He was prone to exaggeration, to over-statement, to hyperbole. "Never
say anything in
three words
that you could say in thirty" could have been his credo. Look: it's not
so much what we
speak
but rather that we
speak,
which defines us as
human
and generates our lives. As I got to know him better, I noticed how
much he struggled unnecessarily with complications in his life - not
because he did anything bad or wrong but because he didn't know how /
he didn't have it in him (yet) to let
"simple"
be. Life is
simple.
And we've convinced ourselves after citing years of flawed conclusions
as proof, that
it's never simple.
Actually this conversation isn't even about him. It's not about someone
else. It's about what I saw in him that reminded me of me. Sometimes
it's
easier
to see yourself in someone else than it is to see yourself
in the mirror.
And I had
begun
to let in and to take notice that I too had come to the conclusion that
life is never simple.
More than that, I had concluded that what was required of me was to get
out thereinto the world,
and
fix it.
It had never occurred to me that the problem wasn't out there.
Rather it was where I was coming from. Where I was coming from
was
life is never simple.
And so everything was a problem.
The whole world's
teal when you wear teal lenses. To quote Abraham Maslow: "If you only
have a hammer, you tend to see everything as a nail.".
What I'd like to bring to light here isn't how to bring
simplicity
to life. That's a subject for
another conversation
on another occasion. Rather what I'd like to bring to light here is how
we bring complications to our situations in life by the way we say
what we say about them. I asked him what he had done for the
holidays. He took a deep breath, and began a long, very
long,
detailed
description which included where he went, how he got there, who else
was there, what they did, what they wore, what they ate, how
long they stayed, what they talked about, who left when ... you know,
it went on and on for nearly a half an hour, during which time I let
myself be held captive. Following it all was quite complicated, and so
I bravely persevered in the name of politeness.
One of the problems with this text medium is that as I
speak
it, you can't see me smiling. I recognize his generosity in taking the
time to give me
all the details.
I would have preferred however, to get the condensed version, and then
spend the rest of our time together
celebratingour holidays ourselves.
My point here is not
simply
to bring light to bear on very long complicated conversations for which
there's no convenient or polite way to turn off or escape from. It's
not that. I had asked him what he did for the holidays. He told me. And
the time he took and
the detailshe shared,
were sheer generosity on his part. I recognize that. But
consider
instead a
terser
response comprising "I went there, I met so-and-so, it was great to see
them all again" - period - and in the time we had remaining together,
we could have spoken more /
shared
more about us, here and now, rather than
talking
story
about
what happened
to other
people
somewhere else, in lieu of real
communication.
So instead of recreating each and every complicated point of each and
every complication
he shared,
I responded with a
terse
and cheerful "Thank you for
sharing
your holiday visit with me.". He got that I had gotten all of it -
tersely,
cheerfully.
Such a response highlights the difference between how we can complicate
situations in life by what we say about them, and how to keep them
terse
and
simple.
Keeping things
terse
and
simple
doesn't preclude experiencing
the gift
of
communication.
It actually enhances it. It's being gotten that's
the gift.
