My middle son teaches me a lot. All my sons teach me a lot about living in the 21st century! He certainly taught me a lot about blogging. He pointed out that it was just journaling shared with others. He said ‘You journal everyday, Mom’ As I paused to let the reality sink in and doors open in my mind, he paused and said, ‘By the way, why?’
For half a century I’ve written diaries and journals and everything else! How do I explain what drives me? Writing things down, no matter how unfocused they seem at the time, does so many things! It ventilates my feelings before they get unmanageable. Just the act of trying to put feelings and ideas into words helps clarify the issues for me. Jotting down multiple thoughts coming at me from all directions helps me prioritize and connect ideas, as well as see their relationship to one another. (And yes, sometimes my journaling is drawing, flowcharts, mandalas, and much more visual aids to understanding!) After clarifying and organizing those thoughts I am better able to express them to others.
Why can feelings become unmanageable if I attempt to keep them locked inside me? Well, for one thing, I’ve found that passion and intensity are frightening to many people nowadays. Yes, I’m passionate! Well, it would be hard not to ignore the feedback; over the years I’ve heard the criticism ‘You’re too intense.’ way too frequently. I feel out of date or out of synch. Without passion and intensity, enthusiasm and involvement, life would be tasteless, wouldn’t it?
Many of my patients in various institutional settings complain that when they express themselves that many staff back away. There appear to be at least two reasons for this. One is that when someone outside the bland ‘white bread’ culture uses the rhetoric, tone of voice, expressiveness, etc. that is typical of their family and their communities, they are perceived as ‘intense’ or even ‘dangerous,’ even when there is no intent to threaten and no overt gestures of aggressiveness. I often sympathize, even as I help them learn how to use more ’socially acceptable’ ways of communicating. But the kind of society to which we are acculturating, and whether we are losing identity in our desire to blend into it, remains an important issue, with both national and global ramifications.
One of the nice things about blogging and web sites is that you can allow them to catch your emotions. If you, the Reader, have a question, you can email me about it! In addition to giving me a chance to clear up confusion or clarify my commentary, this also starts an exciting dialogue between us. I’m really looking forward to it! I hope you are too. (I’ll bet you can tell I have trouble writing dry professional papers.)
One thing I noticed is that when you’re in the middle of, say, an ethical crisis at work, (or just something so stupid you can’t believe they’re asking you to do this) is that emotions run high and it all seems very important. Then you leave, go home, put your feet up, and that feeling starts to slip away. You may even wonder why you thought it was so important to begin with. Well, I think that one of the big differences between ‘activists’ and ‘followers’ is whether you bother to try to answer that question. You may find that the issue is still significant and deserves action. Don’t automatically ignore something that seemed important. Chances are you had good reason to feel so upset. The time when you calm down is not the time to ignore it, but the right time to try to understand what needs to be done. Nothing gets improved by people who are afraid to rock the boat! You become part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
I get my mind opened by experiencing new perspectives too. Here’s a poem I wrote on 10/17/03 while on a trip to South Korea. My youngest son and his diverse friends introduced me to the concept of ‘fusion,’ a term for the rich blending of ingredients from various cultural heritages. It prompted this insight poem:
I am fusion.
Not strange, outlandish,
But a patchwork of all I have seen,
Taking the best to put together myself!
A shaman, full of costumes, props, bones and feathers,
To dance, sing, chant, move, decorate, paint, pray –
Teach, inspire, facilitate change –
That because I am wise.