SleepingOrchid

Danger=DESTRUCTION: “Face your fears”

Risk can be hard to recognize. It comes in forms we have never seen before; sometimes in forms no one’s ever seen before. Luckily, we are hardwired to perceive Danger. That doesn’t mean we will always perceive it, or even know which direction it’s coming from; Danger is a clever chameleon, prone to snares and disguise. But it does mean we should never put our “Danger perceptors” entirely to sleep the way some will demand for an unnecessarily lavish display of trust. You will find those demanders are holding back a few cards themselves, sometimes for “our own good” but always for their own good.

Challenge – Today we will examine “pushback”. While planning ways to intensify our presence in the world we must think about how much cooperation can we expect from the “universe”? Damn little! And why is that? Status quo? Inertia? Entropy? Too many dancers and too few partners? All of the above? In trying to create change are we water flowing downhill seeking a path “of least resistance” or are we more like an exhausted marathoner stumbling up a steep hill (in bad weather!) What will “resistance” look like and where will it come from? Most importantly, how will we react? Marathoners must conserve their strength. This course is unfamiliar: we have no idea what traps, snares and pitfalls lie ahead. How can we arm ourselves? One technique is to try not to take all this pushback personally. To do so might waste precious emotional resources. We see others as preventing us from getting ahead, they see us threatening their place in the world. “Resistance” may even be “blind” through Acts of God, devolution and just plain bad luck. We’re all familiar with the cataclysmic damage “being in the wrong place at the wrong time” can inflict. But if we are determined to move forward we have committed ourselves to motion. Let us then “enlighten” and educate our own intellects, studying what we might expect and strategizing how we can protect ourselves.

FEAR – Don’t we secretly already know that our fear itself creates
most monsters? And yet there ARE real things to be afraid of out there. For that reason, we need to face our fears squarely and list them, but we also need to honestly assess the risks. It surprises me that in exclusively online communications, people don’t make more of an effort to find out if the other person is “real” or not. That can only be because they are enjoying the connection so enormously. It is filling a vacuum, and that pressure alone will render us willfully blind. The Buddhists counsel us to look at our emotions from a distance. Don’t judge them, don’t disregard them, simply observe them.

Danger – This is the way you are feeling. It is “just” a feeling. It is OK to enjoy a conversation. But if the only reason you enjoy it is because you are entering into an impossible fantasy, danger signals should be flashing. No harm in running background checks! No harm in running this person’s “picture” through Google to see who they REALLY are – or aren’t. If the best conversations don’t happen with the masks off, then this person can’t be right for you. If we wish to build and not destroy, we will need a fellow engineer as committed as we are to the physics of existence – what behaviors enhance growth and flourishing, and what techniques gut and wither. Narcissists in particular try to entrap through “love bombing” – demonstrating dazzle & commitment far too soon. If it looks like “overkill” it probably is. We don’t want to be “killed” period! A healthy suspicion keeps you questioning – and on the road to reality.

The Sideways Smile

I heard you singing and remembered
All the things that you’ve forgotten
I see you clearly
A fish in a hailstone.
See your hands
Long for a man I always thought
And your upper lip too short
Like a lion’s in fact
You have an animal presence
Placing no trust in words
Placing no trust in love
Acting like you’d never met me
rolling joints with
private letters that I sent
creating islands undiscovered
worlds unreachable.
You were the joke
I didn’t get; I recall your sideways smile
blowing smoke between us
Refusing to forgive the essential fragility that
Marks us humans;
Fated as you were
always to surrender
to the scornful cries of your
Invisible hecklers.