I believe it is Lacan that says that our identities/perceptions are formed in the mirror of other people's minds. And so, others reinforce our own ideas of ourselves. Socially this makes sense: a father reacts positively to the child who "behaves" reinforcing the positive behavior he want to see. Tell a kid he/she is smart for a year and see what happens. If a person's action are received favorably, he/she will repeat that action. A baby smiles at another person, the person smiles back, the baby smiles. Most of the time, I believe we try to live up to the good. If a person hears negative remarks, she can choose to change behavior(accept the other person's verdict) or to continue to act in the same way(rejecting that verdict). Sometimes a person rebels against the perception/identity someone else has of them, forcing person #2 to change their perception. Either way, one (or both) of the two people involved will incur a change in perception and attitude. We react negatively to people who are not following the perception/identity we have created for them. We also react negatively to people who do not display the values and morals we trust in.
So, then, our own perception of ourselves is also constantly edited, shaped and changed by social interaction, by what we do, what we fail to do and how other people respond. We also become more like the people we choose to spend time with, emulating the behaviors we long for in ourselves. But we can never truly know another person, each of our evaluations are biased by what we can see/hear/empirical knowledge which is limited by the impossibility of being with someone constantly and the mediation between thought and spoken/written communication. We choose people who will reinforce what we like best in ourselves (whether we openly admit to those aspects of ourselves or not) including our values, morals, ethics, desires, and beliefs. The highest valued relationships are ones in which the other person best reflects our "best" self perception/identity. (Again, constantly in flux, with each person reinforcing the other)
For personal change, then, a person has to both change her own views of herself and change the response patterns of other people, editing her own perception of her-self and reinforcing other people's positive reactions to the desired change. (or responding negatively to their negative feedback) Or she leaves the others behind as their values, behaviors, desires no longer reflect her own. In new social situations, we choose how to present ourselves hoping to reinforce the best self identity/perception so that the new interactions provide the most comfortable reflection and we seek out those people we believe can help us learn/grow/change ourselves (or at least show us that our present self is acceptable.)
I think this is one of the reasons that people reject God. How vulnerable we are in the face of an omnipotent God who never changes. One who knows all our thoughts, our insecurities, our wrong doings. Rail against Him, He remains. Plead with Him, He changes not. We cannot cajole, demand, or persuade Him other than He wills. He will not be changed, we must change if we want to know Him. It is easier, safer, to reject that God, to say His way is "superstitious" or "a fairy tale" than to be willing the change our hearts to reflect Christ's way revealed in His Word. We fear might be asked to give up too much. We fear the rejections of other people, their negative responses to our relationship with a God who Knows. Especially since those other people are corporeal, empirical, near to us, and we can hide our secret hearts, our fear and weaknesses, from them.
We fear the surrender to a Way other than our own. But when we need comfort the most is often when we feel the most alone and the most cut off from human companionship. No other person knows, no one else can understand, no one else can share in our internal pain. How terrifying to be known, yet how we desire it as well. We see Him now as in a glass, darkly, the scriptures say. At first, this seems an impossible task, to see God's presence. We have to look, to seek to find evidence of His existence. Like the wind, which we cannot see, He touches the world around us. We can see Him in the action of those who know Him, and through His Word. I long not just to know Him more, but to be a good reflection of Him and His Love.
(more to come)
Contemplation: Fractal-ly Thinking (part 1)
I've been visiting "electric sheep" recently and trying to comprehend what fractals are and how they are created. My questions led me over to the ever-readily-at-hand wikipedia where I'm able to read a definition, grasp at the concept, but still be a little fuzzy on what the math people might be talking about. I think I understand the basics of "what" but "how" is still evading me at the moment. In the simple explanation, it's a shape created by the replication of the same shape--it occurs in nature sometimes in plants like ferns. And it's rather how I was taught to draw a tree, a "Y" with branches splitting to branch again, and again. I find the fractals delightful to watch, even though I'm unable to distinguish the shape that is replicated in most cases.
From there, I began reading about "strange loops" Escher is known for these: hands drawing each other, staircases to nowhere, and such. But more interestingly, I found that there is a book by Douglas Hofstadter called I am a Strange Loop, which appears to be about soul, consciousness and its self-constructiveness. I read an interview which gives me a sense of the book's argument. But, I need to request this, and his earlier Gödel, Escher, Bach, from my library. I'm particularly interested in Hofstadter's theory about the "soul" (should we say "human essence"?) having more than just a single repository and how this relates to other ideas/theories I'm familiar with from literary and language theory, and more essential how it relates to my relationship with and understanding of God.
Oddly enough, Hofstadter also postulates about random experience suddenly revealing an order (do we impose this order? or was it there, waiting to be revealed all along?)
A turn of a kaleidoscope and all the randomness settles into a beauty of its own.
