perhaps you’re just swallowed up by the immediacy of it all, right? And you feel like you have to do something to get out of it. We often feel like some physical action is necessary to result in whatever reality we want to see.

Have you ever seen, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?


                                                   “How Happy is the blamess vestal’s lot!
                                                 The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
                                                   Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind!
                                              Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d;
                                                 Labour and rest, that equal perdiods keep…”



At the end of Eternal Sunshine Jim Carrey asks Kate Winslet, “Wait, I just want you to wait for a while.” I want to pause a moment to acknowledge how amazing that really is, and most people, I’m sure, just disregarded it. The immeasurable power of waiting, and of acknowledging the moment. The scene continues with Kate Winslet listing her faults which Jim Carrey was already aware of because he had just listened to a tape of him listing all the things that he didn’t like about her, including her list of faults, and then Carrey responds with, “Okay,” to which Winslet repeats, “Okay.” and the content that exists between the two of them existed because they each had slowed down and they were involved with the moment and not with the anger the frustration the exhaustion, or the fear the uncertainty or insecurity.

In those moments we become more capable of relating to another person, most of us get frustrated because we don’t understand why someone might not relate to us in our vulnerability, and we get so consumed in that-that we don’t acknowledge that the very fact that someone might not understand us in those moments is because they don’t share our perspective: they think differently, they feel differently, etc., and it’s worth the time to find a way to relate to that person.

Slow down and relate to that person, not verbally; do it quietly, silently, and that doesn’t mean you need to understand them, just realize that they think and feel differently, that’s all we really need to know. In that moment we can be discerning and variegated and, if we really want to, we verbally try to understand them; but, in that moment, we also hold the right to say, “f*ck it, I’ve stopped, I’ve acknowledge, I’ve considered things, and I still choose to react to it in exactly the way that I was going to.” The difference, even though it may ultimately wind up the same, is that you allowed your thoughts and your emotions to get on the same page.


​Maybe this next week won’t be the slightest bit telling for me. Perhaps I have been consumed by a series of events that just happened, and the way I react whether discerningly, consciously or thoughtlessly or maybe in deciding not to react at all choosing, instead, to “...wait for awhile.” (Maybe it’s too early to react… perhaps the reaction should be so subtle and eventual that it doesn’t appear to be a reaction at all.) ​

The course, and direction explored by the events this week will, ultimately, be decided by how I choose to perceive the events, and therefore how I choose to react to them. Maybe the most telling thing won't be the direction this week will eventually lead me but, rather, how the way I choose to react influences who I am, and who I want to be to those who may not be so discerning and variegated, in my life. 

...and maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and feel indifferent to the events of this week, leaving them to drift impartial in the wind. Who the f*ck knows...  :)

(To those who might not yet grasp the point of the seemingly aloofness in this column: eh, that's OK.)