Friends that are really strangers

"Trust someone who can see these three things in you:
The  sorrow behind your smile, the love behind your anger,
the reason behind your silence." Thich Nhat Hanh

It was interesting to come across this quote today. Helped me understand the extent to which I am more a friend to some than others, and vice versa for me. Later that night when I was relaxing in the tub reading Khalil Gibran's "My Friend"one of my "friends" contacted me hoping to engage in what I hope was harmless conversation. Oddly enough Gibran's piece is about how these two friends are actually strangers, one who cannot show his true face to the other. A few stanzas stood out including the following:

"Thou lovest Truth and Beauty and Righteousness; and I for thy sake say it is well and seemly to love these things. But in my heart I laugh at thy love. Yet I would not have thee see my laughter. I would laugh alone."

"My friend, thou art good and cautious and wise; nay, thou art perfect--and I, too, speak with thee wisely and cautiously. And yet I am mad. But I mask my madness. I would be mad alone."

"My friend, thou art not my friend, but how shall I make thee understand? My path is not thy path, yet together we walk, hand in hand."

Indeed I have all but come to this realization regarding one of my friends. On my end, how can I claim this person as my friend when it is clear I am not a source of comfort, camaraderie, or wisdom? They cannot be their true selves around me when I find many of their mannerisms in need of re-evaluation. I hear and feel, respect and support for a status quo I find oppressive and demeaning come from someone who claims to be against such things, yet finds such things attractive to the point of forsaking their"people" in favor of   the power they can gain. Speaking truth to this power has silenced them. Awkward masks applied immediately. Yet politics of disposability are inherent in such respect and support of this oppressive status-quo. Respect, dignity, and care are not given unconditionally but awarded for good behavior. Oddly treated as bad things when requested--too high-maintenance is a common refrain.

As a member of the classically downtrodden they see emulation of their oppressor as the way out and it shows in their tastes especially when it comes to partnership--and yes I mean valued choice of mate (and yes I realize I am likely falsely assuming much but cannot help but observe the tendencies unfold when relating with others). Someone, a member of the status quo to be their second in command, to validate their sense of power, their birthright denied them for far too long, especially by those deemed beneath them, oppressor and oppressed alike; something M. Wallace speaks to with a keen sense of familiarity as she remarks on the blame cast on the undesirable black woman by just about everyone for just about anything.

This is not the path I am walking. I am painfully aware that I have outlived my usefulness, yet for some reason wish I could be this person's friend. Yet I cannot claim to understand where they are coming from with their lust for power and thus their quickness to view me as a naive child for being so idealistic in my approach, so negative in my response to any hint of oppression being perpetuated (and is that controlled rage only reserved for one group of people? black women not allowed to speak truth to power without being put in their place yet again?). Still, this person has provided me much in the way of the opportunity to experience and express a side of myself in ways I had not yet imagined could be a reality until the present. So no, I will not partake in such politics of disposability. This person has shown and given me much despite our fundamentally flawed relationship. I owe them my unending gratitude.

All I can hope to do is understand this person. See beyond their talk of enemies (while ignoring opportunities to earnestly understand them in their own right), beyond their showering of benevolence and respect on those who serve their egos well (while bypassing the lessons of those who call them out in hopes of improved relations), beyond the scorn for imperfect expressions of self that render others disposable to them (rather than learning whole heartedly from them thus discovering the beauty in their being). Even if that means continuing to treat them with decency, dignity, and respect while walking my own path, if that is all I can do when being in relation with them, I will learn to live with that. My heart is broken at the prospect that a whole hearted friendship will likely not be an outcome. Still, I have gratitude for having crossed paths with this person even though they are more stranger than friend.

I am sure this predicament I find myself in is all my fault. But hey, if they did nothing wrong, then neither did I, right? Unlike them, my level of sensitivity and self awareness leads me to knowing better than that.

Comparisons: the good and the bad

As a society we cannot help but compare ourselves to others. We look at a reference person or group as a means of judging, teaching, and learning about ourselves and each other. 

Recently I have come to compare myself accordingly. I see how two friends interact, how they buoy one another with their love and support. I pray to learn from this model and integrate it into my own.

This practice of comparison is often handled problematically when used as a means of measuring one's self-worth. 

I view this same situation and see what I am not to some of my  friends as well as what I do not have. I know I cannot be all things to all people, but it hurts to think I can only be one thing to most people when I prefer to be perceived multi-dimensionally. 

Decision making time: what do I learn from this? I need to figure this out along with the feelings that come with it. I am struggling. Tearing myself down and building myself up with responses to the practice of comparison. Wisdom is not yet mastered in this sense. I wish I could hibernate while I contemplate this area of potential growth and understanding. Instead I must push on.  

