Assumptions and labels

If you ever want to see the entertaining sight of steam coming out of my ears, start slapping some labels on me. It never fails to get me hot under the collar and has ever since I was quite young. Whether it is a good label or a bad label, it almost never fails to chafe. I've known this about myself for a very long time, but I never parsed out the reasons why. It always leads to assumptions, which frequently are incorrect and can in turn lead to very unwelcome outcomes.

My first memories around this came from when I was 5 or 6 years old. I was introduced to someone, who leaned over and talked to me as if I were the village idiot simply because of my age. I don't remember who it was or what they said precisely, but I do remember fuming at the way I had been patronized. I'm sure that I couldn't have described it then beyond the fact that I didn't like being treated like a baby, but I clearly remember feeling insulted. Now the person obviously hadn't planned to insult me. It would have never occurred to them that it was even possible. They were merely acting out of their assumptions based on the label 'little girl' that I was carrying at the time. The same sort of things have happened throughout my life as the label has changed from 'girl' to 'young woman' to just plain 'female.' Depending on what assumptions are attached to the labels, my resultant response has ranged from slight annoyance to extreme irritation, especially if it has led to my being disregarded because of them.

At a slightly different angle, I find that I bristle when confronted with the assumption that I don't know my own mind or mean what I say. For the life of me, I can't figure out what purpose this might serve. In fact, I can't see anything but difficulties arising from that. Real fireworks can be seen whenever I hear the words, "you don't mean that." Given that I generally don't say things that I don't mean, this feels like it has to be some sort of self-serving position taken by the speaker. (Don't want to assume that, however.) This one rose up again recently when I decided to stop seeing someone. I meant what I said about not wanting to see him any more the first time I said it. And every time I repeated it for almost 5 months. And it makes me wonder why some people assume that 'A' means 'B' when 'A' is the only thing that has consistently been said. It seems like a sort of deliberate miscommunication, which kind of boggles the mind. It's difficult enough to communicate without making it more so.

I think my allergic reaction to labels increased in adulthood because of all the assumptions that were hung on labels that I more or less had accepted. I ran headlong into one of those right after I got married. All the people that I had hung out with, went to movies with, or just did regular things with, all assumed that I was no longer available. It blew my mind. I was immediately dropped from standing invitations and I had to chase folks down to clear up the matter. Apparently, I was supposed to be fused to my husband and not do anything on my own. This only increased once my sons were born. I had apparently disappeared and could not have a separate identity. That was an extremely difficult labeling assumption to dodge and, at times, I let myself get buried under it, which was truly unfair to everyone. Similar labels and assumptions came attached to my choice in jobs, education and spirituality. And they almost always missed the mark. The labels were too broad and the assumptions too all-encompassing to have any real meaning.

I have no clear idea why most of us, if not all, compartmentalize others based on assumptions. Perhaps it is nothing more than a sorting function in our brains to help us make a semblance of order out of the overwhelming possibilities that exist in our world. But the outcome of it can move well beyond the realm of irritation and cause real damage to our relationships and unnecessary stress in our lives. This can happen based on the labels we attach to others, or based on how we connect assumptions between different people. If one of our parents employed disapproving silences to control our behavior, we might assume that similar silences mean the same thing in other relationships. If someone in our past abused our trust with lies, we might assume that either no one is to be trusted or perhaps that everyone lies. If we have been manipulated in the past, we may believe that others are trying to do it to us again. The examples could go on and on. And how sad that is for all parties involved.

But what's to be done about it? I suspect a lot of it is done unconsciously, based on past experiences. And I imagine that a portion of that is done out of self-preservation and fear of repeating a bad experience. Perhaps the only thing we can try to do is to slow down and consider those around us, recognizing that they are unique in our experience. By being slow to assume, we don't need to risk ourselves unnecessarily, merely allow enough time for the other to reveal themselves in more depth, which in its turn could allow for more depth in the relationship we have with them. If we look at each new person with an active curiosity as to who they are, rather than quickly labeling and pigeonholing them, we open up new possibilities. And if we look at older relationships without the filter of assumptions, we give others the opportunity to reveal pleasant surprises about themselves. And, should we find things that we'd rather not see in them, at least we have a firmer basis for any decision we make.

