Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups
You see when we fight it bleeds over into the lives of those around us. Don’t get this mistaken with some delusion that there will be no fights. This will never happen. When people are allowed the freedom to be themselves, there will be clashes. I would make a contrasting point that the attempt to exert control over others to prevent those perceived clashes is a far greater predictor of violence than of cohabitating diversity of thought. Why? It comes from a place of fear.
People all go through the human experience, however, the way this looks populates based upon the populace from whence they came. Our tastes, likes, dislikes. Our agendas are not set nor defined yet they are deeply influenced based upon where we grew up and who raised us. This includes parents, grandparents, extended family, and non-traditional families. Who was your family? That may not have been your blood. Yet their DNA still runs through you and that imbues you with history. It’s in the inherited traits, diseases, and physicality. It does not elevate nor does it diminish. It just is. Information.
And if people aren’t in denial of this, they will react differently, given the same set of circumstances. Again, this does not raise nor diminish but rather provide complementary perspective. If we are to put it to math, both perspectives add to the objective experience. And in that way, if the emotional attachment is taken away from this conflict, one is left to consider those contrasting views rather than go to war with them.
Changing someone… or trying to change them… well that drives resentment, for the brain will begin to means-test what I do and you do when other people do. And that was going to happen anyway. I have heard the brain described as a faulty calculator. See it adds and multiplies, but never subtracts or divides. But if resentment is front and center then that analysis will lead to more walls, more resentment, more retaliation.
And to see time as a pond when a pebble is dropped in and the ripple that comes forth, could be a different way to see time as a series of happenings that emit the ripples from their mutually arising occurrences. This is different from cause-and-effect thinking which subscribes to a linear model. Do not look for reasons rather think about the immediate outcomes surrounding you.
A fight with no resolution and only an explosion of emotion may feel good at its core. Something that’s bursting at the seams like a pair of jeans, naturally feels good to release. And in a way that is a resolution. So, is it released upon? Catapulted into another person that energy is going to rebound out and only so much of it can get diffused through one person.
Scale it out further, when you walk out of the bedroom still angry, still unresolved is the kid going to question why your’re angry or who you’re angry at? Maybe. Maybe the ones who are allowed to be themselves, the ones who are still curious, and still inquisitive and care about other people’s well-being. Their state of baseline, perhaps. A good way to stymie that in a child is a look of unbridled anger that doesn’t know where to find its mark. That’ll show a kid not to ask questions.
How long do suppose it will be before they ask those whys? Do you think it will be before it is too late? Children lack Vairagya (not Viagra), the Hindu principle of the distinctive mind. Viragia is dispassion and non-reactiveness. This can be thought of as the discerning mind. Applying Vairagya in stillness allows the world to be as it is. This is a skill, not an inherent trait. And though it develops in childhood, it is not guaranteed. Children appear to lack the ability to apply a discerning mind, perhaps given the limited number of experiences they lack to build sufficient contrast. Little kids see every experience as a new one though and therefore do not appear to compartmentalize like-experiences into their rubric for reacting to the world around them.
It would appear that the ability to discern one experience from another is some combination of biology and accumulated experiences. It would however be short-sighted to ascribe a chronological and numerical age to this, as I have previously discussed my position on time in this and other writings.
Time moves differently for people which is why these skills and insights find us in very different ways and in very different times in each of our lives. This is determined by the pool of experiences and the quality of our engagement with them in particular. The larger that pool is, the greater the number of experiences to consider and develop a discerning mind. This can happen over years or in a few seconds of scanning a room and looking for clues. See time looks different and is constantly changing.
So then are we here to make each other feel happy? No, I would argue. Happiness is a byproduct, a transitory one from the way we live our lives. It is a state of being. I am happy when I am not in conflict with myself. True? I am happy when I speak from my heart. Ture again? Maybe not. I am content when I speak from my heart, when I am not in denial of myself. And this is balanced by what I say and how I say it affects my outside environment just as much as my internal environment.
Kids don’t know better. That’s why we are patient with them. And adults don’t always know better either. That’s why we are patient with them too. This is grown-up stuff.
I want to speak to your heart. I want you to consider the things I say. Do not take them at face value. And not to reject them until proven otherwise. Simply consider. Speaking from my heart and speaking what is in my mind are two different things. The mind calculates. The heart balances.