A curator will spend weeks, maybe months, examining every layer of an art piece. His eyes will trace every cubic inch from start to finish in search of flaws. He will dust for foreign particulates. He will take paint samples and break them down to their most basic components. He will look for any indication that what lies before him is fake, knowing that the majority of what he does receive falls in that category. But once in a while, something real finds its way in front of him. And after every possible test that can be done, it is found that the object is exactly what it claims to be. When that happens, on the rare occasion that happens, the object becomes priceless.
I am often reminded of the existence of a cultural norm of fabrication that can greatly devalue verbal expression and human connection.
Take a moment and think about how often you tell someone what you think they want to hear and not what you really think. Even more basic than that, in a day, how many automatic unconscious phrases flit from your lips, without even the realization that what you say and what you feel have absolutely no correlation.
You ask someone, ‘How are you?’ with no interest in stopping and hearing about their life. Someone asks you, ‘How are you?’ and despite what is going on you respond, ‘good’ automatically. Or even better, someone asks, ‘What’s Up?’ and you answer ‘good’ not even paying attention to the question they asked. Now, I know for myself that I do not want to share my life with everyone that asks about it, and I completely understand the automated response that can occur to allow the person to move on his or her way and for me to get back to my day. But I think everyone could benefit here from stepping back and thinking about what they are saying when they interact with people, and look to make each interaction as authentic as possible. I think we get to the point where we don’t truly believe what people tell us because we know this is a culture that often wears masks. Someone says, ‘I love your new haircut’ (I just got my haircut), and I can say a dubious thank you, because through years of watching others interact I have learned that, more often than not, if they don’t like my hair, they will tell me they like it because they believe that is what the ‘nice’ thing to do is, and then the minute I leave tell the person next to me they think it makes me look like an Edward Scissorhands victim.
Falsely doling out compliments devalues the compliments that are real because we learn to no longer truly believe what people tell us.
Have you ever met a person who to your surprise says, ‘I liked your hair better when it was long,’ and instead of being offended you smile and feel this internal sigh of relief because, whether or not is was something positive, it was authentic. And from then on out, everything that person says you tend to take a little more to heart because you can trust that what they say is the truth.
Next time an automatic ‘I’m sorry’ wants to burst from your lips, stop and think, what does that mean? Am I really sorry? What am I really feeling? The Spanish phrase for I’m sorry is ‘lo siento’, which literally translates to ‘I feel it’. I love that, because, if you’re saying it, shouldn’t you really feel it? Next time you ask someone, ‘Are you ok?’ think about what that means. What is ok? How do you define ok? What is it you are really asking? Can you move away from the generalizations that explain nothing and get specific? Do you really have a desire to understand this person inside? Now I say this with the caveat that tact should always be the framework within which truth is stated. When saying what you feel, the intention should be from a place of Ahimsa, or non-harming. If you feel the fuel for your words is anger and bitterness, then some time should be taken before anything is said at all. And there is vulnerability with the truth. There is a chance that despite best intentions, what you say will be twisted into a monster you had no desire to create. Yet, through the challenge of merging thought, emotion, and words into one flowing river, a deep strength could begin to form within you. We all know the power that rivers have to change the flow of things. I invite your soul to change the flow. Step back, re-route, and rise to the occasion. (Ha ha, get it, cause rivers rise- and prices when art is authentic…) Ok, anyway- I’ll end this now, with a great quote.
“So what happens is this refusal to confront one half of our existence, the dark side, what’s difficult about our lives, what’s grief-filled about our lives, what’s painful about our lives, what’s flawed about our lives. And the hope is that you can just concentrate on this other side and everything will be marvelous and good and all the time one side of us is just atrophied. And the soul doesn’t seem to make the distinction between the light and the dark. It chooses both. It doesn’t care if you do something successfully or fail at it; it just wants to know did you do it in your own way? Was it you who failed, or were you trying to be someone else when you failed. If it was you, then the soul’s happy. That was your experience, your failure; no one can take it away from you.”
~David Whyte, The Poetry of Self Compassion
Namaste.
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