"Assumptions are the termites of relationships." -- Henry Winkler.

Contentment

Back when I was in undergraduate school, after we had solved all the problems of the world over lunch, several of us had quasi-serious discussions about which book we would memorize if books were banned a la Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. I had no trouble at all deciding on which one; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. It has been a favorite of mine for a long time and I still go back and re-read it every few years.

I do have my issues with Jane. I was thoroughly disgusted with her for abandoning Rochester the way she did, but I eventually gave her a pass on that, partly because she did eventually return and partly because of the mores of the time. I preferred to think that she would have behaved differently if she lived later than the 19th century. In my latest re-reading of the book, however, I came across something that made me want to shake her until her teeth rattled. When little Adele asks her if they will be happy, she replies that they will work hard and be content. What the...? What an insipid thing to say to the child! I was outraged! I was livid! I know, I know, over-reaction. Acknowledging that it had more to do with me than with what Ms. Bronte wrote in her book, I gave it some thought.

I found dozens of quotes advocating contentment as a noble goal for life and I even agreed with a few. The quotations that cautioned about wanting more and more things seemed to parallel my views. I've never been inclined to focus on the acquisition of things. It always seemed like it took too much effort away from other things that I was interested in. But the other quotes annoyed me. They generally came from religious or political sources and they seemed to attribute a high sense of virtue to contentment that I simply cannot see. It was as if they were promoting contentment as the opiate of the masses.

To my mind, this sort of contentment equals settling for less. Jane offered Adele contentment as a goal and not the happiness that she desired. It is true that neither Adele nor anyone else has a guarantee of each and every happiness they desire. But by eliminating the possibility of reaching for some of the more important, life-enhancing things that are available, it seems to me that even contentment is not possible. Contentment may end up being the end result, but as an all encompassing goal, it seems terribly inadequate.

It also seems as though it requires a certain amount of self-deception a la the fox in Aesop's fable. The fox wanted the grapes and tried everything he could think of to get them. When he failed, he walked away having decided that the grapes were probably sour and he didn't want them anyway. Our society reinforces this view on all sides. We tell others that what they wanted isn't worth it, or wouldn't make them happy, or that it is the wrong thing to want. When the fact of the matter is someone else simply doesn't know if it is worth it or not to you. And, at one time or another, most people agree and stop striving for whatever it is. The pressure is exerted to do what is 'acceptable' and 'reasonable' until we frequently relax into a vanilla pudding type of existence and give up on our fondest dreams, hopes and desires.

After having been a big fan of the vanilla pudding club when I was younger, I find that I've lost my taste for it entirely. Not only did I not reach for other flavors, I barely acknowledged their existence. And in that way, I committed what I consider to be the most unforgivable of sins; I wasted a lot of time and did not live my life. I don't plan on making the same mistakes in the future. I'll be trying every unusual flavor that crosses my path. I'll be reaching for every scrap of joy that life offers. And I'll be doing so without the overly excessive concern I had for society's approval that I had in my youth. I'll have to pick another book and heroine than Jane Eyre. She's been reduced to a cautionary tale for me. I'm going to be browsing on the adventure shelves for something else entirely.

"Be happy while you're living; for you're a long time dead." -- Scottish proverb

Frogging

As most knitters know, 'frogging' is when you rip out what you have been working on. It can happen when you discover a very obvious mistake in the work. It can be an admission of defeat. Or it can be simply because your tastes or interests have changed and you wish to do something entirely different. Whatever the reason, knitters are generally reluctant to do it. I've been known to abandon a project for a year before succumbing to the need to frog it. And, after having frogged half of a sweater the other evening, I found myself wondering not just about frogging knitting, but the role that frogging has in other areas of life.

As I sat there unraveling the knitting and winding the yarn back into a ball, I began to think about the reluctance to do it. This sweater had been sitting for months with a huge mistake staring at me from near the beginning. I've known for all those months that it would have to be frogged, but I still dragged my feet about actually doing it. Why?

