Sometimes it feels like a Superpower.
I was having a conversation with a dear friend yesterday about their pending divorce...
I felt like that kid in the Sixth Sense (great movie by the way). He tells Bruce Willis, "I see dead people". I feel like telling Bruce, "I see the REAL people."
I am fairly certain what I have is not a superpower. If it was, I'd be able to help people see the truth and avoid the pain.
It's not a superpower.
What I have is a really good education, learned in the classroom of life. My parents facilitated the coursework.
From a very young age my parents shared their very candid perspectives about each other with me. I would listen intently, believing fully that what they shared about each other was indeed what they saw and felt. And, yet, I could see it so differently, so clearly. My mother wasn't crazy. My father wasn't a tyrant. My mother was depressed. She was so sad it hurt her bones. My father wanted desperately to know that he was loved. And, despite occasional displays of affection and affirmation, he never internalized it.
I was made from both of them. Whatever qualities they possessed - I possessed.
Whatever deficiencies they owned, I owned.
It was a difficult role. Not because It hurt to hear them destroy each other. Not because it wasn't all true. Not because I took their hate and internalized it thinking "If they are awful people, I must be an awful person", but because I COULDN'T CHANGE THEM! No matter what I tried - what they believed they believed, and despite any efforts their believes and their dislike and their disharmony grew and grew.
That is one of the lessons that they started to teach me, that I have learned over and over again.
HARMONY BEGETS HARMONY
and
DISHARMONY BEGETS DISHARMONY
If you are in a cycle of disharmony - you have to fight it with all that you are. You have to fight it with every ounce of candor and every ounce of strength, because it will slowly kill whatever it is targeting, or at least the spirit of those involved.
I occasionally and dilussionally think at times that I can change how people think. It ain't no superpower. I cant.
I love the quote, "We can't teach anyone anything. We can only expose them to ideas, and they will decide which to embrace." I don't know who said that, but they were brilliant.
So, all I can do, is expose people to my ideas. Most will read or listen to them, think them interesting or irrelevant and move along. And, a few will linger, and those are the ones I crave. Because harmony requires massive dedication, it requires commitment, it requires courage, it requires time, it requires all of your heart and mind.
My parents are wonderful people as individuals.
They are loved and appreciated by so many. It is the combination of them together that is like a great balsamic vinegar and a warm glass of milk. They are wonderful on their own, but it just didnt work when you put them together.
That's the thing about harmony... it is about the truth of the relationship, the team, the company, not just the individual.
We are who we are as individuals, but we are different beings in relationships, because we are defined as part of the relationship, by the dynamics of the relationship.
I used to look down on divorce. I ignorantly assumed that it was for selfish people or people that just didn't have the determination to make it work. Now, while still saddened by divorce, I think it is an alternative that is sometimes needed between people to reach the harmony they deserve in their lives. Some combinations just don't work.
I wish my parents had gotten divorced.
Not while I was a young boy, though I don't know if it could have actually helped, but certainly when I was in college.
They seriously considered it at one point about 20+ years ago, but momentum is a dangerous thing for people not great at making proactive decisions.
Or, maybe it was some kind of love or comfort that while existing on some level deep inside of them, they have been unable to bring it to life in their words or actions.
I am good. I am strong. I am wiser for knowing them and for loving them.
And, I am sad for them. I am sad that they have never been able to give each other what they most deeply needed and deserved.
I no longer internalize their dislike for each other. I no longer believe that the failures of their relationship define me. I believe now that I have the best of each of them in me, and the worst. But, as individuals they have many great qualities. It's in the dynamics of the relationship where it got so very ugly.
HARMONY begets HARMONY
And my ability to see the absolute truth is not a super power, its a personal commitment to objectivity, its a personal commitment to living a life that benefits from the lessons my parents paid such a high price to teach me.
I wish I had the superpower not just to see the truth, but to help others see it too.
Then, I could really change the world.
For now, all I can do is expose my ideas and hope that some of you choose to linger.
Thank you for lingering...
Nestor Benavides