The Anthem of Us
This piece has been a long time coming. I consider myself a writer above all, yet I seem to express myself most in my artwork.
To express is to live, and perhaps I do have a thousand words scrawled across each of the paintings I have created, the portraits I’ve captured. But the most important ones, while said often, don’t seem to come out quite as much as they should.
In my defence, I’ve come across those who don’t know how to read the language I speak the loudest in; my actions. My every move is open to misinterpretation, to willful manipulation, and even the odd mistake. I’ve found that using words, written or otherwise can’t fix this if the person I’m appealing to wishes to see me in a certain light, whether I want that spotlight or not. Whether I deserve it or not, for better or worse.
For instance, my use of the word appealing there means nothing more to me than an entreaty. A request to hear me out. Another perspective may interpret that differently, something darker, suggestive even.
But I digress. These people are not what define me.
I’ve used the phrase To express is to live for years to define how I wish to exist, and I find that I express myself the most with the people I’m close to, my inner circle.
I do the most for them, I talk the most to them, I love the most with them.
They’re all friends, to one degree or another, but the one thing they share in common is that they know me inside-out. Of course, this may sound like I’ve spent my entire life with them, or taken the pointless hours necessary to fill them in on all the boring, salacious, and tedious details of my life. I’ve certainly never bothered to correct this presumption; after all, that is in itself a sign that the listener is not one of these people.
No, their ability to know me refers entirely to their ability to communicate with me.
To speak to, and understand.
To be heard, and understood.
I can say awful things at times, superficially. I adore gallows humour; a leftover vice from my first real bout with depression.
“Isn’t war great,” I could say, deadpan. “They could give us all guns and pay us to mow down the neighbours and save themselves the trouble.”
Where others would give me a raised eyebrow, my inner circle would calmly remind me not to read the news when I was already in a mood. I don’t live in the US but I still don’t like school shootings. My words and the subject may not appear to belong to the same conversation, but that’s my point. The inner circle gets it. I don’t have to work to string my inner thoughts together as I would in a public speech; and therefore the inside of my head can be a place to rest. Because of them.
This particular quote was never used, however. My actual jokes are far worse, and don’t bear well under print, where anyone left outside the lingo can read it. After all, this piece is available to the casual onlooker, but it’s not meant for them.
Therein lays the source of my reflection; the onlooker that cannot come into the circle. The door is always wide open, I mandate it be so; the more people I can freely talk to, the less wrapped up within myself I feel. I don’t quite make it a habit to talk to people, socially. It’s exhausting to a degree, and having to constantly explain their lapses in understanding takes an uncanny toll. The constant side trips down the rabbit hole of explanation upon explanation leaves the original subject in knots.
But the door remains open, just in case.
To extend the metaphor, I might ask the visitor to step in, to see if my shelter is to their liking. They may like the look of it, they may like standing on the porch, on the fringes, but they may not be suited for it. And that’s okay. What’s not okay is the demand that they be let in regardless, often confusing being invited in for a visit with being invited in to stay.
The door is always open. The visitor’s only obstacle is themselves. They cannot touch what they do not understand.
There’s an idea in debate ethics I came across a few years ago: We should always try to attack the best form of our opponent’s argument. Essentially, our opponent could deliver an idea with all the diction and control of a lopsided tractor, but we do ourselves no favours by taking advantage of this to make ourselves seem superior. Indeed, to all those aware, the pedestal shows its transient nature all the more when these tactics are employed.
The grade school equivalent of this is having someone stick their tongue out at you and blow raspberries when they cannot refute a point. People laugh at you, perhaps, but those who are aware can see the real loss in that exchange: the raspberry blower is still as ignorant as the moment the conversation began. The other, if they’re not careful, will have lost confidence in the value of their own intelligence, and in the art of exchanging ideas as a whole.
I like to be challenged at the level I communicate, is what I’m saying.
Not at the level of the lowest common denominator, not on the surface of the misunderstanding, not at the strawman that is all too familiar these days, but exactly at the level I intend. Not higher, not lower, this is not me bragging about my intelligence. Just the language and perspective I inhabit.
When I was a child, I used to think it was the duty of the person making the statement, in whatever form, to ensure their own clarity. To an extent, this is true. You cannot be a public or motivational speaker if you do not choose words that resonate with the masses.
But when it’s the random people we meet in everyday life? Our colleagues, our peers, our teachers, our mentors, our parents, our friends. Anyone that has even a passing familiarity with us will understand us better than a stranger hearing our voice for the first time. Acquaintances are good for keeping a toe in the pool that is the social order at large.
Fewer still will know enough to communicate with us fluently on a daily basis. These are the friends we meet with often enough to share stories with, to laugh and have a good time. They don’t know all our secrets, but they’re good company, and we’re the same to them, hopefully.
And then there’s the last bunch. They know us, inside-out, not because we shared with them our secrets, but because both sides can simultaneously see what makes the other tick. As close to sharing the identity of a soul as there can be. The material cost of this soul is unimportant, the triumphs and heartaches are just statistics and, if we’re lucky, stories to recount and finally laugh at. It’s not their duty to understand you, but they do it anyway, because they can.
The idea of the soul, though, is all over what the person does, and so nothing they do never really surprises to the point of bafflement. A glimpse at their message is enough to discern the whole.
It is euphoric to be seen this way.
The seemingly awful jokes, the brutal yet insightful honesty, the will and desire to support as supported. It’s amazing to be on the receiving end of that, especially when it is understood that an equal exchange does not equate an exchange of equal measures.
To bring it back to me, what I gain is not what I give, and that’s okay. What has been given to me by some, I can never repay, and that’s okay too. I remember nonetheless.
For my part, I’m well aware that what I give is not what I need. I’m eternally grateful to have an inner circle that both understands this and is capable of filling in my gaps. For giving me a place to belong.
I love you, you crazy bastards, and you dirty bitches. Thank you for walking through that door.
Here’s to us.