One possibility might be that I had invested so much time in the knitting that I felt like I had wasted time and effort which could only be redeemed by the myth that I would eventually fix the mistake and finish the sweater. It was as if only the outcome could justify the process it took to get to that point in the sweater. This seemed a bit wobbly to my thinking. Don't get me wrong; I like a successful outcome just as much as the next one. But I also enjoy the process while it is happening. I don't tend to focus on finishing an item until I'm about three quarters done and my mind has started mapping out the next thing. The hundreds of thousands of stitches made over hours and hours are not somehow less enjoyable when an anticipated outcome doesn't come about. This applies to other areas of our lives. Careers, relationships, personal goals, anything we aimed for does not lose its authenticity or value when we release it in favor of something else. It was valuable while it was valuable and that doesn't change when the goal changes.

Similarly, there is sometimes a sense of failure. We have missed the mark of the original goal and therefore must be less than what we thought we were. This too seems wrong somehow. There are lessons to be learned in the process that could very well be valuable on the next project. We might have learned a new way to do something. We might have learned that we never want to use a particular technique again. We may even have learned the difficult lesson of walking away because it no longer suits us. There doesn't seem to be any virtue in continuing to the end of some project simply because it was started. Our society, of course, frowns on this attitude whether in the micro or the macro. But rather than failure, there is a wisdom in not continuing with things for no other reason than we started them.

Another possibility is that it simply does not suit us for some reason. Our tastes change. Our needs change. Heck, even our sizes change. If we discover half way through the sweater that something about it no longer suits us, where is the virtue in finishing it? If it is finished, the result would be a sweater that we will never wear. Wouldn't it be better to reclaim the basic materials and turn it into something else?

Obviously, society condemns frogging when it moves beyond the realm of knitting. No one wants to be labeled a quitter/failure/what-have-you. Which is probably why knitters are reluctant to frog a project. But society condemns all sorts of things for the sake of enforcing conformity. There is a need to examine that condemnation. Generalized norms do not take into account individualized needs or interests. There is no accommodation for living in the moment and responding to what appears before us. Seemingly once something is begun, it must be continued no matter what. The yarn that I recovered from the frogged sweater is happily becoming a different sweater with a different design. And other things that I have frogged from my life are being knitted into much better things as well. How much richer our lives might be if we learned to frog as needed.

The problem with hope.

Or perhaps it is more a problem with the inconsistent approach we have toward the notion of hope. We, by turns, tell people that they have to have hope and not to get their hopes up. The various and sundry sayings on the topic run the gamut of 'there is no such thing' to 'you can't live without it.' So which is it? Or is it both? Or neither?

I considered the possibility that the difference between not getting your hopes up and having to have hope might lie in the situations that they are used. This didn't seem to work out, however.

We seem to say 'don't get your hopes up' in situations where there actually IS some small possibility that whatever we are hoping for could happen. It might not be probable or likely, but it is not totally impossible. I think we see this frequently in situations with children. It is almost parental code for 'it ain't gonna happen.' It serves to delay likely disappointment, but not much else. The person who says it probably feels fairly certain that the let-down will be coming, but doesn't want to voice the bad news yet. If the hope is that an absent parent will finally, finally come to visit or that Santa will bring a pony, the adult on the spot has a strong idea that neither one is going to happen. So what is accomplished by delaying the disappointment until the non-arrival of the parent or the pony? It could be that the adult also harbors a tiny hope that they will not have to disappoint the child. It could be that they want to protect the child from the inevitable sadness. It could be that they want to delay their own sadness in seeing the sadness of the child until the last moment. But I wonder if it really serves anyone to do so.

The same holds true when adults use it with each other. Perhaps the one saying it has seen the other person face too much disappointment and can't bear the notion that they will be flattened by disappointment yet again.

On the other hand, when things look as if they are irretrievably hopeless, we tell the person that they 'have to have hope.' "There is always hope." Etc. etc. Even when we know for a fact that there is not always hope, the semblance of hope must be maintained. In fact, the more desperate a situation looks, the more we insist that there is hope. A cure may be found. It is only temporary. It's probably not as bad as it looks. It is always said as an attempt to cheer someone up. But absent any evidence that it might be true, it frequently falls flat.

