Visible/Invisible

This blog entry was prompted after reading the blog article
Are You Trustworthy? by Sonia Simone on the blog Copyblogger. The article argues that businesses should value trust between themselves and their readers and how an important element of building that trust comes from showing that there was an actual human being behind a blog. Simone recommended attaching a photo (and a recent, non-glamorous one!) to ones blog so that people would have some idea of who the author is.

There were a lot of comments praising the article but one sentence by Doug Firebaugh stood out for me: “Being human is all to easy-showing it sometimes is difficult.”

Showing your humanness means not only showing those parts of ourselves which are endearing, admirable, or attractive but also showing those parts of ourselves that fail, that misjudge others, that are reluctant to publicly acknowledge our mistakes. It's hard to be vulnerable and show ones weaknesses & flaws to an audience who may or may not empathize with you.

I remember writing a response to another blog entry once in which the author had said, "Everyone loves attention." Well, not all attention is good attention. Growing up in an alcoholic family for six years, the only attention the kids in my family got was negative attention or praise when someone else made a mistake ("Good thing you're not like your sister!").

We all had our ways of coping...my younger sister played up her youth and adorableness, my brother only came home at night to sleep & was absent for the rest of the day & evening, and I tried my best to fade into the wallpaper and not draw attention to myself. Being singled out meant you were going to be the target of criticism so it was best to just become as small and inconspicuous as possible, to become invisible.

It took having a completely liberating & hedonistic undergraduate experience to make me less afraid to shine, to speak out, to make myself be known. I had a successful part-time career on a large community radio station and for six years I had a prime time show. We were only a 5,000 watt station but because the land was flat, our coverage had a 45 mile wide radius where hundreds of thousand people lived.

I found that the self-consciousness arising out of having someone who was always critical watching me still affected me though and the only way I could pull off each show was by having everyone else get out of the studio, facing the mike alone, and talking to the audience as if they were my best friend. It seemed to work very well but I eventually realized I was not commercial enough for a professional career in broadcasting as I had no wish to sell products to my "friends", I just wanted to share my love of music with them, take their requests, interview bands they liked & ask the questions they would've asked, and give away stuff (albums, tickets, t-shirts, etc.). The show wasn't about me it was about the live conversation I was having with people who loved the same kind of music I did or who were at least open to hearing new music I thought they would enjoy or find challenging. The audience was appreciative and the job was the most fun & educational experience I ever had had in my life.

What does this have to do with showing your humanness? I think we can waver between our desire to be invisible and to be visible based on how secure we are in our relationships with ourselves. If we feel loved & supported, one can much more easily step out into the spotlight and face any praise or criticism that might come your way. When we feel like we are on shaky ground, when we feel hostility & judgment from others, or are just in an unfamiliar area (a neighborhood, a clique of people, a discussion board), we might either try to be as unobtrusive as possible or to only want to show the most flattering aspects to our personality.

We come from a place of insecurity because we don't believe that someone has our back, will understand our occasional lapses into self-absorption, will forgive how we might intentionally cause another person pain.

So, I think our desire to publicly face our humanness, to be visible to others, can only come after we have been affirmed by others, when we have a support system whether that is a family, a network of friends, or simply an employer or professor who believes in your ability.

It is fashionable now to believe the sole key to success is high self-esteem but I think we are infinitely stronger and can be more truly ourselves, online & offline when we feel valued by other people. That makes us vulnerable to their influence in our lives but the good news is that it only takes ONE other person to make us feel like we can stand up, be human, take what life throws at us, and turn it into gold.

Balancing, an Act

If you ever ask my mother, Ellen, about me, she would mention that I put way more hours into the jobs I've had than I ever get paid for, that sometimes I'm downright "lazy" and other times a complete workaholic. She is mystified that I don't have weekdays and weekends, a balanced life.

