I have an increasing problem with language. The more I hear it, the more I just get frustrated or downright angry. For much of my life, I never really thought words mattered. I had a very simple view that a word won’t punch you in the face or shoot you. Needless to say, I was unfamiliar with neuroscience at the time. Your body can respond as if it’s experiencing physical pain. Words can scar you. Words can swallow you up in depression or make you burst with rage.
But at least when that happens you have something clear to work with. A pissed off person is to be restrained or ran from, or perhaps politely engaged with. A depressed person needs pills or to attempt therapy. What we don’t pay attention to is when words make us sick, but we don’t really feel sick. We don’t feel different at all. In fact, the more you try to point to the words that are responsible for the sickness, people think you’re the sick one.
We take talking and language for granted. Whether a word is male or female or “rooted” in another language. We don’t struggle with every syllable like it didn’t start as a bark or a scream trying to convey something from more primordial times. We assume the meaning is built in. We act like when I say “car,” the mental picture is the same across the board. It’s innocent enough, as in, who cares if you pictured a Hot Wheels toy or a Nascar racer, we can clarify with a few more questions or specific words.
Humans have more unidentifiable experiences and feelings though. They have complex relationships and institutions. Words that once had meaning float away or become something entirely different, and new ones pop into existence seemingly daily. And we don’t even notice. I’d put money on the idea that someone’s said something akin to “I took this selfie in 1995 before smart phones.”
It’s how we arrived at the all-encompassing nature of the word “love.” It’s why people have an impossible time finding the “truth.” It’s the struggle behind your relationship with “friends” and “family.” Most, in service to trying to feel “normal,” see no point in searching for a kind of excruciating exactness. “My mom’s my mom and I love her! That’s the truth!” And you’re hard-pressed to disagree, even if the person making the claim doesn’t know why or care to learn why they’re wrong.
I think a lot about this when I consider my relationships. I don’t believe my ex feels any real guilt that isn’t masked in a language of relief. The stakes weren’t as high for her. I don’t think she even grasped the nature of the problem. In the handful of things she was willing to type out and explain to me, you can see the contradictions written sometimes in the next sentence claiming something different. It’s not that her explanation doesn’t make a certain kind of sense in “normal” or “everyday” terms, but I would describe it as missing a soul. I think there’s more to be said about the lines, “I don’t believe we started off as friends. At least not honest friends,” and “I think the lying stemmed from a true desire to see you happy” than there’s time for here.
Consider planting a tree you don’t want. You hate this tree. You hate the idea of trees. Yet every day you water it. You watch it get taller and taller. Its roots start to crack your foundation. Its leaves clog your gutters. It attracts animals and bugs you’re constantly swiping at. You buy expensive equipment trying to blow them away and make repairs. Then your neighbor comes over and proclaims how hard you work and praises you for your dedication to taking care of your property. You look up, angry and exhausted and scream, “I wish that damn thing had never been planted to begin with!”
The “logic” of property maintenance requires the expensive tools and hours in the sun. You need trash bags and allergy medication. You need new gutters and a new foundation. But you hate trees, and you planted one anyway? But wait, you may think to yourself, trees are good! Trees help ecosystems. Trees suck up carbon. I like apples! Perfectly fair and valid points, just in an entirely different discussion. The root of your problem remains unaddressed.
This is why I write and ask people to pay attention. This is why I find it so weird that people are threatened by my mere descriptions of aesthetic things that are causing them a mindgasm. It’s why I urge you to run from judgmental language because it’s a hearty signifier that you probably have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Our judgments are fundamentally corrupted, and if we attempt to base our feelings on them, we’re throwing food at a wall trying to assemble an emotional meal from whatever sticks.
Why am I so “defensive” or “difficult” to talk to? Why is it so “exhausting” to answer my questions? I don’t feel responsible for the lies you’ve told me. I don’t accept the idea that my perspective is “less magical” or “normal” or “worthwhile” just because I call a mountain a mountain and you’ll cry or cum if you stare at it too long. That doesn’t make me angry at you or resent you. I climbed the stupid thing because I wanted to be around the people doing what they enjoy. It seems practically inhumane to ignore that motivation for the sake of a mound of dirt.
It speaks to why I don’t regret getting into a relationship as well. What if I had sacrificed myself, like I was prepared to in high school? What if I stopped partying and said “I believe!” when it only felt like torture? What if I hadn’t done all the work to really discover who I was and what was important or what I was willing to do? Because that’s all you really have at the end of the day. Trying to be true to yourself.
If I may borrow a phrase from a movie I just watched (even if I don’t believe in love), “The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” You can of course get half of the lesson right if others find themselves incapable or unwilling to acknowledge what’s worth loving about you. Your tokens can still represent true feelings. (I find it curious they’ve all been left behind.) You don’t have to adopt the same complacent exhaustion or judgment that denigrates the other person.
To be honest, I thought I’d feel more dramatic lol. But once I heard the foundation was a lie, I went out like a light. I was relieved. I could stop believing. I know how to treat liars, or, basically every person and “friend” I’ve ever met. Keep them at arm's distance. Maybe get something out of them. Play along and lie back as earnestly as they’re asking you to do so. Finally! Some direction.
Now I’m hung up on the “trying to be true to yourself” line. Because it’s the default language that people employ when trying to justify their behavior. I need to be more specific. Be true to what you’ve worked to discover. Be true to things you place higher on the shelf than the pit in your stomach. I felt nothing but excited and proud when she hooked up with girls. I felt absolutely terrible the first time my ex slept with a dude that wasn’t me. As compared to the 15 or so girls I’d been with since we were together. That means I’m a culturally programmed romantic sexist who literally embodied a painful hypocritical double-standard, not that there’s something wrong with sex and attraction or paying attention to history, human psychology, and animal behavior.
Important reminder, I didn’t blame her for my feelings. I didn’t think she was trying to hurt me. I believe she would have stayed home if I asked her to. She didn’t punch me in the gut. I put my trust in our life together and a spirit of sharing and honesty. Oops. And even still, if I may borrow a line from a song that I find spectacular, “Indiscretion is a blessing if you know how the truth is told.” Truth is told one line at a time. It’s every moment, and every word that captures where you’re at in time and spirit. That moment competes for the truth as it is against the truth that you’re desperate to justify. And while it’s extremely hard, if not sometimes impossible, to tell the degree and nature of how we’re lying to ourselves, I’ll catch you every time when you try to lie about me.
I’ll never blame anyone for feeling confused, angry, or hurt. It happens, it sucks, and it betrays our best conception of ourselves. But don’t blame me for you not recognizing what I find beautiful. Don’t tell me what I do and don’t see. Don’t allow yourself a second of pretending to know what I think if you’re unwilling to ask, and don’t tell me to respect your feelings when your misused words insulate you from experiencing mine. I chose trust when I wasn’t trusted. I chose ideals over butterflies. I choose friends even when I don’t believe they can see me. I choose writing to fighting, be it with myself, or you...mostly.
I think the only thing that brings people together or makes someone “right” for someone else is the decision to say so. Make no mistake, when you’re lying to someone, you haven’t chosen them. You’re not concerned with their happiness. You’re not in love. You shouldn’t trust what you’re finding beautiful. You’re not sacrificing anything anymore than Jesus did. The reality of your hard-sold godly standards will rise again until you can recognize them for the empty fairy tales of self-indulgence they are. And you’ll hurt a lot of people along the way. And at least if you’ve caught this and paid attention, we’ll both know it’s no longer innocent.
