(From April 5th)
Last night I accidentally looked at someone's face at an intersection. I guess my gaze conferred something that I didn't intend - because the person started honking like crazy. When I made the mistake of looking back, a stocky man in a small white sedan with a shaved head was jerking his neck rapidly at me. He moved in a violent, stuttering nod.
I am really interested in learning how to not become scared when things like this happen. My best idea so far is to try and imagine what this guy's life is like. I am trying to humanize someone in defiance of my first reaction, which was fantasizing about flooding his car with a foul lawn mulch, crushing him.
I imagine a life for him where he had to overcome his fear of talking to a girl that he liked. How this turned into a relationship that brought his confidence up to stellar levels - finally peaking with him no longer needing her. He is unable to break it off, relying on her presence for domestic stability and regular sex. I think he must have been on his way to a bar or house to drink with his male crew. His only moments of liberation in a life he feels is suffocating must be when he opens that third beer and gets into a cycle of joking with the guys. There is one guy in particular who he always hopes to impress, more than the others. This one guy's sense of humor is more sophisticated. The man who honked at me gauges his own wit, and ultimately his effectiveness as a person, to the reactions of his uber-friend. And upon driving to see his uber-friend and the other lesser friends some jackoff DARES to look at him, and then look away. Like a whipped dog. What would uber friend do? Would he let it pass, falling into that same fallow camp as this dude in a crappy 2-tone pickup truck?
No. He would be a man - not just a man - THE ONLY MAN. For the sake of his friends, his best friend, his girlfriend, and his family, he had to show that he was better and stronger than this shifty eyed "college" creep.
The bad part is that I can't defeat this person, ever. Without my imagination and inference, his actions prove him about 2.5 steps up from walking with paws and a tail. He wins just by being the way he is. My compassion is not so much cutting the gordian knot as it is throwing a dart through a noose. Right now, I truly hate that guy. It's an ugly emotion and I'm not proud of it. I would like to learn more about how to react to these kinds of situations without internalizing them. I'd like to think that I can feel real compassion for anyone. But I know that my emotions will not lie to me at a desolate intersection at 2:00am - flanked by the personification of fight-or-flight.
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ReplyDeletei have a different problem, but i can in a sense relate through my own...situation. i tried and failed to become a martyr, and in the process i lost much of my bravado and ability to act accordingly in hostile situations. by acting accordingly i don't mean i would necessarily fight, but i had the ability to act with dignity if only in my own eyes regardless of my actions. as of late, i'm trying to get back to my roots, but lo, it's not that easy. it's tough when people do their tough guy routine and you don't have an answer. it's not the best feeling. life. always a damn learning experience.
ReplyDeletei hate feeling fear, but i laugh at the things that i hate. then i don't hate them anymore. they're funny. and then the fear goes away.
ReplyDeletebut people get offended when they think i think they're a joke, so i do a lot of laughing on the inside. at the very least, it feels better than panic. and if i should actually be in a panic because there actually is a real threat to my person, then at least i'm having a good time when i get my ass handed to me.