Don't confuse my silliness as a lack of seriousness or levity. My superfluousness is hard-won, it has taken years, decades of such a broad range of experiences that I have had to conclude how I feel and act. It takes years of sustained reflective effort of all those "serious" experiences to earn the right to behave exactly how I want. It means I don't have to express interest in some very earnest topics that other people feel are so important- maybe because it isn't important to me or because my resilience tells me not to for self-preservation- and it may mean that lightness, sometimes, is the most valuable approach.
I take my silliness very seriously, as seriously as I take psychotherapy, and can dismiss seriousness in the blink of an eye, if needed. I can express a lightness of touch that only people who have experienced the exact opposite can express. People like me who have survived the terrible darkness of grief or trauma or depression are also able to fully embrace and appreciate grades of delicacy that many other people are desensitised to- from the deftness of Fred Astaire to the pure joy of a baby's laugh or the nuance of 100 shades of white- we have fought for our right for this. Post-trauma, I have put in the psychic effort of years of reflection and resilience-building, culminating in my legititmate dismissal of irrelevance and my acceptance of importance. My battle was righteous, the result weighty and considered.
For example, I have little interest in currant affairs or the news, a statement that makes me a little uncomfortable to express. It didn't used to be this way- before Ruby died 11 years ago I would read 3 newspapers a day, listen to the news on the radio, watch it on the TV, I was a news junkie. But now it does not feel informative. I now have a much greater understanding of my own usefulness and knowledge of my sphere of influence and power, I know how I can positively affect negative world events (for example, financial donations, direct local action, supporting affected people through my work helping refugees face to face, etc) and I also know the limits of my influence. In other words, my interest in those events is lower if I cannot contribute to helping those affected and is limited to the scope of my direct action. I still get daily news from different sources but my interest is practical, not broadly informative as it used to be.
I dismiss the seriousness of current affairs and I dismiss the weight of many "serious" issues if they are totally outside of my control (the Stoics would have us concentrate our greatest efforts on things that are somewhat in our control because those things can be most influenced and should be our main focus, as opposed to things completely in our control about which only a small amount of mental effort should be apportioned). I have earned the right to this dismissal without guilt or blame. I know what counts as serious and what counts as not serious not through superfluous rejection or burying my head in the sand but through studied reflection and mental effort. If I am being breezy and seemingly thoughtless about a topic you can be assured that is very far from the truth. The more likely truth is that I have given the topic great thought and have concluded, on reflection, that is simply isn't worth my psychic energy.
Delicateness, lightness, nuance, silliness. These are extremely important concepts and their profundity should never be confused with a redundancy of thought. To know delicacy you have to feel substance, to be light is to know weight, to truly appreciate nuance you have to have known labyrinthine confusion. And you have to take your silliness seriously.
No comments:
Post a Comment