“I’ve noticed”, said Jacobi after she and Chinghiz had completed their greetings, “that one cannot become depressed without having ideals and becoming upset by one’s inability to make life perfect. I think how we assess that inability to realize perfection makes all the difference in the world! If I judge any of life’s challenges as my own failure, then I make my life even more difficult. And, I think this happens primarily because we make assumptions – assumptions that we don’t notice are assumptions and so they become implicit personal beliefs on which we rely. The only way I know to avoid this occurring is to use my imagination to ask questions; that at least gives me an opportunity to become aware of my implicit assumptions, and then to consider revising them. “In this context, let me tell you about a recent, and very distressing – and at the time also very depressing – lesson I learned about not being curious enough, erroneously assuming and presuming, and not only believing, but also exchanging and spreading, falsities as if they were truths. This is not easy for me, gentlemen, but I do want Angus’ readers given the insight by which to avoid the embarrassment that my lack of curiosity caused me. “Slogans can be very useful. But any of one of them – ‘K.I.S.S.’, ‘Curiosity killed the cat’; take your pick – can, taken out of context, get one into deep trouble! And now let me tell you about the last time that someone kept it simple for me, and how I read all sorts of nonsense into the gaps in that narrative that I couldn’t explain. “I have a cousin, Jesse, whose company I have enjoyed since childhood. Until a couple of years ago we could finish each other’s sentences and telepathically know when the other would phone or come over for an impromptu visit. Our friendship seems to me today to have been based on our particular “truths” being virtually identical, simple truths that made our lives easy while also letting us avoid feeling concerned about the terror we triggered in family members through our many pranks and practical jokes. “As we grew up, Jesse gravitated toward a physically active track and field lifestyle, while I busied myself in problem-solving, brain-busters, and pattern and design puzzles. Yet, in a way I find strange to recall today, although our personalities seemed to be growing in polar opposite directions, we still got together at every opportunity we could find to exchange gossip, boy-talk about the latest “hunk” to die for, the winners of the last new group Emmy, the latest must-see movie, and so on. Eventually, Jessie and I went to different universities to pursue our different interests. She won a scholarship for her athletic prowess, while I went into practical science and pure mathematics. “Years passed and suddenly it was the summer of 2004. Jesse’s parents were getting ready to celebrate a milestone anniversary and had chosen the Fourth of July holiday so that as many family members as possible could come for a reunion. Jesse and I emailed each other for weeks prior to the event, each looking forward eagerly to catching up on the latest loves of our lives, and wondering if we might even play a trick or two on the anniversary couple. “But, although our emails had excited much anticipatory pleasure in each of us, my actual reunion with someone whom I had been thinking was my favorite relative of all was, for us both, a huge disappointment. It was not because we had not been communicating. We had, in fact, frequently been using email to discuss a range of family matters. But, to both our surprises, we found we could no longer talk with each other. At last together, only feet apart in the same room, our conversation never “got going” as it once used to do so easily. “Instead of Jesse’s stories taking hours to set up, detail, explain, dissect, comment on, and draw conclusions from, they took minutes. It seemed to me that she was relating the two years of her life in which we had been apart in an abbreviated-Reader’s-Digest form. Talk about “keeping it simple!” I had to ask many times for her to explain why she did what she said she’d done, or how she came to the conclusion she had. But the sad truth for me was that Jesse grew increasingly irritated with my curiosity and thirst for “more detail” – because each time we sat down for what we both had expected would be a nice chat, she would shortly make some lame excuse to get up and leave. “Each time she would promise to fill me in on the details as soon as we could get away from the family and resume our catching up. I found myself left wondering, for example, why Aunt Marge had taken a trip to Europe for a month while leaving Uncle Bob to tend to three children under the age of 12. "Without Uncle Bob and her brood in tow Aunt Marge had scarcely "gone anywhere" before. The couple owned a bistro, so she had rarely gone outside the limits of the suburb in which they lived. But what struck me now was that they had always been the stable ones of our tribe – the anchor couple whom we thought of as role models for a sound, secure married-forever pair (albeit a mundane and borderline boring one!). Had something gone wrong in their marriage? “Later in the day, I saw Aunt Marge fussing and scolding her children in a way I had never witnessed before. I even caught her threatening her 9-year-old with a spanking that “would make him unable to sit down for a week!” I couldn’t imagine what he might have done to raise Aunt Marge’s ire to such a pitch. That was just not something I’d ever imagined I would see from Aunt Marge. Moreover, what else was strange was that Bob seemed to be enjoying a few more beers than usual. “These somewhat disturbing observations added to my disappointment with Jesse, and threatened to trigger an out-and-out upset, so I turned my mind desperately to finding an explanation. The one I "landed on" connected what I was now witnessing of my aunt and uncle with the grossly simplified summary that Jesse had given me of the last 2 years of her family’s life: something in the household of Marge and Bob was seriously wrong. “My mother was nearby when I drew this conclusion, and so naturally … I ... turned to her ... and …” Jacobi’s voice trailed off. Chinghiz waited, apparently, breathlessly. But Jacobi was obviously stifling a sob. After a few moments, the phone went dead. |
Upcoming Book: Empathic Authenticity, EA
Excerpt 2: Keeping it too simple?
