pretty plastic people meet hairy granola

i recently came upon this ralph waldo emerson quote:

"The world rolls, the din of life is never hushed. In London, in Paris, in Boston, in San Francisco, the carnival, the masquerade is at its height. Nobody drops his domino. The unities, the fictions of the piece it would be an impertinence to break. The chapter of fascinations is very long. Great is paint; nay, God is the painter; and we rightly accuse the critic who destroys too many illusions. Society does not love its un-maskers. It was wittily, if somewhat bitterly, said by D'Alembert, "qu'un etat de vapeur etait un etat tres facheux, parcequ'il nous faisait voir les choses comme elles sont." I find men victims of illusion in all parts of life. Children, youths, adults, and old men, all are led by one bawble or another. Yoganidra, the goddess of illusion, Proteus, or Momus, or Gylfi's Mocking, — for the Power has many names, — is stronger than the Titans, stronger than Apollo. Few have overheard the gods, or surprised their secret. Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle. There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream. The toys, to be sure, are various, and are graduated in refinement to the quality of the dupe. The intellectual man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and badge."

you know, i think emerson is bang on.

mum, delving into the beginning of the new age movement in the 80's, told me, at what must have been a rare and impressionable moment in my otherwise stubborn and contrary youth (regarding her at any rate), that when something/someone bothers you, the bothersom thing is probably just mirroring something inside you that's really annoying you.

so i spent a long time trying to find my inner condescending snob because i hated this in my french teacher, my inner control freak, my inner nag, my inner suburban plebe (woo! that sounds like my inner snob coming out!), rather than just experiencing my own reactions to the world in a straightforward and full-bodied way. eventually, i started to think this "mirroring" theory was crap and a navel gazing distraction from living simply and fully.

then, when we moved into this little house where we are now, i noticed our neighbours on the other side of our back yard (next door to our silly landlords). they were a couple. she, blond, thin, little "outie" bellybutton peeking out from her flat, bikinied body, given to talking on the cell phone while sunbathing on her deck, and looking glossy and well-groomed, even first thing on sunday morning in her bathrobe. i think she must have that kind of hair that always looks brushed. (as opposed to me. my hair never looks brushed, so i've stopped bothering.) anyway, he was dark haired, and ridiculously muscular (for a normal person, not body builder). an anesthesiologist. given to that big-muscle-big-penis swagger -- legs slightly opened when walking, arms held slightly out from the body as if biceps were getting in the way. he bar-b-q-ed a lot. opened bottles of wine every night for dinner, popping the corks carelessly without apology into our yard if it was sparkling wine. they didn't have any clutter and were really tidy. little banana republic people. sometimes they screamed at each other inside their house. i could hear them from my garden. once i called the police because i heard banging and thought i heard a threat.

anyway, my habit is usually to consider these sorts of people (and there i betray my snobbery again in believing that people can be thus "sorted"), my habit is to consider these "sorts" of people "asleep". unconscious. (as opposed to i who am, relatively, "awake.") even though i've only described the aesthetics of their lives to you, it isn't about aesthetics, because i love nice things, too. excellence, good quality, a bit of style -- i can really dig it sometimes -- it wasn't aesthetics, how they looked, it was about how in love with how they appeared that really got to me. how attached they were to being fit and young and conventionally stylish. it was about being distracted from what i would consider to be the more worthwhile pursuits of connection, and creation of meaning, and care and investigation. of putting people and the earth before anything shiny. and so i sat there in my thrift store clothes, eating my beans and rice, talking to the worms and feeling virtuous.

but then i thought, how arrogant of me -- what if they just don't care. what if they aren't asleep at all, but are really another type of human than i am. with different wiring. what if they know about our impending environmental disaster, sweatshops, child labour, and the ravages of indifference even on our well-heeled streets in this pretty neighbourhood? what if they know about introspection, self discovery, poetry, good literature, original art and the importance of seeing the world from the heart, but really Just Don't Care?

maybe they're just different from me. and that's all there is to it. "awake" in their own way, and different.

i don't know, i still can't decide, but in the meantime i read this emerson quote and i'm humbled again: i may have gotten to the point where i'm not beguiled to distraction by dishes that match my place mats, but righteous indignation seems to have my number every time. anything can be a fix if you identify with it enough, eh?

turns out, what annoyed me about them was something inside me, too.

so where does that leave us, i wonder? i hope that, underneath it all, there is some sort of basic reality that it wouldn't be a deception to fall in love with.