The Cynic and his pain.
View this email in your browser.
“Once you have seen the truth, you cannot avoid seeing suffering. Otherwise, you have seen nothing at all.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
Recently, I had a conversation with my uncle, one that felt like a staged wrestling where I’m wrestled onto the floor by someone much stronger who then looks at me and says “Try harder!” It was meant to provoke in me some desire to win, which I had little.
Part of me resented the situation (“Did I consent to play this wrestling game?”), part of me regretted not quitting earlier (“I’m running late for something, can I go?”) , yet another part of me wanted to be there because it sensed a need that I could help with. Here is a fragment of the story, one that you may often find yourself in.
My uncle is very proud of my past achievements as a good student, which is why he is rather concern about my current situation. Without a proper job and a clear future plan, I seem to be regressing. I appreciated his open expression: worry for my uncertainties, disappointment for unexpected results. I don’t know how much he really felt that way and how much he meant to motivate me. He really wanted me to feel a stronger desire to improve and achieve.
I didn’t really bother what he said about me, for I’ve been practicing this mantra “Don’t take yourself seriously, but take your work seriously”. It has allowed me some sort of identity jujitsu when people criticize me as a person. However, when it comes to the work that I put my heart into like writing, things got a bit more vulnerable.
I recently posted a blog post in Vietnamese about how my life stories led to what I do now as a guide and life coach. My aunt found it on FB and forwarded to my uncle. He told me “If you write like this, maybe only younger people read, maybe a few of your peers, but no one my age will care”.
A slight irritation arose in my chest, as if my normal breathing is suddenly choked. I respond rather calmly, “It’s unfortunate that people from different generations don’t really listen to teach other”.
My uncle took my response as a deflection for a feedback. His comment really meant “Your writing isn’t good enough. You have to work harder or maybe choose a different path”. The conversation got heavy and stuck in that moment.
In the past when I didn’t know how to deal with anger, I’d have responded differently. If I express the anger outward, I’ll yell something confronting like “It wasn’t meant for you to read in the first place!”. If I let it go inward, I’ll blame myself on not being good enough, or not speaking up for myself.
Now I’m a bit more open to learning. It’s true that people like my uncle wouldn’t want to read my stuff, and I can decide if I want to write for them as well (the current answer is “No, at least not yet”, but that’s beside the point)
Listening to pain
The conversation with my uncle is a common situation in many families, especially in the more traditional and patriarchal ones in Vietnam where the older male figures take control to tell the young what to do.
How do you respond to close family and friends who tell you what to do without asking your permission? Here are three common approaches I’ve tried.
Stone: You can ignore and laugh it off. I learned somehow that it might be a better idea to just nod nod nod.
Fight: You can fight back. I don’t usually do this way, but recently I’ve realized that some people will take me more seriously when I fight back, especially those whose worldview is about winning & losing or strict parenting like my uncle.
Jujitsu: You can engage in power play by thinking of yourself as doing the work of a listener. This maybe blasphemous for people in position of power like parents, bosses or leaders to hear: as they need someone to exert their power on, and as such they often talk at people, which means you’ll need to listen to please them. Sucking in and sucking up, if you may. Oftentimes you are forced to do this listening work; it’s often implicitly assumed in your role as a child, a subordinate or a follower. I did it a few times, but I got tired of the politics…
There’s another way though, which is to listen better to what else is being expressed. Let me explain.
First, listen to what is happening inside me. In hindsight, I could have said “I am feeling sad that young people are often not heard”. The real emotion wasn’t indignation, it was sadness. I’m sad for a wasted opportunity: there is indeed a lot to learn from each other’s perspective. Perhaps more importantly, I felt pain, the pain of being shut down, of not being heard.
Reflecting upon that moment, I could feel the depth of such pain: how many people whose voices were ignored? How have I not been listening well? Even my uncle might have been dismissed many times before, and as such he maybe unconsciously imparting his belief that “Life is tough, so you must be tough” It is a huge wound that needs a lot of healing. Otherwise, such pain can easily form a rather dangerous belief over time: “nobody listens to me anyway, why should I bother sharing?”
Second, I could listen to the pain of a young person inside my uncle whose idealism has been crushed by the time he turned forty. Such frustration led to cynicism, although the cynics call it “being realistic”. Whenever I hear cynicism in myself and others these days, I’m learning to sense the pain behind. Many of us cannot even count the countless times people tell us to stop going for something our heart knows is beautiful. Every time that happen, our tender love for the world gets a sharp, bleeding cut.
As you can guess, listening like this is an advanced practice.
You must be attentive to how you are feeling while being relaxed enough to not get too defensive.
You must listen to the first layer of meaning “I am telling you to do this”.
Then peel another layer “I am feeling sad, disappointed and even worried about you”.
Then to an even deeper one: “There is a pain within me, the pain of crushed idealism”.
Phew. Take a deep breath. It’s hefty work, and you don’t have to do everything at once. In fact, I don’t recommend anyone, including myself, to take on this work of healing oneself until you feel that you are ready.
Thank you for reading. May courage be with us to listen better, to be in touch with our pains, to appreciate and then release them.
This section of the Enzyme is reserved for deeper musing, a part that most of general public wouldn't even care to read.
How do we find our way out of this mess called my utterly broken life? I have asked myself this question many times before, and it popped up again recently as I met with a few younger friends who are lost for life direction. It is the classic conflict between “what fulfills me” and “what everyone says I should do”. While I was hesitant to offer any advice, I will say this “I don’t know the answer, but what I can tell you is that you will be vulnerable. Your hope will be crushed. Your heart will be broken. You don't have to choose the difficult path that you know is for you deep down...but if you choose to do, I promise to be on your side.”
Sometimes you only need one person to tell you this. I've got mine, and I hope you do too.
Sharing is sprouting.