Lessons presented when being a dreamer

As i continue to contemplate and move forward with my life's work, I receive reminders through dreams. I know they are messages because of how vivid they are. Recently I had two dreams within days of each other. I will only note the images of importance in each dream...

Dream 1: I am outdoors in an almost mystically bright and beautiful park or woods like space. The sun brightens everything with a golden hue, especially the grass and trees. I am directed to look at a young black girl with dark skin. On her shoulder is a beautiful black bird with a crest and yellow eyes with black pupils, a black jaybird with feathers that color like a magpie or starling when the light hits it. I approach her. The bird is in the palms of both hands. In my desire to know more about the bird, I turn it over to find the tag that is on its ankle but I cannot read it. I think the tag was blue. After attempting to examine it, I return the bird into its upright position and find it is bald, nothing but pale flesh remaining on this now wrinkly vulnerable old looking bird. I am sad that it may have been over examined causing its feathers to have been rubbed off.

Dream 2: I am at a gathering at my house. It is evening. I am close to a vampire with gray skin, dark hair, and thin but longish vampire fangs. The live-version male Marcelene one could say. I am attracted to him and am trying to make-out with him. I notice he is not as into me as I am him, but I insist on showing my interest by kissing him though he does not return the affection. I am having a good time at the gathering regardless and go sit down on the couch with some other friends. My pet dog comes up wanting love. She half-climbs on my lap and I pet her. She insists on being as close as possible and thrusts her paw in my face, making contact with my left eye. It is damaged to the point of blindness. The impact and results were surreal. I really had gone blind in one eye. I panic trying to make sure, hoping I recover, but I don't. I feel my left eye bulging as I try to will it into functionality but nothing helps. Luckily an alarm wakes me .

With each dream I came up with a rough sketch of meanings based on my understandings of things as symbols.

With Dream 1, a possible interpretation that makes sense to me is the black jaybird representing higher knowledge and wisdom is gifted to me but instead of simply admiring its beauty, being in the moment, I over-examine it wanting to know more about it and subsequently nullifying the wisdom and rendering the bird flightless and earthbound. Perhaps the warning here is to be mindful of the wisdom I come across and be wary of over-examination and thus rendering the wisdom gifted as useless. Appreciate the gift in the moment rather than being possessive of it and therefore limiting its potential to be shared with others.

With Dream 2, a possible interpretation that makes sense has to do with a person or endeavor in my life that requires a lot of energy. Something/one I pursue in spite of lack of reciprocation. It is an alluring presence that could lend to a dark-side oriented path. This is where the eye injury comes in. I have read blindness in the left eye to be a warning of loosing insight/awareness of self, motives, and/or my behaviors. I do not see things clearly or am ignoring my intuition on the matter. On a whole the warning in place has to do with my potential attraction to the darker side of things, be it through a person or endeavor is an attraction to a path I would normally not vibe with and steer clear of. The fact that this darker energy is not attracted to me should have been enough to have me steer clear and normally I would.  If I were to persist in spite of my intuition on the matter, I will loose my inner sight altogether and thus a large part of my ability to guide my steps and receive the wisdom that is part of a better path.

In each case I am being warned. To be mindful of how to be in the presence of wisdom on the one hand and to be wary of ignoring my intuition on the other. In both cases the desire was there to pursue and claim, of which the consequences were damaging in one way or another. As such I should break with such tendencies/approaches or risk absence of such gifts be it though nullification or blindness.

Overcoming faulty programming: the impact of awesome loving people

The people who have touched my life for the better help me to transgress programming that is still rather damaging to this day.

I am aware of tendencies that make me respond in negatively critical manners that end up being hurtful to others, especially those close to me. Having a my way or the highway type attitude about the way I think things ought to be can prevent me from being open to considering other interpretations of what I consider to be problematic things. Wanting others to feel what I feel, and considering what I feel to be right, are one of many areas I need to work on. Deep down I know if I really wanted to do damage to someone I could because I know how, I've learned from the best after all. But I don't want to. My life started out with living in this kind of hurt. I want to be more of a healing presence in the lives of others. But this doesn't always go as intended, which is why I am thankful for the people in my life I have been fortunate enough to have crossed paths with, because they show and teach me other ways of being.

Many of these people have shown me the power of patience done well, the art of listening, and the art of contemplation. In all of these people love resonates in their being. They care deeply about others and share of themselves without a second thought or without the desire of being acknowledged for having done anything at all. These people therefore teach me the art of humility and understanding as well.

I am still working on integrating these teaching into my own life's work. It can be hard to engage at times when I feel I am being reminded of how worthless I am, or that I am only being used rather than experiencing true acceptance. But at times when I trust these negative feelings, I know I am on to something. Especially when I know what love, care, respect, dignity , and nourishing interactions feel like, which means knowing when I am in the absence of such things.

