The man texted the stranger from the dating app but didn’t know the person was sitting right next to him at the coffee place. Later they would laugh when telling the story of how they met.
The End
Very Short Story #2
The Woman
The woman looked at the stranger’s picture on the dating site and liked what she saw. Then she realized the woman in the picture was actually sitting outside the window at the cafe. She went and introduced herself. They became best friends and would laugh when they told the story of how they met.
The End
Very Short Story #3
The Violinist
The violinist stared at the person in church, sure she knew him from somewhere. He came up to her afterwards and said they went to high school together. They got married a year later and always laughed when they told the story of how they found each other again.
I think people often get the two mixed up. Anger, in my mind, is a temporary thing. That doesn’t mean you can’t find angry people who have made a habit of it. But usually anger is in response to an event, a word, the unexpected. A traffic jam can get you angry. But if you hate a traffic jam chances are there is something much deeper going on. Like hating your life, your job, your circumstances that brought you, time and again, to be in a traffic jam.
Boomerang in your Car –
Actually being in your car is a good illustration of what hate is all about. So, you are sitting in your car; hating your job, your life, your circumstances and this stupid traffic jam you are stuck in. As your hatred rises what actually changes around you? Does your job get better? Does home life suddenly improve? Does the traffic jam go away? Nope. Absolutely nothing changes outside that car. Every ounce of hate bounces off the glass and metal and comes back to you.
Boomerang in life –
Now, take that outside the car. No longer is it all coming back to you. That boomerang is first hitting your spouse, your boss, your co-worker, your kids…THEN it is coming back and hitting you. So, you are not just hurting yourself, but all those around you. And it can help create a self-ratification that your life is worth hating because now maybe your spouse, boss, co-worker and kids are angry too.
Put the Boomerang Down –
Really, what is the alternative? If you want to live a loving life instead of one filled with hate, you have to put the weapon down. You have to decide that hate is not a good weapon, that it will not win your battles. It will only inflict damage around you and within you.
What weapon will win your battles? Before deciding on your weapon, maybe look to see if you are really in a battle in the first place. Maybe you have made it all up. Wouldn’t that be nice?
So simple to understand, and so easy to see when it is violated….by others. Not so easy to call ourselves on it though, when we hate, when we desire harm to another out of hate, when we are blind to the log in our own eye. When we dehumanize someone into a caricature instead of a real person and thus feel the right to hate them. When we decide that a whole group of people, maybe black, maybe Muslim, maybe white, maybe women, maybe Christian, maybe whoever doesn’t belong to our club, is to be feared and hated and judged instead of known and understood as a group and known and understood as individuals.
Then we have given in and are part of the problem, not the solution.
What is the answer?
My answer is to be aware and when the moment arrives when I could judge and hate, to choose to love and understand instead. It does sound a bit pie in the sky, but in truth it’s very practical. Actually pay attention and when you see that moment arrive, and it will (AND you will know it) you choose to have courage and think and speak in love instead of hate. It will take courage because it might be a group of you together when someone says something hateful. And you will have to stand up to that person and let it be known you are choosing love instead. It isn’t easy.
Why Do It?
So why do it, why not just let it slide? Because you become what you practice. Just as sure as the sun and the rain, if you practice hate, if you practice accepting hate, then you will be more and more filled with it. This is real. This is really how we become who we become. So, there really is not alternative. If we want to be and become a loving person, wise, kind, thoughtful, understanding, then we have to practice those things.
I did this drawing yesterday (6/21/16). I also did it in 1980. Not this exact image of course, but the same basic scene. In 1980 it was a woodcut print. I also have created it a few times on napkins over the last decade. Why is that? Why do artists revisit a theme like this? I mean, we all do it, right? That is how we eventually gain a style and a look. We keep wanting to try something again and again. Can I do it better? Can I do it in a different way that will bring out a different aspect of the idea? Can I have fun with it again, like I did last time. Sounds like a sport when I say it like that, and in some ways it is.
Why This Theme?
So, why do I revisit this theme in particular? I think it’s because I have always been drawn to the problem of not paying attention or of paying attention to the wrong thing at the wrong time. I have that problem to some degree and so do many others. And it has consequences. Bad things can happen when you are distracted. It can be as simple as getting honked at, or as complex as an airline crashing with resulting insignificant or significant consequences.
