Wading in the Velvet Sea

So why am I bringing up a wholly unoriginal point in the most trite way possible in that first paragraph? I could go into some specific details, but that would involve the whole ‘life’ thing which, we all know by now, this blog isn’t about. Sufficed to say, I’ve had enough varied experiences over the past 10 weeks to culminate is spewing off a few thoughts on the matter tonite. Not really looking for answers, not trying to provide any solutions; just throwing a few observations into the cyber-void and seeing where they land.

In 6th grade, our teacher posed a riddle to us on the last day before Christmas Break. She knew that we were too wired to really get any learning done, so she asked us at the beginning of the day, ‘Why is the item you’re looking for always in the last place that you look?’ Ooooh. A riddle. We liked riddles. We were also white suburban kids who thought Luke Skyywalker and the 2 Live Crew were the baddest muthas ever, but that’s another saga. Anyways, we threw a string of literal answers back in her face, none of which had any semblance of possibly being right, but after after 9 candy canes, you’re not thinking terribly straight.

Finally, one girl walked up to the teacher during our mini-party and said, ‘I know! I know! It’s in the last place you look because after you’ve found it, there’s no point looking anymore.’

Which was, indeed, the right reply.

Not sure why this story has always stuck with me. I hated 6th grade. Started three years of utter social hell for me. I don’t even remember the girl’s name. What I do remember is that this was my first experience with Ockham’s Razor; in short, ‘keep it simple’. Very hard to tell that to a Harvard grad. Keeping it simple is not in our nature. Throw in ‘sensitive English major’ into the mix and you’ve got an even tougher situation. If I had been a lesbian to boot I’m pretty sure I’d be lost in over-thinking 23 out of 24 hours of the day.

But I digress.

Ockham’s Razor comes in handy when dealing with the issue of why we only hurt the ones we care about. The Harvard-ite in me wants to explore psychoanalysis. Then explore the roots of why people can’t stay happy as expressed by Agent Smith in the original ‘Matrix’. Finally, I’d look up long lists of song lyrics to make an equally oblique, but rhyming, synopsis of why we constantly undermine the happiness of only those close to us. Maybe make a tape.

In the end, though, that proximity is the beginning and end of the explanation. We hurt only these people because they are the only ones close enough, physically and emotionally, upon which to inflict harm. Ockham’s Razor. The simplest explanation is often the best.

We inflict harm on a daily basis to dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of people. Those people simply don’t care. Or rather, don’t notice. Every person you cut off in traffic, everyone you curse at under your breath when riding mass transit, every pop star you mock in your car---from benignly annoying to intensely spiteful, these are hateful acts, but ones lacking a visceral quality. Nothing comes of our hatred, except for a Walter Mitty-esque fantasy of anger and violence.

If we do something similar to our friends and/or loved ones, though’well, then it gets noticed. You’ve got your visceral reaction, along with a bag of angst chips and a medium Diet Neuroses with which to wash it all down.

I guess what I’m looking for here is not so much ‘Why do we hurt our loved ones?’ but ‘Why can we hurt our loved ones?’ The answer to the former is as varied as there are people on this earth. Believe me, I’ve heard enough explanations to know that I will never run out of new and interesting theories about why people do the things they do.

The latter question, though, comes down to a simple theory of proximity. You’re close to me, I’m close to you. At a certain point, our dances spaces stop being separate. And either I’m gonna step on your toes at some point, or you’re gonna pull back into your space and take a bit of my flesh with you.

I used to naively think that only in love could you lose yourself in another person to the extent that you fundamentally were changed. Perhaps for the better, perhaps for the worse, but when it was over, some part of you that existed before the two of you met was forever lost. Gone. Kaput. That feeling in your gut, like someone punched you? That’s the hole. It burrows its way there because of psychic evolution. The stomach: our locus of hunger. Of longing. Needs to be filled. So we consume. And consume. And try to fill the gap. Sometimes, though, there’s never enough food.

Friends can do the same thing, sadly. Why can one hurt you, and another, doing the same thing, hardly make a dent? Hard to say. There’s sexual chemistry, and there’s platonic chemistry, and to call one ‘better’ than the other I think is missing the point. They might be, on some level, apples and oranges, but both vital to out mental nutrition, and equally able to disrupt our lives if missing from our diet.

Some friends can call you every six months and the two of you don’t miss a beat. Others can not call you for 3 days and you find yourself staring at your cell phone, or constantly checking your email. It’s hard to predict how it will go. A firing of neurons, a synaptic chain reaction…this is all that separates Option A from Option B.

What you don’t do, though, is wait for the 48 people who shared your car on the T that morning to drop you a line. Because you wouldn’t. That’s silly. Someone on that train might, in some parallel universe, be your best friend, the best man at your wedding, the love of your life. But in the here and now, we don’t worry about the 6 billion plus people not dropping us a line tonite. We sit by the phone wondering why that certain one won’t call back.

On our bad days, at least. It isn’t always like that. I’m not suggesting a pervasive misery to our lives. Friends come and go. All part of the Simba Circle of Life.

Sometimes, though, it’d be a nice break if the wheel stopped turning for a bit.