Unfolding

Unfolding

Unfolding

It is hard at times to understand what makes others tick, so alien we can be to one another. So much alike, yet vast differences can lead to times when building bridges is almost impossible. Simple gestures, carefully chosen words, even smiles, can be interrupted in ways not dreamed of. I have had this experience a couple of times in my life when this has happened. There can be a great deal of frustration from both sides. The only road to peace is to simply accept the impasse, and hopefully understanding will emerge slowly over time.

I remember one day at the airport in Atlanta. It was a Sunday evening, one of the busiest days for travel, so the baggage area was packed. While waiting for my friend to arrive, I noticed a group of people from somewhere in Africa. They where dressed in clothes very different from what I have ever seen, even the colors seemed somewhat out of place, beautiful but yes, alien. They were a family, a large one waiting for their luggage. As I looked at them, I wondered if it would be possible to go over and communicate with them. Apart from a language difference, from a cursory impression, the culture that they came from would be something unknown to me. What would we talk about? Would simple cultural gestures be misinterpreted? Of course in the end I did not approach them. Perhaps if I did I would have been surprised, but fear kept me away. I felt sad about that, seeing others that I might not be able to communicate with on any meaningful level. Though in doing this I am labeling again, yet another barrier, self imposed keeping contact to a minimum. We do after all live in a world of boxes, past experienced stored allowing us to place those we met in one box or another, and yes I have a box marked ‘alien’. This problem is present in one degree on another with everyone, well perhaps with most, hence the often experienced loneliness which is the lot of most of us.

Of course the opposite is also possible. Meeting someone when communication almost seems to be instantaneous, effortless, a real joy; yet even that more often than not is an illusion. No, commutation is something that has to be worked at, and from the way the world seems to run, it happens very seldom. Perhaps heaven is a place where explaining oneself become something of the past. To be truly seen would probably be a freeing experience, then all presentations of self would just drop away, we could just be. I wonder what it would be like not to have to label and categories others. Or what it would be like to actually experience that myself, being seen without a label being pasted on to me. Something most probably impossible, at least in this life……. without them, labels again, the other would be just to ‘new’ or ‘other’ to have any kind of meaningful exchange. So boxes help, as long as the tops are not put on too tightly. People have a way of breaking out of boxes, another messy fact of life; pesky critters, people. I suppose the best that can done is to simply allow the unfolding to occur with a certain amount of acceptance and yes expectation.

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