Monday, July 9, 2012

Perception

When I heard ' everything is perception ' I would cringe. Cringe at the rhetoric. The propaganda. The niavete. When a fist comes to your face, it hurts. The nose snapping in half, the crush and horrible crunch of bone fragmenting, the sound like a giant stuffing down chicken bones, the pain a blinding, complete experience. There is no other perception of the pain. It is. As time went on, I've asked myself, when that fist came down on my face, what else? Beside the pain? What else about this? 

There is the question of who is doing the punching. And why. And what you think about them. And what you think about yourself. And what you think about what you need to do in response. 

Is it: oh my god i love this person and they are breaking my face and i can't do anything, this hurts so badly, i'm helpless, there is nothing i can do but just wait, life is so fucked up

Is it: oh my god i hate this person they are breaking my face and i can't do anything but break them back, as fast and hard as i can, life is so fucked up

Is it: oh my god I love this person they are breaking my face i won't let them hurt me like this i am strong, i am defending myself, i am strong and they are in pain and afraid and dark and will fight back and i will get away and heal and for this person life is so fucked up.

Is it: despair

Is it: rage

Is it: humilation

Is it: open

Is it: humble

Is it: a student

Is it: complex

Is it: steel, forging in fire.

Is it: love

Every time I stand next to one of my children as they work their way through something painful something hard, I think hard and long about what perception I hope they have of the event. 

Because of this, every time I work my way through something painful and something hard, I think hard and long about what perception I have of the event.

Just when I think I might be done for, I grope around in the dark and find my children. I wonder: If my son if my daughter was lost in the dark, what would I want for them?

Almost everything I need to know is in the answer to that question.



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