āThere's nothing wrong with my state of mental health
I like it here with my childhood friend
Here they come, those feelings again!ā
āMen at Work, āWho Can It Be Now?ā
THERE IS A QUESTION thatās been niggling me for some time now: āWho are other peopleāreally? Why do I like some people and not others? And why does that change over time?ā
Relationships puzzle a lot of people, even those who āsucceedā at it. Iāve been a serial failure at it, so asking why is a good question during this third newsletter of Stargazing (aka my personal ācuriosityā triad) season three.
There are some offhanded easy answers, but those never lead to change and barely scratch the surface of what might really be going on. Iām up for change and scratching the hell out of any remaining surfaces.
Hereās hoping youāre willing to ride along.
Over the past December holidays I had a memory hit I hadnāt had in a while. It was not a pleasant one. The more psychologically astute among us will immediately recognize it: family-of-origin related.
The things most pressing in our lives can be the ones that are āeasiestā for us to forget. āTrauma,ā I think, is a heavy-handed word, best used in describing situations that truly warrant it (filed under domestic violence, constant verbal abuse, torture, or life-altering automobile accidents). āLingering distress,ā however, is probably closer to my own mark. After all, family is where I learned everything I know now, the good and the bad and everything in between. Part of what I might have learned was unintended strife from one parentās upbringing or a siblingās own condition within the family structure.
So, itās complicated.
Relationships, of course, are a combo of things: your culture and upbringing, your own personality, the environmentāand how all those things also bear on the person youāre in a relationship with. Thinking about this concerns me: itās gonna take a shitload of honesty if Iām going to get to the core of my āproblem.ā
Q: So what is that problem?
A: Poor relationships exacerbated by a post-pandemic new epidemic of loneliness and a really, really strange and alienating social climate.
You see, I get that itās probably just not me that going through this. To varying degrees weāre all getting whacked by these changes. While I canāt single-handedly āmake the world more sociable,ā there are qualities in myself along with personal values worth examining that might at least assist in a sort of āinside-outā renovation of the problem.
(Deep sigh.)
Okay, letās give it a shot.
But first letās return to that phrase ālingering distress.ā
I know how it began. Over the past holidays, in a rush to get to a party my brotherās new family were throwing, I felt it again: anxiety. It made me angry and upset and I had to calm myself down and try deep breathing. In my family, Dad ruled the roost. He had set expectations and if they werenāt met, he got loudāvery loud. My brother was pretty good at complying; my mother and I, not so much. I was often told I was ālazy.ā (Yes, itās true. I was lazy then and still am. I enjoy it. I actually get more āwork doneā when Iām ālazy.ā Funny thing that.)
As a child, I loved nothing more than to daydream. To loll about and ruminate.
The family dynamics were something I desperately wanted to extricate myself fromāfor many years and especially into my teens. Easier said than done, so I found ways to calm my anxiety, some unhealthier than others.
Into my 30s, I got better at self-care, realizing I couldnāt do for others if I couldnāt take care of myself first. It wasnāt easy, and I tried meditation, changes in diet, exerciseāanything to move the needle in a more positive direction.
Now, in later life, Iām realizing I probably overcompensated. I needed to take more risks. The thing is, I had few mentors thereāparticularly in my family of origin.
Which is interesting because thatās the worldās job: introducing you to new people. People who can become your ānew family.ā People who glide into mentorship and assist you in becoming your best self.
But visitors always leave souvenirs. And you get to keep those forever.
ā Sam Lansky
In a recent email newsletter from author Jason Feifer, he asks: āWhat if everyone we know is just a visitor, and your job is to lower their barrier to entry?ā
Now this is fascinating and ostensibly a way forward. Feifer reveals he got the concept of āother people as visitorsā from Sam Lansky, who wrote:
All relationships are transient. Friends who stab you in the back. People you network with at a fancy party. Relatives who die. The love of your life. Everything is temporary. People come into your life for a limited amount of time, and then they go away. So you welcome their arrival, and you surrender to their departure. Because they are all visitors. And when the visitors go home, they might take something from you. Something that you canāt ever get back. And that part sucks. But visitors always leave souvenirs. And you get to keep those forever.