We also are skeptical of anyone who seems to maintain hope in the face of improbable odds. At the very least, we might consider them to be desperate. In the extreme, they are simple or deluded. A perpetual Pollyanna is not taken very seriously.

So what the heck is going on here? I'm not certain by any stretch of the imagination, but the most obvious possibility is that it is a vital survival mechanism. What would happen to someone who truly had no hope? There is at least some chance that they would give up and be able to release the pain of disappointment. If there is no hope, then there is no expectation and it would make the pain of disappointment less. But I think that would only be true of a minority of people. And the effort to reduce pain would also reduce joy.

Even at my most cynical and at the lowest points of my life, there has always remained just a tiny seed of hope that whatever pain or loss was going on would somehow be lessened in the future. It may not, in fact, happen, but being able to anticipate potential improvement in the future can remove enough of the edge of the current pain to carry on into the future. It could be self-delusion or a coping mechanism, but it also could be an innate survival tool. Even if it is delusional, a reasonable amount of hope cannot hurt us in the short term and may help us make it through to a better place.

"Never deprive someone of hope...it may be all they have." -- Anonymous.

Missing the Obvious

Spring came late to Portland this year. And as I've done every spring since I moved to my current home, I've eagerly watched for the camellia bush outside my kitchen window to bloom. Since it is on the north side of the building, it is usually the last to bloom. So as its sisters on the south side burst into lovely colors and smells, I stepped up watching for 'my' camellia to bloom. As the month passed, there were absolutely no flowers on it. It must have been trimmed at the wrong time last year, because there was not a single bud on the entire plant. I kept watching and watching, no camellias. I was so focused on the camellias that I almost missed out entirely on the azalea that is planted right next to it. It wasn't until the roses started rioting across the back fence that I turned my attention away from the camellia and its lack of flowers this year.

And this in turn made me consider what else I have missed while focused too closely on something else. The short answer is that I'll probably never know for certain. But it bears some examination so as to reduce the occurrence of it in the future. Like most people, I've spent the majority of my adulthood wrapped up in whatever task/person/event demanded my attention at the time, to the point of shutting out even the idea that other things could or should merit some of my attention as well.

I've been a master at missing the obvious most of my life. If I had a dollar for every time someone said, "it's as plain as the nose on your face," or "if it had been a snake, it would have bit you," I'd never need to work a day in my life. And that is not counting the times I have heard, "how could you not know?" I was always too busy trying to be a good daughter/mother/wife/friend to even recognize other possibilities that would have enriched my life if I'd but welcomed them in. There are a few huge ones that come to mind and I'm sure there must be dozens of others.

And don't get me started on the more subtle possibilities that I have let pass me by. They must number in the hundreds, if not thousands. I'm fairly blind as far as subtle things going on in my own life, my own possibilities. Which is odd because I tend to recognize the subtleties that occur for other people around me. The standard joke with me is that I wouldn't catch a hint if it hit me upside the head with a two-by-four. I suspect this might be a by-product of focusing on one thing and missing another. But part of it must be due to my preference for directness. So, what's to be done?

I'm happy to report that I've gotten better about noticing/recognizing some things that come into my life unexpectedly. I'm not to the level of awareness that I hope to achieve, however. And I don't think it is necessary to throw the baby of specific focus out with the bathwater in trying to open myself up to more possibilities and realities. The trick must lie in balancing the two, the question is how. I suspect that it demands a shifting of focus, a more deliberate observation of what is happening both around me and within me. Not focusing on the forest or the trees, but on both in a constant moving back and forth. It requires considerable discipline to avoid sleepwalking through life, to live deliberately and wide awake.

My long observation of the camellia wasn't for naught, however. For the first time since I have been watching it, I noticed that a song sparrow kept hopping along my window sill. And as the weather grew warmer, I saw that she was using the sill as a launching pad into the bush. Once it was warm enough to open the windows, there were delightful baby bird noises coming from it. So, my focus may have been misdirected for awhile, but there were rewards anyway. As there always seem to be, if we but recognize them.

