I went to Earth Dance at Arcosanti Saturday night with a friend and a friend of hers. We got high. I really got into the surreal free form electronic dance scene with Cirque De Soleil performers mingling in costume and on stilts and swinging from long fabric streams hooked to the high ceiling. My reverie was mostly inside me, me and the music making this architectural energy ride for me to find my rhythmic way with. What I didn't do very well was include this friend and her friend. I was sort of going solo and assuming they were finding there way among all the energy fields just fine without me. But then it appeared after the fact, that I didn't measure up to there desire to be included very well.
So you know, it can be hard to include everything and everybody simultaneously. Always the probability of leaving someone out. And that can chip away at feeling entirely triumphant in one's lust for life. But I suppose it all continues to add to the the gathering storying we're always about. Everyone gets to play all the characters in some kind of random chancing at taking turns and being turned. And I'm apparently many persons depending on what other persons are measuring me for. Sometimes I measure very poorly, even though no actual agreement was ever made for how we would attend each other. So easy to disappoint while assuming the best, and even while having a rather good time in the moment.
-Steve
Monday, September 28, 2009
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hey steve -- this was again, exactly what i needed to read. because i've been your friends this month. i've let my expectations blind me to the experiences another person is having. and so rather than observe his movements as his own, i've only watched them to see how they relate to me. guess what. they don't. crafting my own experiences is my only responsibility. thank you for this. -- dan
ReplyDeleteThis is a big lesson I keep coming to terms with that imagination can be quite other than what's actually going on outside of us. And it can be very tricky discerning the two. Especially if another person shows signs of matching our imagination of what we would like to experience, then quickly the other can be co-opted into our expectations as though they really are a match, when they may only partially match.
ReplyDeleteSo, being ever watchful of our imaginings and staying open to reality beyond them, seems a good discipline and a fitting way to respect people's real otherness than what we might like them to be for us.
-Steve