(more to come)
From there, I began reading about "strange loops" Escher is known for these: hands drawing each other, staircases to nowhere, and such. But more interestingly, I found that there is a book by Douglas Hofstadter called I am a Strange Loop, which appears to be about soul, consciousness and its self-constructiveness. I read an interview which gives me a sense of the book's argument. But, I need to request this, and his earlier Gödel, Escher, Bach, from my library. I'm particularly interested in Hofstadter's theory about the "soul" (should we say "human essence"?) having more than just a single repository and how this relates to other ideas/theories I'm familiar with from literary and language theory, and more essential how it relates to my relationship with and understanding of God.
Oddly enough, Hofstadter also postulates about random experience suddenly revealing an order (do we impose this order? or was it there, waiting to be revealed all along?)
A turn of a kaleidoscope and all the randomness settles into a beauty of its own.
(more to come)
Even a sparrow
In the bright afternoon light a sparrow mistook the reflected sky for sky. The thud of the impact drew our attention away from our books. How could we read with a sparrow stunned and trembling on the other side of the glass? The eyes blink, the chest rises and falls, the claws clench as if holding onto a branch we can not see. Will it die? my son asks. I don't know, I don't know. The sparrow breathes faster now.
I hold my son close to me and we watch this spark of life burn. Except his breath and his blinking pupil-less eyes, the bird lays perfectly still staring up. We dare not touch it; other birds raise a cry from the branches, entreating. We look at the patterns of the legs, the way the feathers lie close to the chest. God knows when even a sparrow falls. I can't bear to think of it dying, splayed on our deck. I pray aloud, for healing, for peace if the injury is too great. How many similar prayers have others said for me?
When I open my eyes, the sparrow's breath has slowed. Let's let it be. As I stand, the bird flutters then rises into flight. He'll have a headache, my son laughs. The sparrow becomes once again just one of the flock, chattering noisily in the backyard. Thank you. For the sparrow, for this day, for life.
I hold my son close to me and we watch this spark of life burn. Except his breath and his blinking pupil-less eyes, the bird lays perfectly still staring up. We dare not touch it; other birds raise a cry from the branches, entreating. We look at the patterns of the legs, the way the feathers lie close to the chest. God knows when even a sparrow falls. I can't bear to think of it dying, splayed on our deck. I pray aloud, for healing, for peace if the injury is too great. How many similar prayers have others said for me?
When I open my eyes, the sparrow's breath has slowed. Let's let it be. As I stand, the bird flutters then rises into flight. He'll have a headache, my son laughs. The sparrow becomes once again just one of the flock, chattering noisily in the backyard. Thank you. For the sparrow, for this day, for life.
Radio Signals in a Digital World
My son, born under the Hale-Bopp coment, studies the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth and beyond. Based here on the mysterious spark of water and carbon, a chemical reaction perhaps, life. Out there, the telescopes scan the unknown, adding day by day to the reserve of human knowledge. Sending out into the vast Beyond a record of our human life meant to travel beyond our boundaries and limits in search of something more. We hope and dread some acknowledgement of our passing by. Is it not enough to reach out and touch each other?
There is more to learn than a lifetime can teach in the habits of the toads living in the damp recess under the deck with moss and the remains of last year's acorns. I unpry my son's hands to loosen his grip. For a moment the small creature stares up at us, white tipped toes splayed, heartbeat visible through the thin skin, the pouch at its neck inflating and deflating. We stare back, then watch him hop out into his world, our backyard now a toad's universe spiraling out into the woods beyond. We too are small and vulnerable, breathing deep when danger has passed, together amazed at what the day provides.
There is more to learn than a lifetime can teach in the habits of the toads living in the damp recess under the deck with moss and the remains of last year's acorns. I unpry my son's hands to loosen his grip. For a moment the small creature stares up at us, white tipped toes splayed, heartbeat visible through the thin skin, the pouch at its neck inflating and deflating. We stare back, then watch him hop out into his world, our backyard now a toad's universe spiraling out into the woods beyond. We too are small and vulnerable, breathing deep when danger has passed, together amazed at what the day provides.
R. E. T. (Random Emotion Triggers)
There are days where she cannot believe that death is a possibility. There is so much work to be done. Lessons to plan, menus, pajamas to fold, novels to read, three sons to feed. How is it possible that she must contemplate death while cooking rice for dinner, or walking the dogs along the tall corridor of trees? No one mentioned that the fear still could catch her unaware, with tears at unexpected moments, on the way home from the video shop, or peeling carrots, or combing her now shoulder-length hair. This time, a weekend movie set in space. Each individual made in duplicate, multiples. Memory transfered from the broken body to the whole. She holds her husband's hand, remembers how many times he's been the link that held her in this world, held her near to sanity when letting go, when ending the effort began to seem a viable option. And other times too, at football games, at the orchestra, as they held their sons in the moments after birth. Tonight she looks away, blinking, waiting for the fear to pass and the moment to turn to gratitude for another day alive, for another moment to watch and to be a part of it all.
