Tuesday's Mental Musings

I, like many, many others, am drawn to the tidbits of lives I will gladly never live and enjoy the occasional scandal in photo and print. I will admit to reading Hollywood gossip blogs on occasion. They have replaced my habit of peeking at the gossip rags while on the grocery checkout line. At times I am fascinated by the lives and times of people we choose to put into the limelight. It takes a special type of ego to want to be adored and admired in such an extreme and out loud way. What interests me is how it is all handled, not just by the celebrity but by those of us with enough interest to keep them in the spot light. I guess it is as they say, good or bad, all press is good. After a bit of gawking I find myself appalled, mostly at myself, and I turn away in disgust and avoid all contact for weeks at a time until something heard on the "news" sucks me back in for another round.

Those moments aside, I have no desire to know such gossip about my neighbors, family or friends, especially from the mouths of third parties who have had no say in the real life too close for comfort dramas that can occur. This is not to say that I don't want to hear an individual's story, especially if it involves evolution and accomplishment on the various levels in which we greet this life but I want to hear it from the individual themselves and I want it to be their story and to see their position and responsibility in it.

Yes, I want it all! But most of us don't share our stories in this way. Instead most of us attack the character and behavior of others without as much as admitting our part in it all or we deliver the story in judgment rather than as a neutral observer. When privy to this kind of gossip I find myself cringing and trying to see things from the "villain's" point of view in order to balance out the one-sidedness of the story being told. Perhaps not being able to allow others to discuss their points of view because their delivery appalls me is a fault of my own ego but I am OK with having/owning this fault.

Standing by this edict is rather hard because most of us do not share our own stories in a specific, direct and honest manner. Instead we become a third party in the story of our lives. We choose to focus on characters and situations that contribute to it rather than accept blame and responsibility when it is our. The villains become omnipotent in our tales because we can control their depiction through our descriptions in order to direct blame away from our own choices and actions when situations play out in ways that are not to our liking or benefit. It's easier and safer that way.

If we truly shared our truths in a responsible "I made the choice" way we would have to become more aware and focused on when to act or re-act or not act in our day to day living. We would have to own our behavior in ways that would make our stories more complex and truthful because we would be admitting our responsibility in it all. The reward would of course be the lessons learned from it all. But standing in our tales means exposing our vulnerability and perhaps giving the impression that we are in less control or have less understanding than we would like others to believe.

Granted there are always going to be stories where we are not the heroes we would like others to believe us to be but by sharing these stories in a direct and honest manner we prevent ourselves from being the victim even when it means admitting we allowed ourselves to be victimized by circumstances we could have controlled or more importantly when we allowed our reactions to those things beyond our control to victimize us.

Again, learning to share your life in an honest way with is hard. Removing the drama and being direct and vulnerable means trusting that we are sharing with people who are interested in who we truly are, not who they want us to be. It also means becoming aware and responsible for whom we choose to share our truths with and for the perimeters we set with them. We must decide the level of intimacy we want with others and then trust that what truths we or they expose is right for those involved and more importantly, ourselves.

Directly admitting our responsibility in living the lives we are living would mean being vulnerable and exposing the fact that we are still trying to understand our footing on this journey of discovery but doesn’t a journey require steps, decisions and changes in direction in order to get to where we are going? And in the end we all, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, are heading toward that same final place of arrival we might as well get there with the truth of our lives intact....