My mother, on the other hand, is an eminently practical woman, always busy, never sitting down until the kitchen is cleaned in the evening. But she only exerts exactly enough effort to get "okay" results. Her house is clean, not immaculate, her cooking good, not great, her patience moderate, but not extended, her clothing lightly used, neither old nor new. She enjoys and reads a great many books (she always is juggling 4 or 5) but doesn't remember the plots a month after she has read them as she has moved on to an equally enjoyable series of books. She has a green thumb but just manages a modest group of pots on her deck, a garden being too time-consuming.

She doesn't consider herself a success but in my eyes she manages to accomplish something I have never been able achieve->she achieves the greatest results with a minimum amount of effort. She does this by having the discipline of not expecting perfection, in fact, she would never ever expect that from herself. What she does expect is to be"good enough", to face tasks head on, even or maybe especially unpleasant tasks. She's a true Virgo and her chief strength is to persevere until her common sense tells her that her efforts would be best spent doing something else. She is economical in all things and, as a result, gets a lot of work accomplished.

I am quite the opposite, almost the polar opposite. Maybe because of the dominance of middle-of-the-road, suburban rationality in our home growing up, I was always drawn to the margins, both left & right, north & south. I am able to do absolutely nothing for long periods of time, just meditating, listening to the birds and watching the world go by like it is 1908. Another day I might get up at 3 am to work on a job I care about accomplishing and put in 18 hours.

But I am too cautious a person to live in the extremes of culture. I'm not to the manor-born, type A, go-getter but I also will always be gainfully employed, even if it is checking in books at a library...you won't find me in the White House but you also won't find me in a crack house! I'm edgy & contrary but not fearless.

Unfortunately, except for the arts, most occupations reward steady, consistent, hard work and people who are focused and who chip, chip away on their chosen career path. I am too passionate and ambitious to be a slacker but I also value a low stress life that lets me pursue my varied interests including friendships, faith, and volunteer work.

And so my life has been a series of large leaps of achievement followed by times of stagnation, times of winning awards & fellowships followed by long fallow periods where absolutely nothing is happening. While this might make me an interesting person to have at a dinner party, it has caused me setbacks from which I'm not sure I'll recover very soon. But who knows? Given the zigs & zags of life, I could be poised for a comeback any moment now!

I didn't intend to write an entry on myself, I had decided to write on time management until I realized that I am completely abysmal at it! I work on projects I love until I fall asleep at my desk but there are crucial, important tasks that I never get to. And so, if anyone is reading, please give me your advice on how to maintain a steady pace forward instead of my current habit of running far ahead and then sitting down while the world catches up.

Next post, I promise, will be less self-indulgent and confessional!

When the other shoe doesn't fall...

My mother says, "Don't just talk to me when something bad happens to you and then never tell me when it all works out." Now, I don't listen to a lot of what my mother says because I've heard everything so many times before that it's been playing for years like a constant soundtrack in the background of my head which I've put on "Mute". [Editor: too long of a sentence here and be nice to your Mother!]

But she does have a point. I remember writing a journal (briefly) when I was younger and when I'd go back and read it, it was just filled with things I was angry about and couldn't express to the people around me. Just from reading the journal, you'd think I was a prime candidate for Anger Management classes.

Now, I don't want any reader to think my life is endlessly filled with woe. So, here is an update on the parts of my life were making me miserable over the past two weeks:

It's gotten below 90 degrees and we have a nice breeze going. I have finally stopped sweating in my sleep (overshare?).

I got my car started without it stalling out about two days after it broke down. Still have to take it to get looked at but so far, so good.

The cat seems to be doing just fine. She's eating, her spirits are up (i.e. she bites me) and she's even begun dragging her toys around from room to room like she use to (Cue bad webcam picture of cat):

So, while I haven't finished my dissertation revisions or found a job, life doesn't completely suck. After four months of interviewing the most motley assortment of people to respond to a Craig's List ad for housemates, I've found Kate, a costume designer, who seems refreshingly normal. She won me over when she mentioned her boyfriend was allergic to cats and then said, "I'll keep my door closed and he'll have to get use to it!" Here's the lease, just give me your deposit check and the rooms are yours! When can you move in?!

