“About one-fifth of the people are against everything all the time.” Robert Kennedy (From his speech at The University of Pennsylvania 1964)
Is there anything more annoying than being asked to be completely open by people who have not bothered to earn the right to you ever being so candid?
What a ridiculously impertinent request.
I have no idea when openness became a requirement in order to just rub alongside people who are pretty inconsequential in your life. I strongly suspect this desire to know absolutely everything about someone may have originated from our cousins over the pond... who (face facts) are a rather loquacious breed... but I have to state that being ‘an open book’ is as entirely unbritish as you can get.
I recall on my first trip to the USA, I was in a toilet in a department store in New York City. I’d been in America for about three hours, but having grown up with American movies, literature and general folk culture, couldn’t wait to immerse myself in the shopping delights of Lexington Avenue. I’d used the loo (I had been told by my travel companion that one should piss in a country before it has a chance to piss on you), and was at the vanity units washing my hands. A woman came out of a stall and approached me, asking me the time. On hearing my accent, she rightly concurred I was not from those parts. (She was only out by ten thousand five hundred miles when she ascertained that I was Australian). So requested that I be completely honest about something she was about to show me. Before I had a chance to point out this was not something I was comfortable with... she showed me her recently augmented breasts and asked me give my honest reaction to the naturalness of their appearance.
I don’t recall my exact answer... decades later the shock still hasn’t worn off!... however I’m sure I said something satisfactory and left the loo pretty sharpish afterwards. I’ve dined out on that story innumerable times over the years and it always gets a big laugh. However over the years the laughter seems less about the fact a complete stranger, irrelevant to my existence, sought my honestly ... and more about the fact a complete stranger exposed herself to me. It appears we too have gone the route of demanding openness from any one of our acquaintance.
This may well be a fashion but there are some things that just go against natural law. Thing is there are certain states of being that have to be earned. You can’t request that someone be open, or loyal, or relaxed, or natural or at ease.
Most people who are open to experience kind of know this. They are not impatient and know that the only thing they need to make others open, loyal, relaxed, natural or at ease is for them to have an open mind. It is NOT something you can request of others... it is something you must request of your self.
It’s many years since the Bloomingdales incident. But I had the unfortunate luck to meet yet another woman who clearly was as unable to be patient and demanded my openness (thankfully no body parts were exposed this time.)
Mary (Hi Mary if you are reading this blog) appears totally unable to fathom that the reason that she is not rewarded with my openness is that she approaches me with such a closed mind. Her approach is to come to me with a totally preformed judgement and challenge me to prove her wrong. I have asked Mary about her approach, but it all got turned on it’s head and ended last night with her offering me a new challenge: to be open with her.
Now why on earth would I do that? Mary lives a state where defending her existing ideas, beliefs, values, mental models and so on is her prime response. A good discussion is one where she wins and the opponents (who are always wrong) lose. I don’t know why she even wants to know me as she is most comfortable with like-minded people, where there is a tacit agreement not to challenge ideas. A good chat in her world is where much of the conversation is spent reinforcing her preconceptions and ideas. It’s very comfortable existence, staying with what is seen as the tried and true. However it is also a state of embattlement, where Mary and friends are constantly having to repel what they see as attack. I really cannot see why I cannot simply be ignored by her and cronies. I don’t do have neither the time or the energy to join in with such an exhausting way to be.
It is exhausting living Mary’s life. To constantly be right you have to ensure no one else can be. So she has to:
- Ignore anything that doesn’t fit the box. Let it die in silence. Most people can take this hint that they have said something that is not wanted.
- Criticise anything that doesn’t fit the box. Show her expertise in this area is infallible and no one else is so obviously no one else can be of any use.
- Damn it anything that doesn’t fit the box with faint praise. Say how others contribution might just work ensuring that by implication it is clear how useless it is.
- Laugh at anything that doesn’t fit the box. Effectively prevent anyone else taking it seriously.
- Analyse anything that doesn’t fit the box. Ask searching questions and tie them up in knots. Then just leave them hanging, like the lawyer who has just crucified a witness.
- Date anything that doesn’t fit the box. Point out it is old hat and of poor quality and by implication completely ineffectual.
- Compete with anything that doesn’t fit the box. Replace it with something similar that ensures the original is dropped.
