1:00PM
“Show her with your actions,” my friend said to me. But how do I know that she’ll interpret my actions in the way I intend her to interpret them?
I’m a person who loves words for their ability to describe what’s happening on the inside. If I punch you in the face, you may not know why I punched you in the face. Yes, my actions probably show you that I’m angry, but it doesn’t say why. The same if I spend a lot of time making a beautiful gift for your birthday—it says that, yes I spent a lot of time on the gift, but it doesn’t specifically say why. It could say that I feel guilty that you bought me a very expensive gift on my birthday, I’m falling madly in love with you, or even that I just like making things and it happened to be your birthday that day.
I wonder if the “show it with my actions” is out of fear of not wanting to say what one is really feeling on the inside? If I just show it, then I can show it in a way that someone can interpret how they see fit, not having to reveal myself and showing my inner feelings. If I show it all, and then you say no, or feel disgusted, or react in any way that I hope you weren’t going to react, then I have nowhere to hide. If I give it to you vaguely, then your rejection can be vague as well.
But maybe this knife cuts both ways. If I leave work early so that we can hang out and trudge through the snow to get there because I really am trying hard to make things work, and then you don’t show up, I can feel devastated. At the same time, I may not have told you that I left work early (and subsequently pissed off my boss), and how my route was filled with snow. I may be angry at you assuming you knew my context, when most likely you didn’t—because I didn’t tell you.
I like it when I don’t have to be explicit with people and they get what I mean. I remember when I first came back from Tanzania and fell in love with an American woman—I was so happy that I didn’t have to explain so many cultural references and that things just flowed so much more naturally than with someone from another culture. I remember feeling so relaxed, knowing that I didn’t have to open up so directly to be understood. And yet, looking back on it, was I actually being understood or just assuming so? Did it also lead to problems?
I think our actions can only show so much precision, and maybe that’s helpful in protecting us from rejection and other attacks. And yet, I believe we can reach much deeper clarity and connection when we show more of what’s happening on the inside, by using words to describe this swirl of experience that we feel in our hearts.
1:10PM
