Have you seen the game show Hole in the Wall?
People have to fits themselves through a space in a wall that is supposedly made just for them as it glides down an alley, or else you are dumped into the water.
It’s a show that makes me smile, so silly, so endearing. But why?
Maybe because…..the challenge is perfectly out place.
This space in a wall is matched to the shape of your body, if you can find the position.
But of course, finding that position is much harder than it looks.
If you win, you have done something so very endearingly basic as molding into a cut out…that almost any flexbility young fool could stuff themselves into….
if you had enough time.
It’s very hard, but contains the essence of easiness.
When people have trouble fitting in, at work or home or those they want to be close to,
it always feels like the challenge is almost finished…..if you can do some thing to these people. But in that closeness to the goal, it’s very upsettingly far.
Game shows are about people trying to do things that are in ways, very simple, and in others, very difficult. Depending on who has what abilities, who manages to make the right guess, and who makes the right adjustments the final rounds, someone will…come…on….top.
But no matter how many hoops you jump through in awkward, rewarding success, like a person on a strange game show, the need to feel like you’ve adjusted yourself properly goes on and on. As it probably should.
But what is that adjusting that you do?
How do you gain a sense of stable flexibility in your life?
What maximizes your chances of actually fitting through the hole,
so that you can feel proud, for just a few moments, and gain the proud ability to carry on with greater confidence?
What makes us feel morally….alright with ourselves?
I will tell you…..it’s something that people are very likely to love and hate us for doing.
The answer is…..making imperfect connections. Exploiting how nothing is really quite connected to anything else.
Now, if you want to go deeper, you can read the rest of this blog, but let me try and explain in the context of this silly game show.
The only way to make your way through the hole…..is to have the proper balance of flexibility and stability.
As the wall hits your body, you must be willing to make adjustments within the last few fragments of seconds in time. Sometimes very slight, or maybe with a large change in plans.
But if you are not stiff, if you are not committed to a certain bodily pose, your chances of success….are also likely very low.
When we are trying to belong somewhere, or reach a goal, we do our best to balance how much we are willing to change our approach to being both……effective and decent….
versus how much we will take a stand in our own version of practically kind behavior.
You have probably heard this type of talk from plenty of other people.
But allow me to introduce a concept that makes my blog very unique among all other intellectual content.
Here is my original metaphor. This is what you will not get elsewhere.
A tightened muscle or a well planted leg….can also be a metaphor for declaring what is connected to what.
A loose limb or a bendy tendon can represent….feeling what is separated from what.
In order to reach a dream, or rather, to also feel as that you are providing yourself with the ability to reach dreams, and even honoring whatever dream-reaching potential anyone could ever have…
humans must make connections and disconnections they know aren’t quite reasonable or fair to make.
And will indeed be comforted by actually having dreams and goals actually surviving, despite how unreliable just trying to be productive, kind, and civil can be for anyone.
I do not really see anyone as all that much more selfish or selfless, or loving or hateful than anyone else. We are all caught up in a similar behavior that is just very hard to see, but I think I have seen it.
The making of moral or credit-giving connections from people to their actions is strange to do so proudly, as is suggesting separating people from what they do.
Linking people to the will or the needs of other people they associate with or have a relationship with is strange, so is absolving the people of their connections.
Connecting events not caused by people to human responsibility is strange, but it would be foolish to relinquish trying to have a proper grasp upon things not caused by us.
You only need to look at the internet to find a good example of what I am talking about.
You log on, eager to make close but distant connections to strangers on their forums.
And the things you say to other people online…..they are usually not of the particularly vengefully disgusted or fanatically fond sort.
Your average internet post is somewhat snarky, somewhat complimenting, somewhat hopeful of trying to change things, somewhat hopeless about anything making any advances, somewhat of a relief from other things in your life, somewhat a way to validate your passion for anything else in your life.
Let me tell you, my dear sweet human who has stumbled upon this website….
if you can see what the average internet post really is, you will understand human nature in a way that makes you feel absolutely amazing
All of these posts…..these mini documentaries…..these internet streamers…….and anyone who is not even on the goddamned internet in the first place……
they know that you can’t properly connect to anything to anyone in just the right way, or link anything to any person in a way that feels proper.
Because as time marches forward in space, possibilities do wind.
People are all trying to link themselves and their allies to things that will uplift them, rather unfairly!
But it’s not as evil as you think. Because only by flexing stiffly can your dreams actually manage to to be born, as possibility marches on.
People are always detaching themselves from responsibility, unlinking themselves from obvious flaws that they should not be proud of nearly so much!
But to them, it doesn’t feel malicious…..because the fantasy of coming out neatly on top can only come from relaxing those muscles of shame.
With the exception of small children who actually are fairly innocent, almost all accusations of immorality or depravity or weakness in someone else….
are made with the knowing it’s not a very elegant thing to do, and that it shouldn’t be the standard for how to talk to anyone, even enemies.
Kind compliments from a stranger on the internet are made knowing that…..there are many things that one can do the build up others and be socially responsible, that make internet niceness look almost upsettingly quaint.
But you know, deep down, that by discouraging someone else’s ambitions or pride,
or lifting up another person’s sources of inspiration or dignity,
you can indeed make situations, so strangely, so indirectly, actually fucking take place.
The essence of fulfilling dreams….that is your ally and your enemy.
the game we all play….never being too proud of pinning anything onto anyone, or absolving anything from one, but very glad indeed…….that from that unreasonable act, goals can indeed be reached.
Of course I would not say that most interactions with others playing that game involve simply trying to aid them or hurt them. So many things in life are like a game show where…..you are a spectator and not an ally. You can throw balls onto an obstacle course to help someone slip up, or they can use them to score points by throwing them into a hoop.
Doesn’t that excite you? The notion of not knowing if you’re helping someone or not?
People test other people, but that is how good allies are made. They manipulate others, but good manipulators abilities are born from that. They mess around with their responsibilities, but in doing so deflect being mistreated.
People, don’t care about being good or doing good things as much as they care about feeling like what they do somehow manages to be adored by someone.
And so much nasty behavior gets born out of that….and too many people honor playing that game of making unreasonable connections for some kind of good purpose far more than they should. That is my theory on why you see…..people being so very brash with each other, in ways that you find possibly inspiring or disgusting. By balancing blame and praise, disgust and dreams, weirdness and normalcy, control and spontaneity, rebellion and tradition, in a way that feels just the right kind of silly,
so you can fit through the walls, or maybe someone do the same.
But I want people to become a little bit more in touch with this outlandish game,
of barely justified connection,
because some of us aren’t so good at playing it,
and should know how it works,
Maybe utopia is where social skills aren’t needed, but are had.
In that place, no culture is in charge.
I admit…I want to win the game of changing the world more than anyone,
and reaching the point where people can barely believe I didn’t sort out humanity the way I did.
But I told someone….I was a warrior of human emotion. And if I seem like a game show contestant stumbling in the water…..I’d rather be that than a person who never plays the game of trying to be champion.
The Found Emotion (Invoke Yourself) 