Excerpt 2: Keeping it too simple?
| Empathic Authenticity: An Adventure of Discovery with Chinghiz and His Friends |
| All of us need some order in our lives. But, needing order, we may mistakenly demand simplicity because simplicity is easier to recognize. So perhaps the most common source of confusion in truth telling is that a need of order has been transmuted into a desire for simplicity. Believing simplicity to be a need, we also feel a very distracting desire: to believe that some particular view of truth is the truth. If indeed we fail to distinguish desires from true needs, our confusions result in under-use of our capacities for inventing and asking questions. We will then be exposing ourselves, and probably others also, to making assumptions or presumptions that may be tragically untrue. Do you recall the "Keep it simple, stupid!" sloganeers? It affected virtually all English- speaking sub-cultures. Happily – for those of us who were not taken in by the crasser of the manifold simplicities that eventually soured most of us to that jockish philosophy – the K. I.S.S. slogan is now in retreat in many, if not yet the majority of, senior decision-making circles (the US 2008 presidential primary elections being often a sad exception!). K.I.S.S. is slowly giving way to the insult-free injunctive, “K.I.S., please”, and sometimes to the actually considerate request “Would you mind clarifying this for me?” or “Would you mind helping me to get my mind around this (or that), please?” Both K.I.S. devotees and K.I.S.S. fanatics have eventually to acknowledge that the stamp of a bigot is his or her demand – for the primary sake of limiting the energy she or he must spend on thinking how to be considerate – for simplicity as an entitlement. And here I see that Chinghiz has suddenly straightened up and folded his bow-wielding arms ominously in a way that I’ve not seen before. Do you not agree with that, Chinghiz? “Well,” says he, “There's something I'd like your readers to hear about Jacobi on this. After the fury she vented in that email I showed you, she must have had some second thoughts for she called me out of the blue the other day and told me quite a story: |
Chinghiz turned to face me, and I noticed that even he could not hide the pain he was feeling. His account of his
conversation with Jacobi turned out to be the last I heard of her. But perhaps Chinghiz will one day make a
reconnection ...
Until we have learned how untrue is the idea that some particular perception or reality is "the truth", we are in peril
of behaving as zealots on the self-righteous way to exhibiting certifiable bigotry. Afflicted with zealotry, we believe
we know "the truth" about some subject or other. Afflicted with bigotry, we are hopelessly sunk in fanatical
“knowledge”: we presume that we surely do know "the truth" about some subject or issue or other. But even if we
should turn out to "be right", how much "room" do our righteous claims leave for anyone else to participate with us
in humankind’s long search for beliefs upon which we can safely rely?
All that the universe seems to "grant" anyone actually to know is the aspect of truth pertinent to maintaining his or
her own peace of mind!
conversation with Jacobi turned out to be the last I heard of her. But perhaps Chinghiz will one day make a
reconnection ...
Until we have learned how untrue is the idea that some particular perception or reality is "the truth", we are in peril
of behaving as zealots on the self-righteous way to exhibiting certifiable bigotry. Afflicted with zealotry, we believe
we know "the truth" about some subject or other. Afflicted with bigotry, we are hopelessly sunk in fanatical
“knowledge”: we presume that we surely do know "the truth" about some subject or issue or other. But even if we
should turn out to "be right", how much "room" do our righteous claims leave for anyone else to participate with us
in humankind’s long search for beliefs upon which we can safely rely?
All that the universe seems to "grant" anyone actually to know is the aspect of truth pertinent to maintaining his or
her own peace of mind!
| An excerpt (c) 2007-8 by Angus Cunningham angusc@authentixcoaches.com |
| A Second Journey with Jacobi |
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