Friday, March 14, 2014

Clear eyes, full hearts, or something like that

Yeah, so I mediated a discussion for a group that was having a bit of a disagreement the other evening. It began as me just giving people an opportunity to air grievances. Then the thing took a turn, and suddenly, I wasn't myself. One of the guys involved says (with some disbelief--he's known me for a couple years), "Professor, you're getting pretty inspirational." Which was sadly true. I was like, "Yeah, I really need to go out and kill a puppy, so I feel more like myself again."

That being said, actually my "inspirational speech" drew from two seemingly drastically different sources, both of which I somehow actually find to be reasonable when put together. First, I quoted Sartre's infamous "hell is other people" line, before moving on to a passage from Ecclesiastes: "Two is better than one. For if one should fall, then the other is there to pick him up."

I believe both statements are utterly true, and yet, I realize that they sound like polar opposites. The thing is that this seemingly paradoxical paradigm is the heart and soul of the introvert. It isn't that we don't love individuals. We do. We bond very closely with few. We recognize our need for them and their need for us. But "people," the group, this we find troubling. We don't trust the collective. We know their nature. We have that same ugliness in ourselves, after all. I do, at least.

Luckily, I guess, I was talking to a group of people that are probably made up largely of introverts (And actually that may be part of the trouble that they were having. We indeed don't work well with others--or at least large groups of others). Somehow I think what I said may have helped. I've watched them today work very effectively and efficiently as a unit, weird for a band of misfit toys.

But then again, I've always lived on that island. It's more interesting anyway. There's far fewer "people" there and those that are have more interesting shapes, colors, and flavors than "people" are supposed to have or allow themselves to have as a group.

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