It’s not you, it’s me. Actually sometimes it is you. For better or worse I’ve come to realise lately that I’m not the only person on the planet with ‘issues.’ Reassuring on some levels, frustrating on others. But I guess what I want to muse over tonight is the moment at which two forces intercept. As soon as I type that visions of high school economics classes pop into my head, ‘Supply’ and ‘Demand’ intercepting somewhere to give us the market value. But what if there is a contraction in supply? Well, actually, while it’s obviously more difficult to quantity this kind of theory as it relates to human relationships I want to suggest that the principles are still fairly sound. If somebody dies or enters the Witness Protection Program it probably won’t matter how much I desire their company I am not likely to get it.
We make judgments about people all of the time. We make them instinctively. But how do we make sure they are informed? If I see you standing on a street corner how do I decide if you’re a friendly face or Jack the Ripper? It’s even more difficult online – not because the Internet is, as is sometimes suggested by the media, a breeding ground for the latter – because you often don’t have access to factors like body language, vocal intonation and emphasis and eye contact (or lackthereof).
But even in face-to-face communications what often isn’t immediately obvious is what lurks beneath the surface, the emotional turmoil that exists underneath a particular facade. Somebody blew up at me earlier this week and while it was disconcerting in the moment the more I thought about it the more apparent it became to me that it probably didn’t have anything to do with me. Though it was directed firmly at me. The language used seemed to imply that I was somehow the problem. It hardly seemed to matter that this person had got the wrong end of a very long stick.
Understanding this helped me. But the whole situation has made me reticent to interact with people I don’t already have a relationship with. I mean, potentially any combination of words, emoticons, even an arched eyebrow can be misconstrued. They might think I hate them – or that I like them. [And perversely it was the latter that proved problematic this week. lol]
I used to think there was something scary or risky about being misunderstood in the process of creating art, but actually that seems like a walk in the park by comparison. Well I mean that’s not always the case. I am no doubt helped by the fact that the world at large is mostly indifferent to the things I create so the whole issue is moot. [As an aside I used to think people were being unduly critical and intolerant of Cat Stevens once he became a devout Muslim and changed his name to Yusuf Islam. But there's one thing I cannot resolve - and that is his role as one of the major proponents of the case for a fatwa against Salman Rushdie for penning The Satanic Verses. Where was Stevens' Peace Train then?] Clearly being misunderstood in art is a problem for many, and sometimes the consequences are quite serious. As Julia Cameron notes people often shoot the messenger.
So… how do you do it? How do you decide who to befriend and when and why and how?