For some reason this idea keeps coming back to me. Maybe because I keep being reminded of it by the outside world, in news reports about the parent who left a loaded pistol on her bed and a toddler got hold of it to tragic consequences, or the politician who gets caught with his pants down but can’t stop his behavior and gets caught again, also to tragic consequences.
It’s Not Easy
If you watch me on Periscope or read this blog regularly you know I believe we live in a ‘judgment society’ these days. In the old days, people believed an unseen God watched us and judged us. We were going to go to hell because he had seen us doing bad things (or thinking about doing bad things). In Christianity of course, they are saved from that fate by Jesus. In other religions they have their ways of being saved as well. But it always required being saved or redeemed in some way.
The Internet is God
Now however, it’s not an unseeing God, it’s the internet who sees us and judges us. Just look at any unfortunate event, like the 2 year old taken by the Alligator in Florida, or the toddler falling into the Gorilla enclosure in Ohio and you will immediately see that unseen God in the form of very angry and very self-righteous observers demanding justice, castigating the institutions, decrying to terrible parenting, etc.
No Mercy
The difference now, with the Internet playing God, is that there is preeminently the judgment. The mercy, compassion, forgiveness, understanding and patience is less and less apparent. It is not what is expressed or thought of first, but usually only in response to the severe judgment that comes from all sides. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that it comes, I just wish it was the first thing we thought instead of the last.
I came up with the idea of the drawing at the top first. But then I thought more about it and realized that it needed a second illustration so I drew the two men on a separate napkin. Then I thought of another version and drew it. Then I thought of another one, and another one. Then I realized there are infinite versions of the coward hating someone who intimidates them. In America alone you can see a hatred of Muslims (or more accurately, pretty much everyone from the Middle East, Muslim or not), LGBTs, women, African-Americans, gun owners, gun regulators, Democrats, Republicans, Chinese, Mexicans (or anyone speaking Spanish), Jews. rich people, poor people, celebrities, disabled, Atheists, Christians, Goths, Pageant Queens, fat people, thin people and more. The list is indeed infinite.
The Box marked X
The simple truth is, the coward can’t handle figuring out a way to live with one or more of these groups. They don’t want to struggle with the difficult emotional and psychological work of opening their mind to try to understand these other people. That takes courage. It’s much easier to simply categorize whatever group is intimidating you into being unworthy of your attention and contemplation. Just put them in the box marked X and hate the box. It’s so much easier.
The Danger
It’s also so much more dangerous. Of course the obvious danger is what happened in Orlando and South Carolina and on back at different locations for decades now, and that is violence that kills and maims. It is what we most want to avoid. But there is another danger, not as immediately disastrous, but perhaps equally terrible in the long view, and that is a life wasted by hate. Many hateful people aren’t going to go out in a blaze of shame by killing themselves and others. But they are going to live a life of hate and end up on their deathbed having only that hate to show. What a tragedy that is.
Admit It
So, what do you do about it if this is you or someone you love? It’s to admit your intimidation. Admit your fear. Start with what is at the root of it all. That requires courage. But the benefit of summoning that courage instead of hiding in the cave of cowardice is that you get to be in the light. You get to escape the hate and move towards love. And once you escape it in one area of your life, it gets to be infectious. Loving becomes easier, it becomes something you want, something you look forward to, something you can give away with pride. And, it’s something that then starts to transform others around you.
I believe that if nothing happened in Congress to legislate responsible gun regulations after Sandy Hook, nothing will happen now , after Orlando. I think that is terribly sad but I do think it is true.
What Can Change
But, I do believe there is something we can do every day. And it can actually have a profound effect, and that is to examine what builds hate up so much that a person believes they are justified in committing mass slaughter (or individual killing). What is it that brings them to that point? and most importantly, who and what can help them never get to that point?
Brain Illness vs ‘Normal’
Obviously someone who is mentally ill (more accurately, has a brain disease) is one sort of case who takes a lot of effort, in informal and formal environments, to get help and resolution. But what about the many who would not be classified as mentally ill if they had a formal evaluation? What about those who are law-abiding citizens, who can by guns legally, who also happen to be very angry or depressed, or jealous, or anxious, or bitter or any number of feelings and emotions that are taking them to a very dark place? What can we do about and for those people?
Helping
How do we help them lay down the burden of anger and hate? First and foremost it always starts with our own behavior. We have to be the example of someone who has already done that and continually does it. Then we have to be willing to see others clearly, to not make excuses when someone is angry, to not enable them to continue, but to stop and confront them in love and compassion, not in judgment, letting the person know you are on their side and in their corner wanting the very best for them. If we don’t feel safe confronting them, then we need to find friends, family or professionals that might help. But in many cases it’s really simply about asking them about their feelings and talking it through with them, giving them hope they can get beyond the hate they have. It’s not a simple process, but it can be done.
