Women have always informed my life—in literature (Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem), in music (Joni Mitchell, Mary J. Blige), but seldom in relationships. I think that’s because most of my relationships have been with women damaged by the vulgarities of the people in their lives. Whether through the dictates of parents, or sibling rivalries; or surviving the abuse of failed relationships and marriages … in some huge way something traumatized them … making it extremely difficult for them to have the kind of supportive relationships that so many of us desire.
I think this is also true of men, and probably of people in general. We can’t learn from the wounded … and neither can the wounded learn from us. For some, overcoming the hurts of the past is a constant challenge, and if not confronted early, influences the outcome of most of their interactions with others.
For those who choose to do the hard work of working through those ghosts that haunt the dark corridors of their psyche, things do get better. But doing the hard work, well, is hard work. And sometimes we’re just not up for it.
It’s so hard to be objective when it comes to analyzing our own behavior and neurosis. All of us like to think that it’s “them” not “us,” but the truth probably rest somewhere in the middle (usually, a little bit of them … and a lot of us). I guess that’s why it’s more important for me to know who I am, rather than to be right. If I know who I am, then when I’m wrong, I become enlightened; which can only lead to a better me … and being a better me is what I believe my life is really all about.
There’s an old saying: If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. But I think it also depends on the something that you stand for. For some people, anything will do. Most of us don’t know enough about who we are, and so we’re always stumbling into situations that challenge what we think and believe, and often find ourselves lacking. We martyr our dreams for the benefit of our parents and children, and sell our souls to jobs we don’t enjoy. We shamelessly give in to the opinions of coworkers and friends, and to the dictates of relatives or ideologically opposed pundits.
We’ve become so disillusioned, that we’re willing to believe in anything but ourselves. So we latch onto both fact and fantasy in support of all the things we doubt, and fear, and don’t know. We fill the mystery in our lives with myth and fallacy, and a personalize truth that makes us comfortable and safe.
This is what I know of myself—this is what I know about being human.
To be continued …