One Year, Again.
***
I've been to "one year" before, one and a half years ago. The doctor said to come back for a bit more blood work, for another scan. Those scans said: second primary tumor, hereditary. I wonder if the first cancer saved my life. There was no evidence, except in my blood. And no one would have been looking at blood under a microscope if I hadn't already been sick once before. Typical onset is 70, screening begins at 50, sometimes later. I was 35.
Monday was my "one year" from the end of treatment checkup. Last July during my 8th infusion of what was meant to be 12 doses of Folfox6, I began having trouble reading, then seeing, then breathing. Then I realized that I was having a reaction to the medications that were meant to kill the cancer cells. My face burned and I felt choked; I could hardly raise my voice to call the nurse. And in a flurry, a brief moment or two, the line was unplugged from the port.
The nurses called my husband and he drove from work to sit with me. For an hour, the nurses watched to make sure the side-effects were subsiding. I closed my eyes and practiced breathing until the air passed freely in and out of my lungs. My husband, held my hand. In my head, the storm of emotion raged, questions, doubts, and fear. If I could not continue these infusions, what would we have to do for treatment next?
After some time, the doctor returned to send me on my way home. What next? Clinical standards suggest twelve dose, but medicine is still a question, a guessing game, an art of conjecture, laboratory work, and faith. The reaction signaled the end of the chemotherapy and the start of wait and see. Now, blood work and scans.
Now attempt to return to normal life. Now the fog lifting, clarity, hope, and each day another chance to live better. To learn what I am meant to learn: mostly, that I cannot do it all on my own, no matter how able, how strong, how determined, how intelligent, how stubborn I may be.
***
I've been to "one year" before, one and a half years ago. The doctor said to come back for a bit more blood work, for another scan. Those scans said: second primary tumor, hereditary. I wonder if the first cancer saved my life. There was no evidence, except in my blood. And no one would have been looking at blood under a microscope if I hadn't already been sick once before. Typical onset is 70, screening begins at 50, sometimes later. I was 35.
Monday was my "one year" from the end of treatment checkup. Last July during my 8th infusion of what was meant to be 12 doses of Folfox6, I began having trouble reading, then seeing, then breathing. Then I realized that I was having a reaction to the medications that were meant to kill the cancer cells. My face burned and I felt choked; I could hardly raise my voice to call the nurse. And in a flurry, a brief moment or two, the line was unplugged from the port.
The nurses called my husband and he drove from work to sit with me. For an hour, the nurses watched to make sure the side-effects were subsiding. I closed my eyes and practiced breathing until the air passed freely in and out of my lungs. My husband, held my hand. In my head, the storm of emotion raged, questions, doubts, and fear. If I could not continue these infusions, what would we have to do for treatment next?
After some time, the doctor returned to send me on my way home. What next? Clinical standards suggest twelve dose, but medicine is still a question, a guessing game, an art of conjecture, laboratory work, and faith. The reaction signaled the end of the chemotherapy and the start of wait and see. Now, blood work and scans.
Now attempt to return to normal life. Now the fog lifting, clarity, hope, and each day another chance to live better. To learn what I am meant to learn: mostly, that I cannot do it all on my own, no matter how able, how strong, how determined, how intelligent, how stubborn I may be.
***
Trade?
In the dream, the group plans to trade one friend for the money to finance a holdiay blowout. Her life insurance will pay for presents, treats, wrapping paper, tinsel. She watches benignly as they collect their temporary treasures around them. Why? I ask. Everyone looks away
***
In the mirror this morning, I ask my reflection: what life am I trading? And for what?
For what?
***
At daybreak, I climb the hill on 20th Street. A buzzard rides on the updrafts, circling. A mouse lies dead on the pavement's edge. Today, I will trade for nothing that will not bring me joy. My son and I hokey-pokey down the hill, even as he protests. I choose these: long walks with children, dogs, and my life's love; the promise of new friends and places; the comfort of those who have shared my highs and lows; and the never-ending pleasure of words. What trinkets could compare?
***
***
In the mirror this morning, I ask my reflection: what life am I trading? And for what?
For what?
***
At daybreak, I climb the hill on 20th Street. A buzzard rides on the updrafts, circling. A mouse lies dead on the pavement's edge. Today, I will trade for nothing that will not bring me joy. My son and I hokey-pokey down the hill, even as he protests. I choose these: long walks with children, dogs, and my life's love; the promise of new friends and places; the comfort of those who have shared my highs and lows; and the never-ending pleasure of words. What trinkets could compare?
***
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