Honor Your Geometry

Today I take a departure from the norm… and offer an excerpt from Chapter Three of a book in progress in response to current needs brought to my attention by some of my friends… In love…
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“Forcing SQUARE PEGS into ROUND HOLES is a painful chore. The pain is a result of an unnatural act. SQUARE PEGS are created square and ROUND HOLES were established by design for specific purposes.”
(me)
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“Nothing exists to our minds cognition until it enters
into the realm of our PHENOMENOLOGICAL AWARENESS”
Dr. Alfred Adler
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You and I are not a random assortment of the same thing haphazardly scattered across time and space waiting to be forced into rank and file marching to the same governing drumbeat. We are Divinely and inexplicably created as the particularly unique individuals that we are and placed in a set of circumstances and environments that we could enhance as no other… FOR A REASON.

That fact applies what Dr. Adler said. As a square, or hexagonal, or whatever shape of peg I am, I have a PHENOMENOLOGICAL AWARENESS particular to me. Those needs, circumstances, situations, and priorities that are so unavoidably evident to me do not, in fact, even exist to many of those around me. That is the way that we were created. That is why we need each other. I am aware of what you cannot innately know and you see clearly what I am, naturally, completely unaware of.

And when you accept that reality as fact for yourself, you will be (as I have become) ready to declare “STOP… those edges and corners that are being cut and shaved from me to adapt me to your expectations are valuable parts of my BEing that I am no longer willing to discard in order to fit where I don’t really belong. Now… everyone, in this… my own little world… please know, accept, and respect me for the complete Self that I am and allow me to comfortably compliment you (be it in workplace, family, social group, or religious assembly.) You need me to be Me and I am offering what I am created to provide.”

I ask, Dear Reader, that you please be (should you choose to embark on a course of Self-fulfillment) prepared to develop your character more fully by the active exercise of your patience; for this, in combination with a liberal dose of humor, will be required for a pleasant relationship with all of your “significant others.” Some will be pleased with your personal growth and development while others will register varying degrees of dissatisfaction with the changes in your demeanor and your responses to life’s stimuli. They will be exposed to fewer ONIONSKINS (outer layers of concealing behavior) and more ZIGZAG (the graphic illustration of your innate Temperament Style). Some may reject you outright. This can result in pain that is not lessened by your most noble intentions.

The clearest example of the perils of non-acceptance that I can offer you would be the response of my daughter to my emergence as a changing entity. “You are an embarrassment and a humiliation to me.” she declared several years ago. And though I find it difficult to tell of it (and it wasn’t all that much fun to hear), I feel compelled to relate it to you because of its value as an unimpeachable example. She was harnessing the forces of frustration, anger, disappointment, pain, confusion, and even love to communicate to me her most genuine feelings and thoughts. I was, (and still remain) proud of her for the courage that it took to say those words to my face (and proud of myself for providing an environment in which she felt safe to express herself.)

You can see, therefore, that living your life honestly and consistently can result in losses and even pain. But, please consider… the longer the delay in commencing genuine living, the greater the accumulated potentials for loss. And is this not the major motivation for our living deceptive and disingenuous lives in the first place? Isn’t the fear of loss or rejection the powerful motivation for piling on all of those layers of ONIONSKIN protective behavior.

Therefore, when my wife of twenty years said, in all candor and with full sincerity, “If you will only be who you were when we got married, I will drop the demand for a divorce.” I had to respond “It has cost too much pain, effort, time, and even money to grow to the point where I now am. I can’t even consider regressing to that uncertain, irresponsible, and dependent flake that I was. Our children require more than that of me.” To her credit, (which demonstrated the level of her own self-awareness) she then responded “Well then, I want the divorce.” And so it was and is.

Had we known whom we were (our ZIGZAG) when we first met (as I am encouraging you to discover for yourself) we would never have been drawn to each other. I don’t know, of course, the foundations of your relationships, if there are, in fact, any to consider. But I lay out my own circumstances in the hope that I can demonstrate some points worthy of your consideration.

Firstly, let me explain that I had not even the least understanding of my intentions, motivations, needs, or desires when courting. I was totally inept in the most basic of social, cultural, or indeed personal survival skills. I understand, from today’s point of perspective, that I married the person who was not only physically attractive, but also who had a ready willingness to be in charge of me (and I was unquestionably in need of management.) What I brought to the union was the romantic and social interfacing elements in which I had an unquenchable interest. I was very entertaining. And I was willing to work hard.

As I have previously related, the presentation of a major circumstance in our lives (my son has cerebral palsy) confronted me with the need to develop beyond my, then current, bounds. To be all that his circumstances… and, indeed, he, as a beautiful individual, required for his very best chance for a happy and full life, required that I become the absolute best Me that I could be. This developing, by course, made me less and less dependent and reliant on my spouse. The stronger I became (through much focused and disciplined effort) the more the nature of our initial relationship dynamic changed. Where I was becoming stronger in the world around us the bonds between us became weaker because they were bonds born of dependency and control. This dynamic could have been managed and accommodated had we understood what was in play. But, we were so involved in the basics of day-to-day survival that there was nothing left in us at the end of the day for other considerations. We didn’t have the foundation of understanding of each other’s true self on which to construct a healthy dialogue. We were two strangers walking alone… together.

I suggest, therefore, that a beautiful course of action might have been (in an informed and ideal world) encapsulated in statements akin to “I had no idea that that is what you yearn for, and I’ll bet that you didn’t know that what drives me is _ _ _. How do you suppose we can satisfy your yearnings while pursuing the desires that drive me?” Wouldn’t that theme be a harmonic worthy of pursuit? But our first step toward our ability to enter into such a dialogue must, of necessity, be the identification of those drives, yearnings, and values that are that core ZIGZAG of ours. To do less is to lessen all of the potentialities in every circumstance of our lives.
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It is with great discomfort and difficulty that I present this excerpt from my book (in progress) to you in this far less sheltered environment. But my awareness of the struggles besetting some of my friends and readers compels me to make available what I hope and trust will be some encouragement and focus for their present moment.