I realize there’s a better way to do something.
It feels good to figure something out, to solve a problem. Comes the epiphany?! Bamm! The light goes on! You want to share the light of the discovery. So you tell about your epiphany.
The driving force behind an epiphany and the need to share is that you’ve made a connection that needed to be made or that created more awareness, more light, more memory, more connections.
The spark is the ‘ah ha moment”. It’s a brighter spark then the one that resulted when you remembered where you put the sugar.
Realizations give extra light!
When there’s EXTRA light there’s enough left over to share. Sharing light is the best. It’s the only requirement to love. It can happen on the lowest level … a brief nod between two people at a four way stop … or the greatest display.
Or, there can be light shared and darkness. I feel like my innards are pulled out sometimes. The light fails to sustain itself. A candle in a corner of darkness sizzles to it’s extinguishment.
Eager to share the light, I tell of the realization. I see a look of perplexity. The light from your eyes wanting to be received as a spectrum of light surrounding some beautiful thought that could be shared does NOT generate perplexity. Light misses its mark falling into darkness.
You WANT to share the light then see what form of light you’ll get in return.
It’s the game two lovers play. Badminton with lobs of thought conveyed by unusual spectrum. If there’s laughter there’s socially accetable orgasm.
The socially acceptable tool used to fend off the return of light was, in this case, a look of perplexity. Light shared creating perplexity? Perplexity is the force field that won’t let the light get through.
People have all kinds of reasons to keep the world external. They may think they’re in love or loved, because they exhibit or display or accept the correct kind of behavior but won’t allow or don’t realize there’s no penetration on a personal level.
People develop sophisticated ways to deny other existence by exhibiting socially acceptable totally appropriate behavior that maintains distance.
Words and gestures that don’t draw a person in by acknowledging who they are, what they’ve said. Skirting around a response while maintaining ‘distance’ saying positive words banal but expected by the general populace since impersonality has risen in defense of a world that otherwise might be overwhelming?
Or of course, if there’s pain below the surface that must be kept from being exposed to the world and we all have pain and we all keep the world at bay but some of us don’t realize we do this even though we don’t have pain because it’s the way we were taught but ….. what is life without real connection? Two lights magnifying each other?
These socially acceptable responses to a comment or thought are banal but required on a basic level but don’t contain statements that acknowledge the COMMENT, the thought behind the comment or the person who makes the comment.
Has the word, ‘you’ been used? Was there a follow up question after your statement which, would indicate the thoughts of the listener were captured by the thoughts of the speaker.
This is one way to hide behind those words but, it’s another way to jab. To hurt. In fact, invariably
After the attempt to share, when the light is not received by the ‘other’ and is in fact, denied … I feel deep sorrow that may last a brief second way down in the depths behind my sternum. I feel alone. I feel abused. Like I’ve been slapped in the face. Confused Disappointed. Betrayed.
This is just one example. Conversations resemble broken fragments of thought and words, laundry lists, personal comments, transpiring necessary information all day day after day but, these exchanges can contain NOTHING of a personal nature. … no recognition of who the person is they are anonymous beings saying the appropriate responses so that lines move on always lines even if they’re broken lines or lines yet to be constructed walking across the parking lot at walmart.
To pay compliments is one of the most sincere sacred and easiest ways to acknowledge another person by finding their best thing then, commenting on it. It’s saying, “I see you as a person who at this moment is special for this reason.” It says, you are able to see that the other has done something well, that it has given pleasure and in return wants to give pleasure back. recognizing that YOU have done it.
Ironically, one can give compliments all day despite their disappearance into the well of bottomless words and thought where all unrecognized thought and feeling descends never to be seen again … Ironic?
Frustrating to the ‘giver’, the one who yearns to see light taken in and returned it’s the sharing quality that means both people can experience a moment of illumination … smile and say … yeah … cool.
Unfortunately, light given but not returned drains the life force. It’s like, if you’re prospecting for gold you’re investing a lot of energy NOT finding it but for a gram here or there that gives hope there will be more. At what point does one stop prospecting and assume the character of ‘banality’ in return? How awful, not to make connection!
Acknowledging people’s existence is what defines our essential ‘humanity’. Giving light to another person and receiving it in return is the greatest gift as, it’s the only perpetual motion mechanism in the universe?!
I give light all day in my personal life but, seldom get it back. Under well defined situations there occasionally ARE exchanges.
I try to create awareness by focusing on the aspects outside of myself worth paying attention to in the other person in my life that can be seen and returned at the moment then, as a memory can be returned to the ‘other’ later, at the appropriate time. A memory recollected that MAGNIFIES, the power of the present if the light is allowed to be received without the banal, off-putting barriers that result in darkness. How depressing.
Memory is captured light that can be turned on at will to be used in the future. It should be returned. Is it returned?
No. Is it important? Yes … but no. Why? Because, I don’t EXPECT to get something in return. My only expectation is to keep throwing snowballs of light at the yaw of the hungry beast hoping some day to hit it’s mouth or eyes or deep into the recesses of its brain … if only for a moment …..
I moved slowly, cautiously until we stood motionless next to each other. I sensed a strangeness about its lack of movement, as if it was in a trance. I looked closer into its eye, the iris a thin orange/blood red ribbon surrounding the the pupil so large it nearly filled its entire eye socket, a dark black pool without a flicker of life.
seen before extrodinaire …
Suddenly you realize the world is back to normal. People are walking by. You’re standing with this guy having a friendly conversation. The guy reaches over, touches your arm and says, ‘’You have a nice face.” You’re caught off guard again. You don’t know what to say. He turns as he walks away says, ‘’But I don’t know about your taste in shoes.” He’s grinning ear to ear. He gives you one of those little side to side kid waves. Then, he’s gone.
Kurt Struble Writing 
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