Guns Again
One of the arguments I hate the most from gun advocates is the, ‘Hey, if they don’t have guns, they will use knives’ argument. I think it is absurd and wrong. BUT, it does point the way to something that is true, and that is hate exists before violence, just as Jesus taught. Murder starts in the heart as hate. Even if we did have effective gun control (which we should) we would still have hate. What we do with that, how we transform it into love, is the essential work that will never go away, no matter how many or how few guns we have.
When I was in college I had a female friend who I was hoping might want a romantic relationship with me. I pursued, she gave a few positive signals, then some negative ones, then some neutral ones, then some hesitations, then some positive, then some none, then some no, then some yes, then some…I was gone by then.
It was just too much. I didn’t know where I stood. I didn’t know if she was or was not interested. I didn’t know anything solid. And I couldn’t keep going knowing nothing so I lost interest and eventually went on my way somewhere else with someone else.
Game Playing
It seemed to me that it was a game she enjoyed playing. She liked being pursued, that was the adrenaline rush. Having an actual relationship? Not so much. Of course this can happen with men as well as women, so it’s not only a one way street. Men can get their adrenaline rush from their pursuing game but not the relationship game.
Have you experienced this? What do you think it is it all about?
You know what good shock is? Good shock is when you are forced to face something you think is scary or wrong, something you feel is going to hurt you or destroy society, but actually isn’t. Examples of that could be, as seen in the drawing, breastfeeding in public or transgender rights. Other examples from the past might include having to sit next to a black person at a lunch counter or on a bus. Maybe having a woman as the Pastor of your church. Maybe moving next door to a married gay couple. Maybe It would be having an African-American as your President. Or maybe a woman as your President. Maybe a lot of things.
The Bad Shock
You know what bad shock is? Bad shock is when you witness something cruel, mean, hurtful, hateful, discriminatory, bigoted, racist, sexist, violent, disrespectful. That is bad shock. And you know what makes it worse? When you don’t say anything or, even worse, support it.
When I was 10 years old my family went to Chicago for a big family reunion. We were staying at what I thought was a pretty spiffy place called ’50th on the Lake’. Something happened at that reunion that has stayed with me my entire life. It became deeply rooted in my memory.
Today that memory and all the moments since came rushing back. My sister, Nancy, remembers it slightly different than I do but here is the story as I remember it.
Nancy and I came down the elevator into the lobby. As we exited we saw a black man sitting by himself on a couch. We both knew exactly who he was because my father was a big boxing fan at the time. I don’t think people now can understand how big boxing was back then. I really was one of the biggest of sports, along with Baseball and Football.
We both became very excited and very scared because, after all, this man beat people up for a living. But we knew what we had to do. We went to the desk and got hotel postcards and a pen and went up to him. In my memory I went first and asked, “Mr. Clay, may I have your autograph?” He said yes, and signed my postcard. My sister, standing right next to me, did the same thing. But this time he stopped and said, “Yes, but only if you call me Muhammad Ali.” Which she did when she thanked him. He wasn’t mean, he was kind and soft spoken when he said it. He was generous and easy going with us and it left a deep impression on me.
Of course, just as any of us do when we have a personal moment with a star, he was forever and always the one I rooted for. I was devastated when, 2 years later, he was stripped of his Championship after being convicted of refusing the draft. I was upset because I didn’t have him to root for anymore. Nobody else in boxing came close to being of interest to me (or to millions of others). But then, as I grew up and became aware of the larger issues in the world I realized I still could root for him. I could root for him to win his legal battle, because I believed he was in the right, and maybe then he would be able to box again.
And that is what happened. He came back from a 3 year layoff to fight again. Not many people gave him much of a chance since a slew of very hard hitting boxers had come up in his absence. Frazier, Norton and a particular big, hard hitting man named George Foreman.
It took him 4 long years of boxing to gain a fight with Foreman for the Championship. The fight took place in Kinshasa, Zaire and was promoted as ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’. While it happened in Africa I was sitting in a college pub at Brandeis University listening on the pub radio to the round recaps after each round was over. Nobody else was paying attention, but I was. I believed he would find a way to win. The press didn’t think that would happen, but millions of people around the globe believed it. They were rooting for this man to defy the odds. After all it had been 7 long years since he had been World Champion. But we believed.