- Undermine anything that doesn’t fit the box. Play mind games till the originator has no confidence in challenging the status quo.
- Change anything that doesn’t fit the box . Take up the new thing then adjust it so it is no longer recognisable.
I have to hand it to Mary, I don’t see that much of her but over the years, she has been very good at doing all of the above with a sweet caring smile. Her favourites with me are to analyse and undermine... and every time, she gains ground in the war that is going on in her head. It is quite exhausting.
In the past she has leapt to the defence of people she has assumed I would be in conflict with because her preconceived idea of me says that I would have nothing in common with them. Of course the reality is that my friends are highly diverse and the company I frequent is likely challenge the narrow boxes of age, race, experience. However if Mary could open her mind a little she would see there ARE patterns, though the patterns are of exploration and difference rather than similarity and similarity – which is the only pattern she understands.
I have tried to not be in the company of Mary as much as I can. However, our circles unavoidably cross. So I have no alternative but to co-exist around her however... she is not prepared to just co-exist around me. I represent something to be vanquished or at least tamed. The fact that every preconception of me has been proven incorrect has not lead her to see that my existence does not threaten hers.
Any how last night Mary reckoned that if I was entirely open with her, she would consider backing off... a little.
Thing is, I don’t think Mary has the first clue about what being open is.
In my world, being open is to live with a sense of curiosity, where every moment is an opportunity for learning, where existing ideas, mental models and beliefs are temporary and flexible. What others have to say is always interesting, and a good dialogue is one where you learn something new or are persuaded to think differently in some way.
I’m a huge Robert Kennedy fan. He believed the world should be seen as alive, dynamic and dull of opportunity. He famously changed George Bernard Shaw’s word into this sound bite “Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?”Robert Kennedy knew that being means seeing things both as they really are (as opposed to through the lens of fixed though) and also as how they could be.
What would be the point of being open with Mary? She is unable to see things as they really are. She has a fixed view. I have loose models of understanding, constantly integrating newly learnt and recently experiences into my being. To put it bluntly... she can’t get a handle on me. I don’t fit her boxes.
Last night, she blew up because I was being slightly quieter than usual – or in her words... ‘moody’.
To me this is one of my many and varied shades. It gets rather tiring when you’ve been drinking at the fountain of discovery for too long. Being open does need rest periods. Yes, I am usually the one starting conversations with strangers and seeking new experiences, but I’m not the court jester. Most people find it easy to accept that iIt just so happens that sometimes I’m not the one starting the conga.
However, this was all Mary needed to go into analyse, undermine and change mode – with a side serving of critique. You have to hand it to her... she is smooth. She approached ‘in the name of friendship’ and then proceeded to fill my head with stories of how others had approached her commenting on my moodiness. She then went on to offer me advice on improving my character. She advised everyone has their box and we should behave like our label or it is only natural that inconsistencies will be brought to her attention. She pointed out that she is a expert in being totally consistent so I should call on her for advice – be completely open with her.
And seeing it is clear to all that the war against Jax is something Mary has to wage...I let her. So there she was sanctimoniously accusing me of emotions I wasn’t feeling, of having motives I have never thought of and offering me a route to salvation. I just stood there and let her tell me that I should learn to be more open. That I should tell her every detail of what is going on with me so that she can deal with the fact I may not fit the rigid little box that she has made for me.
Of course it’s a war that Mary isn’t going to win...because although I let her do her thing... I will NOT be taking on board a thing she said. What is puzzling though is why should she think that she does not have to earn the right to for me to be open, or loyal, or relaxed, or natural or at ease with her? Why is so impatient for this to happen? Does she not know I can feel her lack of like? Why on earth with the way things actually are I feel that I SHOULD be an open book with someone so closed?
What a ridiculously impertinent request.
The lady in the toilets at Bloomingdales stood a far better chance!
The JaxWorld Blog can be followed on Twitter- @JaxWorldBlog
If you enjoyed this blog and you want to contact Jax or find out more about the JaxWorld blog, pls log onto: http://thejaxworldblog.vpweb.co.uk/
Thanks for continuing to vote for JaxWorld as the Best Blog about Stuff and for ALL your support that has made this blog such a huge success
No comments:
Post a Comment