Orcs are near. They move through facebook. This, nasty orcses.
I am angry at someone. Our relationship is old and deep and the anger between us is more intractable than usual. Looking at the basic math of our relationship, I am right and this person is wrong. The situation is far from simple, but this person's perspective will evolve over time. One day this person will gasp, will stand as if struck by lightening, and will call me to apologize. Maybe. I've already forgiven this person. I see the depth and breadth of the thing between us, including my faults. I have compassion and clarity and generosity about what happened and about this person.
But I also have this anger. I thought having compassion, clarity, and generosity would fix my anger. I thought time would fix my anger (its been several years.) I thought simply wiping the slate clean and showing up with love would fix my anger. Nope. All of these things help. But I'm still angry.
Facebook is where my anger shows up. If I were less experienced, I wouldn't see this for what it is: passive aggression. I see this person on facebook and I la la la want to chime in. Oh such love, so funny, cuteness to find. What larks we can share, until I start fingering my knives.
Our nervous systems are not fictional, can not be denied. What's wrong can not be pretended away, logic-ed away, cast away. Anger is real. I thought I had to look away from this person to protect myself. It turns out, I have to look away to protect this other person.
Still, glimpsing a tap root of passive aggression is a gift.
I have a story. I am making it up right now. It's about a story. The story I have is about a story that goes like this: "Once upon a time, something happened, and I grew angry, very angry. Then, I moved on and forgave, and I can see that story from a new POV."
ReplyDeleteIf, however, for a few minutes, I allow myself to remember that time, and that anger, I can breathe that story to life in an instant, and it can walk again, alive as any story is when we suspend disbelief and allow ourselves to 'live' in the tale.
But, that was then, and that is a closed book...except for the days when I open it up. Facebook opens the pages. I choose not to turn to them.
So, my story is, that your anger is healed and over, you have moved on and you are simply reflecting on this odd phenomenon that happens when the trick of technology appears as a momentary interim reality. In this case, passive aggression is passive precisely because it is so powerless. That old aggression has no life and therefore no true power; it's as passive as a character in a book. It has no soul, no real voice or power, and it deserves none. There is no author willing to bring it to life other than for a moment in a scene playing out over digial surfaces. How odd to be tricked into thinking, even for a moment, that this is real. I'm so glad you know the difference.
I get that, CC. Its a point well made.
ReplyDeleteBut my anger is no fiction. My feelings are real, they matter. In fact, I've just realized, my anger in this situation is a bellwether. It serves to remind me of reality and to protect me from getting sucked back into a toxic relationship. If I choose to see this anger as a fiction and return to the old relationship, I'll be participating in abuse---worse, self abuse, abandoning myself. To be in a relationship with this person, I must deny my feelings--there is no room for my feelings in that relationship. That's exactly why I'm so angry. For years my husband said, "I don't think that person is as smart or kind as you like to believe---his exact words were, "She isn't who you think she is." Ironic, huh?
So often we tell ourselves stories that make our lives worse. We project negativity and judgement onto others in a false way---and we don't even know we're doing it. Its usually an unconscious phenomenon. But that can work two ways. Just as often, we project false positives onto other people and situations, things we wish were true. Neither situation is healthy.
Thank you for helping me see this!
Oh! So if I choose to keep myself safe (which in this case probably means keeping distant) then I won't need anger to do that job.
ReplyDelete