And, in the most amazing upset since he won the title in the first place 10 years earlier, he won. He boxed a brilliant match, luring Foreman into boxing all the energy out of himself by using the now famous ‘Rope a Dope’ strategy. He knocked him out in the 8th round. I pretty much made a fool of myself in that pub with my excitement at his victory. People didn’t realize what it meant to me, but it meant a lot.
He ended up keeping the title for 5 years until losing and regaining it again in 1978. He was the only person to win the championship 3 times up to that point.
But why, besides me having met him, does he means so much to me? It’s because he believed in himself. A scrawny kid from Louisville always knew he was the greatest, and he wasn’t afraid to say it because he always knew he could back it up, and he did. He inspired me, not in athletics obviously, but in life. That if you believe and you act to make it happen, you can make it happen.
But it was more than that. It was also because he wasn’t afraid to grow as a man, a thinker, a human. He kept moving forward in pursuing ideas and ended up where each of us really want to end up, and that is believing love is the most important thing in the world. You can’t do much better than that.
It’s because of those lessons as well as his boxing career that he was the greatest to me.
As I was about to start writing my thoughts on this quote this morning, I came across this post on Facebook:
I know that in two years someone will probably mention his name and I will deny that he was ever actually important because I will have forgotten all about him. Facebook will tell me I have a memory to look back on and I will laugh at this status. I may or may not remember who it’s about… but right now… this hurts. He sought me out when I knew nothing but his name. He wanted to spend so much time with me. He wanted me to move in with him, wanted me to get a tattoo he designed, and he tried his last name with my first. Then, just like that I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t live up to his idea of the girl deserving of the pedestal he placed me on. Ugh… mess with my self esteem for fun, why don’t you?
It is from a friend of mine, Emilie Disney. I know her because years ago our families knew each other at church, she was friends with one of my daughters.
Time –
It tells a way too common story of someone being blindsided by someone. I mean, how can you know the ropes and not be tied up when everything seems perfect, right? Time is the answer. The key thing to know here is that her suitor said all those wonderful things within a two week period of time. TWO WEEKS. But one wants to believe, right? He was persistent and persuasive and she was seduced by it. And then all of a sudden, he was done.
Luckily, while she is trusting and sincere, she is also smart and mature. She knew inside that something was off when he moved that fast. It was red flags popping up. It didn’t take her long to realize she had dodged a bullet, or at least was just grazed by it and received a flesh wound not needing extreme medical attention!
Experience is the Teacher –
And now she is a more experienced woman. She has learned the ropes to a more sophisticated degree. She won’t get tied up again that easily, that is for sure. And that’s how it is, right? You don’t learn the ropes from reading a book on relationships. You learn the ropes by having relationships. That is how we learn.
BUT, just in case you don’t want to go through it yourself and you do want to learn from other’s experience….if some guy promises the moon within two weeks? Be wary, no matter how seductive he is.
One of my favorite lines in any song is “Sometimes we’re blinded by the very thing we need to see.” It’s in ‘The Last Word’ by Mary Chapin Carpenter. She’s one of my all time favorite singer/songwriters. She never fails to bring real and raw meaning into the world with her poignant lyrics and powerful music. This song also happens to be on one of my all time favorite albums, Stones in the Road. If you haven’t ever listened to it, I really do believe you are missing one of the most perfect albums ever made.
My Blind Spots
Hearing those words made me start to look at my own blind spots, which is hard, since they don’t want to be seen. Actually, that isn’t true. The spot itself, as is shown in my drawing, is actually what we do see. We see it so big and bold that we don’t see beyond it. We don’t see what it’s hiding.
We can even be enamored of our own blind spots, as when we brag about our ignorance on a certain subject, or our lack of talent in some area, as if it is a badge of honor instead of something to pay attention to and move beyond.
What both the quote and the lyrics say to me is that you see what you want and need to see; infatuated love, the possibility of wealth, the dreams of fame for example, and seeing those things so big can blind you to seeing the emotional desperation, the selfish greed, or the empty loneliness that might come along with those things.
Desire
In other words, desire often begets blindness. So I try to ask myself as often as I can, what is it I am desiring here, and how is that changing, and perhaps warping, what it is I am paying attention to?
Many years ago I did a napkin drawing of the actual lyrics I mentioned above. Here it is. it is one of the earliest of the napkins drawn for the world instead of just for my daughters. it’s from 2009.
