Athena: Words

Augustine,

I had been thinking about writing this idea yesterday, and then I just ran across a quote that feels like it goes along with it...

“There exists, for everyone, a sentence - a series of words - that has the power to destroy you. Another sentence exists, another series of words, that could heal you. If you're lucky you will get the second, but you can be certain of getting the first.” ~Philip K. Dick

I don't know about just one sentence, but I realized a couple years ago that there is one main thing that completely crushes my spirit in a way that nothing else does. I can get into arguments and disagreements with people about a number of different things, I can find certain work situations frustrating, but none of those things wound me.

For me, it happens when my passion and excitement about something I'm learning completely is dismissed and shut down as boring or stupid. I love my sister, but she's probably the person who does this the most--we're very opposite in personality and she genuinely just doesn't care one bit about learning...and she's very blunt and will honestly just tell me to my face, "I stopped paying attention five minutes ago." I could deal with it with a sibling, because it's how she is and that's never going to change...I push back sometimes, but there's just no real use. But it's something that I couldn't bear in a friendship or relationship.

And truthfully, I don't need to. My closest friends in the world are genuinely geeks about so many things. Even if they may not be interested in all of the same topics, they love to have deep conversations. But somehow, most people in my family--whom I love--are more like my sister than like me (with the exception of my Dad and a couple aunts/uncles whom I don't see as regularly as the rest.)

I know it sounds like a small thing, and it's not necessarily every moment--there are always reasonable times when people just don't want to hear about a particular thing, and that's fine. It's the moments when you're sharing about something that really matters to you, that you're excited about, and having that just shoved aside that I mean. Which I do feel is a bit related to that "raw" feeling I wrote about yesterday. Perhaps because being a "learner" is such an important part of my being, that it feels not just like a rejection of conversation, but a rejection of me on some fundamental level. Even if that's not the intent, it sort of makes me want to suck myself back in a bit, and limits the type of emotional relationship I can have with that person.

And why my deepest friendships (and I include you in this) are always with people who are energized by learning and talking about things that really matter to them. The moments when I feel happiest and the most fulfilled are not when I'm doing some activity like bowling or kayaking or seeing some extravagant thing (even though I do appreciate nature and fun times)...they're in the conversations that happen along the way. I sometimes find far more meaning and joy in the conversations on a car ride than in the actual experience at a movie or a concert, etc.

It makes me wonder too what these things would be for other people--and how often I might step on those things unintentionally.

+Athena