Cravings

Not too long ago, I was in a conversation with a few women. And as happens among women who have given birth, we were swapping 'war stories' about our experiences. The amusing part was when we told our various craving stories. Pregnant women are notorious for craving odd things to eat. There didn't seem to be any sort of particular pattern, each of us just wanted to eat some strange things at times before our children were born. None of us were the classic pickles and ice cream cravers. In fact, I was a bit smug that before my second son was born I was strictly scarfing down raw cauliflower. We won't get into my craving for Jack in the Box tacos with the first one.

The conventional wisdom, whether it is supported by science or not I don't know, is that if one is craving something specific then it is something that you need. If you want a banana, maybe you need more potassium in your diet. If you want a dill pickle, perhaps you need sodium. I can't hazard a guess at what I might have needed from those dreadful tacos, but with healthier choices, I imagine that there could be something to the benefits of those cravings. Just so long as a craving doesn't turn itself into an addiction, there doesn't seem to be any problem in responding to it. A scoop of ice cream is fine, a half a gallon is something else entirely.

This led me to think about non-food related cravings and what they might spring from. If we carry the analogy further, surely they also reflect some sort of need that the person has. We all remember (or perhaps were) the kid in grade school who would do anything to try to be accepted by the other kids. Maybe they were a bit socially inept, perhaps they wore the 'wrong' shoes, or they were just not part of the 'in' crowd. For whatever reason, they felt incredibly isolated and generally mocked by others. Pity was the best they could hope for. But what was really going on here? Was it something worthy of pity or contempt? Not really. For whatever reason they craved connection and, some how, others found them to be unworthy of it. As they got older, they most likely just gave up and hid the need deep within themselves. Some might have even taken the 'sour grapes' tactic and decided that they never wanted it in the first place. My question is, inevitably, why? Why were they mocked for what is a natural desire?

If we look at the food cravings, they are usually met with smiles and good humor. Ha ha ha, you wanted pickles and ice cream. But there isn't any contempt as there seems to be with various cravings for human contact. In fact, even expressing them is considered to be unacceptable. Almost as if it is some sort of weakness to have human needs and admit it. And it truly has me befuddled. What is the possible risk or danger here, to either side of the equation? Nope, can't come up with anything.

Many, many years ago, I worked in the hospital wing of a very large convent. One of the sister's minds had slipped well away from the accomplished, intelligent woman that she had been earlier in her life. She spent her days yelling at little boys who weren't there and crying. Her answer, when asked why she was crying, was always the same. "No one loves me." All of her accomplishments in life disappeared in the face of unrelieved loneliness. No doubt, she had felt the loneliness for many years, but given the nature of her commitment, she probably never voiced it. And, while there was no large scale solution to her past, most of the aides could calm her merely by assuring her that they loved her.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I used to have a next door neighbor in her 80s. She was a crusty old bird who always spoke her mind and the devil could take the hindmost. She'd been widowed, one of her sons had died, even her dog had been killed. But there was no lingering sadness or isolation in her daily life. She took to summoning me over and telling me we were going to have tea. And so we did. It never occurred to me to turn her down. She was obviously living her life on her own terms and would not sit around hoping for company, she demanded it. I think, however, that she was more of the exception than the rule.

And I wonder why. It is almost as if we have some sort of shame around asking for what we need from others. Or perhaps it is a loss of face concerning the fact that whatever it is we crave has not been given to us and we suspect that we are, therefore, not worthy of it. Could it be that those childhood traumas still inform our adult needs? Or is there some sort of tacit agreement between everyone that such things can only come as a gift and the request somehow negates that. On yet another hand, perhaps the asking carries an assumption of a demand on someone else. Or.......I don't know exactly what all else.

More importantly, how does one live truly from one's essential self, if an effort has to be maintained to deny parts of that core? How do we respond to people in our lives with cravings that we may or may not be able to answer? How do we understand them? Maybe those with cravings should feel free to ask for what they need. Maybe those hearing the request should wonder how long the person has been hungry and make them a small snack. After all, there is not anything to criticize in the cravings we all have.

