People talk about the strangest things on the T.
A weird moment on the T, early in December, strangely echoed something that had been rattling around in my head for a couple months. The simple and external version is : while getting on the train, I saw a fairly loud argument between two people over a funny look or comment from earlier. I boarded the train in the middle of the argument, so I am not quite sure exactly what happened, and at the time tried to avoid any interest. But the defining moment of the exchange came when one of the two (the apparent winner) began to brag loudly about being the "bigger bitch" [This could have actually been "better bitch", but that seems a little beside the point, especially considering the size of this woman.] It took me a moment to realize that she was serious, without a hint of irony in her voice.
It was especially strange to me--though I'm sure "bitch" was tossed at some point earlier, this bragging had no apparent connection to anything said before. It was just a declaration of victory. On the one hand, fine: this woman was choosing to celebrate victory loudly and a little obnoxiously. On the other, what was strange to me was the claiming of "bitch" as a positive trait.
This was different from two other possible situations like this: a) if the other woman in this argument had called her a bitch; the eventual winner could easily have taken the insult and flipped the energy round, like in jujutsu. b) the reclaiming and repurposing of what amounts to a misogynistic slur--a redefinition in the moment.
Instead, this was something I couldn't quite wrap my head around: this was a woman openly bragging about being an awful person.
Eventually I got off at my stop and continued to walk home, down Amory, up Williams, and to my door. The incident stuck in my head, and I tried to write down a bit that night. But other responsibilities (the night's practicing, some necessary xmas shopping) did eventually pop up, and so the whole thing was put to the side, and the moment moved to a backburner (I'm sure my internal stove has forty burners). But it kept cooking.
That initial impulse of surprise, I think, was right. The realization that I was listening to another person acknowledge her own flaws and then claim them as strengths was a little numbing.
This hearkens back to the jujutsu example, and to early Taoism: the idea here is to take your smallness, acknowledge it, and then use its inability to surmount a larger power, and effectively use that which is larger upon itself. A practical example might be a person who is weak in math, but good at memorization--memorizing a multiplication table would be a very effective way of bypassing that weakness and having the information on hand. The added bonus of this is that, eventually, the pattern becomes internalized, and we surprise ourselves by being able to navigate within it and make logical assumptions outside of it (which is really what being good at math is).
But this also means we have to be able to look at our own flaws and have the courage to admit that they are, in fact and in truth, flaws. For instance, I personally have phenomenal difficulties with over-focus and tunnel vision: when I become locked in on something, there is little short of personal injury that will knock me off course. I am luckily able to at least guide this into a relatively strong work ethic, and a strong commitment to my friends. Tunnel vision also strangely means that I can get lost and end up looking down the wrong tunnel--careful management of this can be as simple as just keeping a little attention on the informing impulse and be willing to throw myself down another hallway. In essence, this is transforming of energy. I am not always successful (sometimes am rarely so), but it's something to work with.
Love, I think, might be the key to this concept. Certainly better than fear.
It was especially strange to me--though I'm sure "bitch" was tossed at some point earlier, this bragging had no apparent connection to anything said before. It was just a declaration of victory. On the one hand, fine: this woman was choosing to celebrate victory loudly and a little obnoxiously. On the other, what was strange to me was the claiming of "bitch" as a positive trait.
This was different from two other possible situations like this: a) if the other woman in this argument had called her a bitch; the eventual winner could easily have taken the insult and flipped the energy round, like in jujutsu. b) the reclaiming and repurposing of what amounts to a misogynistic slur--a redefinition in the moment.
Instead, this was something I couldn't quite wrap my head around: this was a woman openly bragging about being an awful person.
Eventually I got off at my stop and continued to walk home, down Amory, up Williams, and to my door. The incident stuck in my head, and I tried to write down a bit that night. But other responsibilities (the night's practicing, some necessary xmas shopping) did eventually pop up, and so the whole thing was put to the side, and the moment moved to a backburner (I'm sure my internal stove has forty burners). But it kept cooking.
That initial impulse of surprise, I think, was right. The realization that I was listening to another person acknowledge her own flaws and then claim them as strengths was a little numbing.
This hearkens back to the jujutsu example, and to early Taoism: the idea here is to take your smallness, acknowledge it, and then use its inability to surmount a larger power, and effectively use that which is larger upon itself. A practical example might be a person who is weak in math, but good at memorization--memorizing a multiplication table would be a very effective way of bypassing that weakness and having the information on hand. The added bonus of this is that, eventually, the pattern becomes internalized, and we surprise ourselves by being able to navigate within it and make logical assumptions outside of it (which is really what being good at math is).
But this also means we have to be able to look at our own flaws and have the courage to admit that they are, in fact and in truth, flaws. For instance, I personally have phenomenal difficulties with over-focus and tunnel vision: when I become locked in on something, there is little short of personal injury that will knock me off course. I am luckily able to at least guide this into a relatively strong work ethic, and a strong commitment to my friends. Tunnel vision also strangely means that I can get lost and end up looking down the wrong tunnel--careful management of this can be as simple as just keeping a little attention on the informing impulse and be willing to throw myself down another hallway. In essence, this is transforming of energy. I am not always successful (sometimes am rarely so), but it's something to work with.
Love, I think, might be the key to this concept. Certainly better than fear.