Just a reminder for me to write not just when things are awful and I need to vent but also when life is running smoothly.

Love with strings attached

Right now, I am angry beyond belief at my family. I’m of an age where it is infantile to try to guilt trip me into behaving as they want. It sends me in the opposite direction which I must admit is reactionary but I just want nothing to do with them rather than play their games.

It’s a dilemma...I want family contact and affection but it comes with judgment and expectations. I suppose like any relationship but this is one in which I will always be the subordinate reacting to those who wish to influence my behavior. I accept them as they are, why do they seek to manipulate me, using my weak points (namely, money) along with guilt to, basically, control my life?

It’s all in my “best interests”, of course. But it is painful to think that the little love you have in your life is conditional, based on performance in whatever area--having kids, finishing a degree, getting a promotion, pulling one’s life together, etc.--that they are unhappy with. It would be nice to just be accepted and, occasionally, appreciated simply for who you are, blemishes and all.

This is not a “poor me” thing. It’s a “can I have one person in my life who doesn’t place conditions on their love” thing. If I were evangelical, at this point I’d point out that one can find that kind of love from God. But that is intangible, abstract, and intellectual, not emotional and physical. I feel God’s love but there is no warmth to it...it is like a benevolent, nonemotional, silent approval. Which is great and all but there’s little you can hold to your heart, there is no feeling in it or, if there is, in is all going in one direction (me>God), into this airless, endless, limitless vacuum (if such a thing is imaginable).

As spacey as us Aquarians are, all human beings need physical love and affection, whether it is friendship or romantic in nature, to feel secure and healthy. Maybe not earthshattering, knee-knocking passion but some reassurance that we are not alone and unknown. I tend to just take it for granted because I have family who are still alive and then something happens and the castle of cards crashes to the floor.

Thank god for pets. I’m not a cat lady, it is just nice to have some creature in your life who needs you and is glad you are around. Ideally, that would be a family but when they put all sorts of conditions on their love, it is nice to have a warm, furry, loving backup. Pets are more than substitutes for human affection, they have their own personalities. I’m just grateful for the company.

Resilence

Buffy is an old cat who lives in my house. She's tanish-orange, 19 years old, and normally unaffectionate. She has a howl that would raise the dead. Her fur is matted in places and she no longer cleans herself. She spends most of her time sleeping on one of our heaters to warm herself. But, as Willow said in a BtVS episode, she just won't die! She's got a tenacious spirit that holds on despite every indication that she should be on her last legs. She goes days without eating and then bounces back to her normal, howling self.

In some ways she reminds me of my grandmother (grandfather's second wife), a tough, tough lady who was born in 1900 and lived through the joys and pains of a century. She didn't want to make a big deal of it when she turned 100 but her relatives wanted a big party so they threw her one, everyone trekked out to the small town she lives in and she made her obligatory appearance at the party, saying thanks, accepting good wishes, and eating a piece of cake. And then two days after, after all of the guests had left her little desert town, she passed away. She hadn't been sick but she was clearly done with this world and she had the willpower to continue living because she didn't want to disappoint her family. But after she fulfilled her obligation and everyone had been able to gather and celebrate together, she said, "Okay, now I'm out of here!"

I wish I had a bit more of this survivor mentality, not enough to make me as tough as these two are/were, but enough to weather the unfairness and injustices of life without getting so bruised. Maybe I should reconsider one of my grandmother's favorite expressions that she use to say in the last couple of decades of her life: "I never thought I'd be content with so little". I use to think that this was a sign of having overly low expectations but now I think maybe it reflects an attitude of gratitude for what you do have instead of being preoccupied with what you think you are entitled to.