Random goodness

Whatever can happen to anyone can happen to me." -- Muriel Rukeyser.

My first thought when I read this was that it applied to negative outcomes. We read about plane crashes, natural disasters, illnesses and think 'there but for the grace of God, go I." We collectively and openly recognize that life has a random quality that makes everyone of us vulnerable. Whether it be a large natural disaster or a smaller personal catastrophe, something negative can and most assuredly will happen to everyone at some point. We try not to obsess about it; we try to prepare for it. But there is no way to avoid whatever it is from coming to us, whether 'it' is anything from a minor disappointment up to death. This is so patently obvious that there really isn't much to explore about it.

The other face of this coin bears some looking at, however. We tend to overlook the possibility of good things coming to us just as surely as the bad ones do. I wonder why this seems less the case than it's negative counterpart. When we hear of someone else's good fortune, we can feel glad for them, especially if they are close to us. Frequently, however, we feel envy. And if their good fortune involves something we'd hope to have for ourselves, the envy can expand to very ugly proportions.

Why is this? I think it comes from a combination of things. Partly it is a result of deep-seated cultural ideas about the 'haves' and 'have nots.' And partly, I think it comes from a collective sense of scarcity that reaches into our psyches beyond material needs.

The Calvinism of the Puritan colonists on this continent left a mark of predestination imprinted on our collective memories. What you had in the way of material goods was an illustration of where you stood in God's opinion. Wealthy folks obviously deserved what they had and poorer people obviously deserved to have nothing. On the face of it, especially put this baldly, we would reject this notion. But there still seems to be a tinge of it remaining in our subconscious, at least among those who are seen to have more than the usual share of benefits. This, and other historic cultural traits such as regal and clerical hierarchies, leave a deep rift between the favored few and the teeming masses.

With the end of monarchies and state established religion, we did not escape the structure or the belief that everyone has his or her place. Here in the United States, and perhaps other places, we are fed the dizzying notion that anyone can succeed in whatever they choose if only they work hard enough. But, like our Puritan ancestors, we also look down on those who fail to do so, assuming that they just haven't worked hard enough to merit the better things. I think this provides us some mental insulation from the notion that there is a random element to success as well as to failure. The good things in our life must be dependent solely on our efforts or they could disappear. It has also been used to oppress various parts of the population, but that it another topic entirely.

The other problem tends to lie in a deep-seated belief that there is scarcity in everything. It is as if, if you have something there is not going to be enough for me to have the same thing. And to safeguard our futures, we must continue to stock pile more and more, leaving less for others. Or so the thinking goes. But is this notion of scarcity true? I doubt it. I think the problem lies more with the fact that we seem to have collectively lost the concept of having enough. There is a huge industry whose sole job is to convince us to buy more and more stuff and generate perceived needs. And constant bombardment of their messages simply has to have a huge influence or else they wouldn't continue to do it. Many years ago I read a book by (I think) Alan Watts. In it he wrote about how our culture had substituted amount for quality in our property. And I think this also applies to the more intangible parts of life. We can't be happy for others' successes because, on some level, we think it means that they have somehow taken the success that we wanted to have.

But whatever reason lies beneath our understanding, we do not seem to believe that random, unexpected joys can come to us just as surely as tragedies. We seem to only see the lacks in our lives rather than the abundances. There are those fortunate souls who do revel in the joys rather than the pains, but for many of us there is the perpetual 'yeah, but' quality to our appreciation of what is in our lives. I got X, but I really wanted X+Y and therefore, I can't fully enjoy the X that I do have. Perhaps this is human nature. Maybe it is the motivation for human beings to continue reaching forward in our evolution. It could also be something else entirely. No matter what it is, I think we would better serve ourselves by finding some way of shifting our focus more towards the good we have, rather than dwelling on the tragic.

I'm not certain how to do this and, like most things, it probably needs to be different for everyone. Some folks are list makers, some reflective and still others make resolutions to change things about themselves and their outlooks. But no matter how it might be implemented, I feel certain that we could enhance our daily lives by living in hopeful anticipation of the random goodness rather than dreading the random arrival of tragedies.