oh...just me: March 2008 Archives

I am playing at staying soft. :-)

I know its just my peculiar egoism, that brand of juvenile "it's all about me" self-centeredness, but - come on - it is rather coincidental isn't it? Top headlines in international news involve Israel and the Palestinians (where I visited last fall) and the bickering of South America's once-upon-a-time "odd couple" (about which I've become interested/involved since the FARC kidnapping of friends of a friend in January).

I just recognize my being as an intersection of so many societal valences....it doesn't mean any of these largescale dynamics are "about" me or have anything special to do with me (or me with them) - but I feel them. Whatever sensory mechanisms enable such perceptions (explanations range from delusional psychosis to overactive imagination), they compel me. This leaves me with options from active resistance to passive ignoring to casual acknowledgment to proactive engagement. In the old days (read: exuberant immaturity), "choice" was not part of the package. I reacted, sans critical thought or consideration of consequences.

Speaking of coincidences....I began writing this yesterday (2008-03-05 14:41:14) and saved it to finish later...the day prior I lent my English (!) to a letter on behalf of Ana and her family to reserve an academic invitation for her even though "at this time we are unable to predict when Ana Maria will be able to continue her promising work in conservation research...To date, we have received no information from her captors, and are thus unable to speculate when she may be released."

That girl knows a helluva lot more about being "at the center" than I do. All the best wishes to her for a smooth re-entry and redoubled sendings of spirit to Alf.

That most kids lie should not be surprising, that they lie because their parents teach - even validate the behavior - may come as a shock.

Although we think of truthfulness as a young child’s paramount virtue, it turns out that lying is the more advanced skill. A child who is going to lie must recognize the truth, intellectually conceive of an alternate reality, and be able to convincingly sell that new reality to someone else. Therefore, lying demands both advanced cognitive development and social skills that honesty simply doesn’t require. “It’s a developmental milestone,” Talwar has concluded.

Reflecting on my own teenage lying behavior, I definitely fit this pattern: "Any sudden spate of lying, or dramatic increase in lying, is a danger sign: Something has changed in that child’s life, in a way that troubles him. “Lying is a symptom—often of a bigger problem behavior,” explains Talwar. “It’s a strategy to keep themselves afloat.” The thing is, I don't have a sense that my parents lied on purpose, rather that they simply said nothing about important things - the silences were as devastating as any overt attempt to tell an untruth.
I know my parents were unskilled at addressing the difficult situations we faced. I don't blame them (anymore, grin), but I do still struggle - albeit less often - with residues of adaptive self-training: the things I learned to do to protect myself which have often played out in creating distance instead of intimacy.

Laughing at myself helps. :-) For instance, "to an adolescent, arguing is the opposite of lying." I enjoy arguing - even if my emotions get involved (usually as frustration or exasperation, if I label myself). I take the presence of emotion as more information: something about the topic-at-hand is important to me! What? Why? Maybe I am doomed to a life-stage developmental plateau: permanent adolescence. :-)

Now, here's a hell of a statistic, evidence of which I consistently witness in college classrooms: "The average Pennsylvania teen was 244 percent more likely to lie than to protest a rule." Some democracy, huh? Can you say, "freedom of speech"?! I agree, wholeheartedly, that "Certain types of fighting . . . [are] ultimately signs of respect—not of disrespect." I also believe, in principle, that "fighting strengthen[s] ... relationship." Conflict, in-and-of-itself, is normal: "the variable that seem[s] to really matter [is] how the arguments [are] resolved."

I totally appreciate the author's divulgence of how "having lying on my radar screen has changed the way things work around the Bronson household. No matter how small, lies no longer go unnoticed. The moments slow down, and I have a better sense of how to handle them" (emphasis added).

As I have worked through this article, applying its lessons to my own life, I also recognize the power of framing. I imagine that the legacy of family habits for dealing with conflict, lying, honesty, etc., could appear in other venues as part of the stage of group development pithily labeled "storming." Bronson asks (emphasis added): "Does how we deal with a child’s lies really matter down the road in life?"

The most devastating (to me) finding of this research into lying is how adults often recall an apparently innocuous lie from childhood as their worst:

DePaulo had to create a category in her analysis just for them. “I had to reframe my understanding to consider what it must have been like as a child to have told this lie,” she recalls. “For young kids, their lie challenged their self-concept that they were a good child, and that they did the right thing.”

Many subjects commented on how that momentous lie early in life established a pattern that affected them thereafter . . . The lies they tell early on are meaningful. The way parents react can really affect lying.”

Yea, I watched it: total eclipse of the moon. Propped myself up in bed, backwards, on pillows, so I could gaze out the window. I worked between gazes, some laptop project - possibly related to teaching? I can't recall for sure, now.... been behind and falling behinder on the daily blogging routine....

I thought about time, trying to project myself backwards millennia to imagine the experience from the point-of-view of humans of the moment. I considered both the incredibly focused attention to global detail that enabled the prediction of such events as well as the primal uncertainties such an unusual event must necessarily evoke.

Yes, I've seen an eclipse before, glanced up at certain times for perhaps an entire minute to see that, indeed, it was fully shrouded. Maybe peeked a few other times to catch a snapshot of its progress. Actually watching the show for four hours, though....never. And I couldn't quite pull it off this time, either. The eclipse was the main event, but I was dually engaged with a computer project. I looked up quite often through the beginning of the partial eclipse, each time gazing long enough for my mind to wonder. I found myself most engaged during the shifts: first entry into the penumbra, transition into the umbra, and especially out of the umbra, re-entering the penumbra. The second half of the eclipse seems to me the most dramatic - unfortunately by then the moon's orbit was out of window range except by extreme neck-craning. I let it go, unwilling to venture into the night's bitter cold.

As I create meaning for myself, based on speculation of the past, personal experiences, and visioning for the future, I choose to emphasize the re-emergence of the moon rather than its disappearance. I have become familiar with so many ways that I fall into some version of the glum moodies, yet not as intimately aware of how I transition out of them into happier states-of-being. I'm still caught off-guard more often than I'd like by events and circumstances that plunge me into uncertainties and insecurities, but I have - slowly, painstakingly - begun to be more confident in the knowledge that the passage of time allows the re-establishment of a psychical foundation. Now, if I can just keep hold of this consciousness when I need it! 'Cuz the cycles will most likely continue to recur, one way or another.

Photos by Ambarish Karmalkar