When it’cloudy, I find myself looking to the sky, expecting something more. Cloudy often seem to precede a significant change in the weather pattern, like the frontage of a storm. Perhaps I am always expecting more from basic omens, possibly because I cannot rely on my intuition to foretell what’s next.
IIn many areas of my life, I have overlooked the significance of signs and omens, usually to my own detriment. In some cases I have not been willing to see, in other cases I lacked the visual acuity to see clearly. I envy those around me who can immediately respond to what they can see and assess quickly. That has never been a part of my skill set.
Over the past few years, I have described myself as a delayed processor. . I suppose that’s more or less truthful, but delaying processing does not mean that I delay response or reaction. Particularly when anger or hurt triggered, and consequently fear, the response is ill considered, and much like a reflex. i don’t consider that a particularly flattering quality, but it is what it is.
The problem with these reflexive and knee-jerk responses is that I miss quite a few salient points that are revealed later in more detailed processing. I had a manager once who frequently screamed at me over the phone, and I said nothing. One day, as I was driving to a job site, she began the familiar ritual of assuring me that I was mistaken if I thought I was doing a good job on the assignment, and that I should be prepared for more critique when I returned to my desk. I imagined myself as a cartoon character, sitting alone in my vehicle, with a very red face and puffs of smoke coming out of my ears. But i said nothing, and threw the phone across the cabin of my pickup truck. That ended the conversation for the moment, and I later blamed the interruption on loss of signal in a dead zone.
That has been years ago, and that particular manager is now deceased, but I still remember the incident with maddening clarity. When I am under stress and/or at the bottom a depression-inspired low point, I relive the conversation, word for word, thought for thought, and chastise myself in current time for what I should have said, what my reaction should have been, etc. This is not particularly productive, since I cannot go back in time to give the perfect response, but usually results in associations with other incidents from my past when I have felt consummately disempowered. That becomes.a death spiral of me assuring myself that I am truly worthless, and destined to allow blowhards to treat me badly. When it’s all said and done, I have what amounts to an emotional hangover, usually followed by binge eating of something that is not particularly good for me…and more berating of my inadequacies.
I am not a stupid person. My skill set is not hierarchical, and I learn more by repetitive actiondoing than by detailed instruction with demonstration of conceptual mastery. This frustrates people who have power over me, particularly men who rely on hierarchical and compartmentalized thought processes to survive. That’s very true in a technical world, and I find that while in the technical work force, I often had to teach myself how to do things. Impatient linear thinkers were eager to move on, write me off as one of the slow learners, incapable of technical acuity. I am not a linear thinker, and have never aspired to be, I learn by observing relationships between components of systems, whatever they are, and then intuitively manipulating the components based on my observational reasoning. Again, this frustrates traditional linear thinkers, who demand that I show them how I got to the correct answer. I can’t, so then I become a fraud and a one-trick piney. I am neither.
Why should I care what work force managers think about me? Mercifully, I am no longer in the technical work force, so why does any of that matter? I suppose it matters to me because I was figuratively crucified for sub-standard performance due to things I couldn’t control, but which were very much a part of who I am and how I learn. Nobody cared about that. Show us your work, and then show us your metrics. How many widgets did you move today, and how many times did you complete the task after the deadline? No matter whether the task was done correctly, but if it was late it barely mattered. Some of my colleagues persistently completed tasks incorrectly, but closed them out within the agreed upon timeframe, so they were evaluated at far huger scores than me (who had taught many of them how to do the job in the first place). Whatever.
At this point, it does me no good to remain angry. There’s nothing I can do about any of it. I prefer to believe those responsible for the most intolerance will have consequences in another place, another time, another life. That’s not my business. What is my business, however, is how I can live my life with a higher degree of competency. I want to be empowered, not give away my power with emotional outbursts and waste time on things I cannot change. I don’t want to continue reliving conversations of the past late at night, remember what I could have said, should have said. That is senseless and tiring.
I am beginning to believe that my ego is a bit outsized, and that may be the root cause of my delayed processing since the beginning. Over the years, I’ve done a lot of work on my ego, and realized a while back that when my self-esteem is low, my ego will be puffed up and in the lead. When I’m in that position, I tend to believe that I am one step away from annihilation, only one step ahead of catastrophe. When I’m in that position, I tend to believe that I am grossly inadequate, eternally insufficient, and I need to aggressively protect myself. My ego is like a blister protecting an unhealed wound from long ago. In those times, it’s difficult to discern whether threats are real, or at least whether I am in need of protection in real time. When that happens, I’m reactionary in real time, and that’s often a very disconnected response.
All of that to say, when I don’t feel safe, I have to run. Lately, running has been in the form of shutting down, isolation, withdrawal. Not the best of solutions, but it beats the hell out of an outpouring of rage and aggression. That doesn’t get me any closer to success on any level, and there are consequences.
I may take my last breath still trying to figure out what this is all about, but hopefully I will no longer be paralyzed and stuck in the effort. I have to believe that I am going to be OK. I have to believe in miracles and Santa Claus and sometimes the Easter Bunny. Having a core value of doom has gotten me far deeper into the bottomless pit than I care to be, so no more of that. It’s dark in there, and I would rather be about light. Today is a cloudy day, so I will have to bring my own.
The Sound Hole 