Reminders of how much these friends, mentors, teachers, learners, loved ones, and overall genuinely awesome people, mean to me come in waves of celebration and sorrow. The loss of such people in life is hard because of the fact that there are less people out there willing to live love as their message. Not many realize the power love has in life. How it can help you achieve positive connections in all ways and means. People living love as their message, people utilizing love power as part of that, understand that all are to be cherished regardless of who they are or what they do. They remind us that we are loved and so too are they. Although sometimes I wonder if they realize this for themselves.

With the art of negative manipulation, how I was raised, you always are left wondering who to trust and more importantly who is coming to do you harm because it is what you inflicted on them. In spite of my shortcomings, I have always been careful not to cultivate these kinds of relationships in my life.

I forever have gratitude for the people in my life who continue to show me the ways of love, even when I come up short. I want to imprint this into my soul and life's work and will continue to struggle to do so. It is these people who remind me that I am loved--which was hard to believe early in life--and that this is something that should be given readily--something I struggle with when negative interactions and feelings come into play. Overcoming this programming is lifelong work. I am grateful to those willing to show me the way.

Many thanks for who you are and what you have done for me.

Overheard

Overheard just the other day: We can't even use the word "ho"
-from budding academic black male

Hearing this instantly made me consider the bemoaning of white people not being able to use the word "nigger" (ugh even hurts to write let alone say--which is why I don't). Should "ho" be placed in the same category?

The thing is like most things having to do with power, names and labels carry a lot of weight. You can tell who has more power by the extent to which there are negative labels associated with a given group. Louis C.K. made this abundantly clear when he talks about white people and time travel. People in socio-cultural contexts that are near the top of all social categories, tend not to have much in the way of negative stigma historically, so words really don't hurt.

So in the same way that white people tend to be excluded from wordplay as an exercise of power and notably domination, I would consider men to have a similar status effect about them. Men are not responsible for the actions of all men. What they say or do carries little consequence to men on a whole outside of reinforcing their power oriented status. Unlike whiteness, science is still used in the service of reinforcing this status--especially when it comes to justifying the sexuality and sexual appetite of men, something women are readily demonized for as they are considered hos .

Othering of women, like most social minorities, is a common discourse that often precludes their consideration as people worthy of being treated humanely, let alone with respect, care, and even love. Yet women have a plethora or words and labels used to reinforce this othering effect. Such is the case for racial, ethnic, sexual, and a whole host of other minorities. When these minority statuses intersect so too do the labels they are faced with.

Fear keeps us in line, prevents us from actualizing and exercising the full extent of our humanity. We are already not considered fully human to begin with. This continues to be the case for black women. Ho is commonly associated with us after all. Oddly enough, our bodies are considered a common platform through which the power of men is exercised and validated. We were more a tool than human to begin with in American society. Black men  seem to reinforce this standpoint despite being minoritized racially, because their gender is exercised to an even fuller extent--those that quest to validate their humanity by means of power anyway and it seems unfortunately sex is another means through which such power is exercised. Black women are therefore not too far from being considered hos regardless of whether they do or don't abide by these arbitrary social laws that require them to stay in their place.

Blackness, having also been historically precluded as worthy of being treated humanely, let alone with respect, care, and even love, knows the pain of being powerless in so many ways, making life a struggle of reclaiming humane treatment and  validation. Unfortunately many of us have been tricked into believing this can only be achieved by patriarchal means, and thus the ways of those who colonized us.

Now a days it is a bold transgression to engage a politics of humanity, especially sexually. To demand that we also be considered a multi-dimensional being worthy of being treated humanely and with dignity that majority oriented statuses seem to have been granted at birth. Being reduced to object-hood is what I have understood to be the status-quo as far as black women are concerned. Respectability politics demand that we fear this status and do everything to prevent being considered in such ways. Oddly enough what this typically ends up implying is a deference to this very object-hood. In other words, we are damned if we do and damned if we don't. Especially in the face of such retorts as "she was just a ho anyway" or other demeaning responses that reinforce that we are little more than a resource to be plundered and cast aside rather than cherished and nourished.

So yeah, as people searching for liberation from othering, working to transgress a system of thought that excludes minorities of all varieties from being treated humanely, let alone with respect, care and even love, wanting to create a place where such treatment is the new status-quo, I would think that how we refer to ourselves and one another would be a key aspect of this struggle.

 Bemoaning the possibility that you might have to give up the power that reinforces dominating practice--which includes labels placed on women, and especially black women, forces people like me to consider that what you really want is liberation for yourself; a harnessing of the powers of the colonizer and therefore continued domination practices that refer to people like me as a resource to be plundered as your means of validation, rather than cherished and nourished--something you so badly desire and expect for yourself.  

So again I wonder, if you are really my brother...

