One of my favorite pasttimes is drinking in bars, talking with strangers, learning their stories. I am very good at this, I think mainly because I am willing to listen with all my being, and because–within very broad limits–I am non-judgemental.
I hear all sorts of stories, many of which would shock many people who assume that most people are “normal”. Most people are not normal, at least as far as I can tell. Most people–the people in your office, who write your orders, or answer the telephone, or manage your projects–have stories that would startle you if you knew them. They continue as if nothing happened because this is simply the most logical, least painful option.
Tonight I was talking with a woman who was one of 7 children, who has had a successful career as an RN, who told me her father was an alcoholic who regularly beat her mother. Her mother left when she was 8. When all the children were launched, she drank herself to death. For her part, she seemed to see that as a tragedy. For my part, I was thinking: SHE DID HER DAMN JOB. AFTER THAT, IT’S UP TO HER. That may seem cold, but I regularly inhale the feelings of others, by imagination or contact, and that is how it seems to me.
I am no idealist, in many respects. I do not expect or demand, or look to see in any way perfection from others. Neither, in my view, does God, who–if we are to perform the most basic logical functions–is capable of seeing who we actually are, and not who we profess to be.
The word love is anathema to me, as overused. Let me rather say that I sometimes see people as I believe they want to be seen, and congratulate them for being who they are. As I see it, that is often the best I can do.