Maybe this post-pandemic world is a new stage in all of our lives. Iāve grown fond of my Substack community of readers and fellow creators because it seems weāre all on a similar pathāand thatās wonderful.
Itās easy to fall into cynicism and dismay with the world. But thatās maybe being too judgmental in some respects and not critical enough about the story youāre being told by othersā worldviews. Itās why I like being curious. I like to learn about motivations. But Iām wary of snap judgmentsāby me or people Iām in a relationship with. In the past it was a source of contention. Nowadays I note it and make a point of circling back to find out whatās behind either my own or othersā snap judgments.
You see, what something looks like might not bear any relation to what it really isāits essence.
In my parents world (born in the early 20th century), appearances were importantāused of course to recognize similarities and organize oneās relationships. As in the photo above, Mom and Dad were paired together like their Noritake china I was left with after they died.
My world is different. And frankly I love that. I love the diversity and differences. I donāt feel particularly threatened by change or modification. Iām curious about experimenting and testing.
All these things deeply upset my family.
Still, questions remain.
How will I move forward with the āinside-outā renovation needed to add value to my life as well as those āvisitorsā I meet until my days end? How will I make new friends after losing ones from my past? There are new skills to learn and old habits to break.
Old habits:
Being judgmental (learned from family of origin). New tack: Curiosity is a superpower.
Self-protection over safe risks. New tack: Nothing lost, nothing gained.
?
New skills:
Volunteering; helping others. New tack: Learning from them.
Risking romance and dating again. New tack: Lowering the bar of entry.
?
Alain de Botton wrote about risking love and connection in this way:
The answer can only be found by looking back in time. Though we all crave love in theory, our capacity to accept it in practice is critically dependent on the quality of our early emotional experiences. To abbreviate sharply, we can only willingly tolerate being loved ifāas childrenāthe process of loving and being loved felt sufficiently reliable, safe and kind. Some of us were not so blessed; some of us were stymied in our search for love in ways we have not yet recovered from or indeed fully understood. Perhaps the person we wanted to love fell ill or grew depressed.
As much as I loved my mother, I think she failed me. It pains me to write this because she had issues the extent to which I barely understood. My father didnāt make it easy for her. Or me. It was an extension of expectationsāof everyone involved.
As I got closer to the end of writing this, the smaller and weaker I felt. This morning I felt close to breakingāI still feel that way. Iām slowly crawling away from that feeling. Slowly.
The loneliness and isolation becomes too much to bear. I have to return to what I wrote to even begin to think about what might have changed in me. Could my judgment be faulty? How would I even go about repairing it?
For now, Iāll take it slow. Go for a walk and get out of my head.
One day at a time. Tomorrow is another day to try again.
āTo believe our own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all ā¦ that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmostā¦ā
āRalph Waldo Emerson, āSelf-Relianceā
References
Jason Feifer: āWhat if everyone we know is just a visitor, and your job is to lower their barrier to entry?ā
Sam Lansky: Human Parts, āThe Theory of Visitorsā
NPR āLife Kitā: āYouāre Probably Not as Open-Minded as You Think You Are. Hereās How to Practiceā
Alain de Botton: āThe Lengths We Go to Avoid Loveā
Addendum
Happy to share this Proust Questionnaire I did with filmmaker Remy Bazerque this past month. Enjoy!
I landed on your substack through Remy, curious to read more. I am glad I did. Nice to meet you, Michael. I am Fotini and I had to let you know that I love what I have just read.
It is a big topic and a multilayered one, what you're dealing with in your post and frakly, I have no answer for you (or me either). I am just going to stick around, eager to read more and maybe comment from time to time.
Michael,
Thank you so much for sharing your heart.
Yes, tomorrow is another day.
You don't even have to try to figure anything out. Consider being open to what comes to you and work with those things.
Pledge to smile. It releases endorphins and bathes your brain in pleasure chemicals.
I'm so glad it's free to comment on your posts. I like to engage with others, too. I am curious.
I don't have a lot of discretionary money to spill around, either.
Please keep writing. I will keep reading!! :-) Ivy