subtext

I listen to people talk and interpret what they are saying through the lens of my life. I am aware of this; enough of a self-awareness to be able to step away, even if just a bit, to look at myself. As T.S. Eliot wrote, to know where you are you must step away, or more miraculously, you only know what you have to say after you have said it. A line I understood, or at least was befuddled by before I even read it. In high school German it amazed me that with modals german verbs would appear at the end of the sentence. How I wondered did the speaker and listener know what he was talking about if the predicate did not appear until the end of the utterance? I was stunned by the ability of the human mind. Then I made the leap to how could we know what word we were going to say next because we, or at least I, did not think of the words consciously before I said them. At least not that I was aware of.

Now I think about the belief systems which underlie what we say and how we interpret the world. I try to look at my own beliefs fairly frequently, in a spasm of self-eviseraction. I think I am honest with myself, at least as honest as one can be without cowering in shame. I wonder about those who can be so self-assured with how they see the world. The self-satisfaction and hubris is stunning. (Is that statement a victim of its own accusation?). What is really stunning is when they accuse others who criticize them of having the very faults they are being accused of possessing, as if that absolves them of anything. Everything falls easily into place when there is a single dogmatic way to see and live in the world.

Too often listening to others is painful. (Sigh, such self pity).