Codes: A rough poem

dear brothers

thank you for validating what the ideal woman is for the thousanth time

smart, confident, logical, powerful, capable of fitting the illogic of queer and feminist thought in a logical box

not to mention white

codes as masculine

one of the guys

a good ol boy in the making

likable =readily fuckable?

thank you for pointing out what the ideal woman isn't

illogical, insecure, whiny, incapable of making you feel comfortable with their queer and feminist thought

not to mention of color

codes as feminine

childish and of little worth

unlikable=unattractive

common complaint: colored girls that want to be white

is it really that hard to fathom

listening to you talk?

Oddly enough when that woman of color does code as masculine

code as confident, as empowered, as logical

she needs to be taught a lesson

how could she have forgotten that pedestal is off limits?

Silly woman

men of color stereotyped as preferring codes of whiteness

white females placed on pedestals made just for them

whiteness = sovereign power

maleness=sovereign power

worthy of their praise

women of color placed on knees; the only way to be seen as good

colors = expendable weakness 

femaleness=expendable weakness

worthy only of servitude to them

the choice is clear but is the stereotype really that true?

Say it aint so

they say they value the real, the truth in her

her apparent power

but they do not value the real, the truth in them

their apparent weakness

but truth is truth and real is real right?

real and truth are uncomfortable things

things power does not handle well

when it comes from the dominated

but when it comes from power

from the hims and hers that code as power

it is welcome with open arms and repeated as gospel

as if we said nothing at all

they know the pain of that

but prefer to continue stabbing anyway

taking us for chumps that don't know the illogic

of why it is right that they do so

Outtro

and this is why I never partake in such politicking

and this is why I am in pain when I hear you talk this way

do you not know you do the same to me as you do to them?

Am I not your sister?  

We have so much to share with you

if you could only grant us the benefit of the doubt

and exercise unconditional compassion

are you really my brother?

Pride : a continual balancing act with humility

I mentioned previously something along the lines of pride being hard to come by let alone engage in meaningfully and lovingly. I stand by this in the sense that there are people that have historically, and continue to be, readily downtrodden. We live in a world that would rather see us as disposable and we internalize this reality as our own. So, taking pride in who I am is as much a form of self-love as it is resistance--especially considering how challenging it is to enact regularly and in spite of a world that is more interested in me staying in my place.

With this in mind, it must be acknowledged that pride can become imbalanced in ourselves and easily tilt into the realm of hubris. This is especially the case when we find ourselves flourishing in certain areas in life. After all, we live in a world in which hierarchies are the status-quo, which means we are considered to be in competition with one another in all things. When pride is difficult to come by and engage in, it can be quite a challenge not to indulge in such behaviors.

On the typical side, when pride is engaged, it is not always intentional to the extent that one wants to feel or be considered better than the other...or maybe that is my take on its expression. I think this is the case when, on our planes of existence, we have reached places in consciousness as well as life that others around us have not. This arrival, especially when celebrated, is often misconstrued by ourselves and others, as notification that we are better than others. Such misconceptions are made possible by a status-quo that favors hierarchy, capitalism, and subsequently competition.

Humility comes into play as a balance point where, when engaged we understand that we are one among many, not in competition, no better and no worse than the people around us. But the true test of this balance comes in the form of interactions where we can choose to react to those around us that are not on the same page as us in ways that can further balance the pride and humility we have, or imbalance ourselves in favor of pride. The known Biblical passage that begins with "love is patient, love is kind" offers a suggestion of  how the balanced approach can be achieved. Remembering that humility is an act of love is key. When balanced with pride, there can be a multiplying effect of the love that occurs.

Easily said than done, I know. When it comes to those that want to be where we are but are far from reaching the page we are at, this can be hard to engage with strangers, acquaintances, friends, and loved ones alike. Sometimes we forget what it was like to struggle through words and concepts that lead to understanding what we now consider common sense (literally and metaphorically speaking). Part of this for me comes from the understanding that they are great just like me, so it  shouldn't be hard to come along to where I'm at. At other times, it's more of an annoyance that they just don't seem to get it, no matter how many times things are explained, reiterated, modeled, even all but spelled out.

The reaction of my patience being tried is what I would like to move away from in favor of an enduring, compassionate, and ultimately loving response. After all, if I find I am able to help, I am more than happy to. But when I am hurt in the midst of engagement with what ends up being a fragile humility, I cannot help but think about "Love is Stronger than Pride" by Sade and wonder if moments like the ones where humility becomes a painful engagement because of tried patience, and being hurt in the process, is what she sings about...

So, when pondering the balance between pride and humility, I am coming to a resting point of believing that achieving a balance between the two states of expression and engagement optimizes the loving potential of both. If I can lift as I climb, or bring someone closer to being on a similar level of consciousness--if that's what they want--then I should, and do, attempt to do what I can. This is all part of the process of journeying, which means letting go of possibilities as far as setbacks are concerned. Continuing to move regardless is important, and as long as I continue to learn the ways of being and loving as part of the process, I'll be okay.