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JUST ASKING
Friday Sept. 9, 2016
Is my neighbor, or yours, a citizen of this same planet?
When we walk across our offices, attend social gatherings, interact with old friends or meet new strangers, are we one of them – are they one of us?
Are we citizens of different world with overlapping geography? I don’t mean like a three-dimensional chess board. Or, maybe I do.
In silence we don’t tell anyone our whole truth and too often don’t tell those we are closest to – who we truly are, how we really feel. And, because we don’t, the stage isn’t set for them to be open too.
Someone gave a familiar phrase fresh perspective the other day – that term ‘accountability partner’. I’ve known it, used it and participated in using that process in workshops and courses, committing to ‘doing certain things’ on a regular basis – whereby an accountability partner arrangement sets the stage for keeping each other on task, focused on doing what we’d committed to …
Got me thinking – perhaps nostalgically about past personal relationships (some business ones too) about whether I’ve experienced accountability and commitment to being accountable, pondering what role that played regarding how I did, and more often didn’t, achieve that feeling of reciprocity.
Hmm …?
Do they know how you feel?
I mean – someone you think about, ache for, paired with someone on this party-line assembly-line of impersonal-ness called life, do you each know the other’s thoughts? Feelings? Aspirations? How accountable are you, really, with you partner?
Strikes me, perhaps many years too late – or perhaps just in time, we all have failings and indiscretions either in our actions or our thoughts (likely both) causing us to open or close ourselves. Not all at once. Bit by bit, facet by facet, insulating/isolating ourselves in one compartment of our life at a time with fewer free flowing moments, communications and characters moving about in each of our sub-set worlds.
I’m not sure the solution to hunger and world peace are inside this understanding – but I wonder if they could be anyplace else …
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk with Gusta: 7C/45F, clear and crisp, light breeze – [and I must mention how enamored I am with my new headphones – they give me spectacular sound, isolation from everything when I want, silence when I want – and this morning they gave me music while we walked; I probably look weird walking my dog with a device on my head that makes me look like I’m ramp-staff at an airfield – but most people don’t notice us, do they? Or care?]; I walked and thought while Gusta sniffed as enthusiastically as if she was in a new land, of just trying to find something new in familiar territory
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