Imma paste an old post over here, originally published in April 2017 and currently in my all time top 20 on my big pinky blog.
Little Favour
Remember when I moved 197 files to a stick, deleted them off my laptop, dumped the trash, and then immediately accidentally wiped the stick? And then as I went back and started redownloading and collecting the files, the one I wanted most had been removed and was irreplaceable?
plowing face on the dance floor
the Question
>=l
Of course I just let it go and didn't allow myself to keep obsessing about it, so I failed to notice it being snuck back onto youtube 6 months later. I can't believe a year and a half has gone by since that happened. Anyway, I nabbed it again and I feel better now.
I talk about my stuff here on Pinky blog, but I don't name names and I don't get too gross with details. Actually, as much as I yap on, I imagine some of you are getting tired of my dodging around not sharing more, because I leave out quite a lot. Why that vid struck an important note with me has to do with how very emotionally shut down I was as a child. I would have been capable of being the child in that vid if I'd had a proper handler/trainer. I was so caught off guard at how that twisted into an entirely different story, and it gut punched me like nothing had in a very long time.
I know a few people like me. We grew up the same way, we all hit the same weird existential walls, and most of us figured out why it's important to choose positive emotional connections over remaining in a shut down state. Those of us who learned to choose and act on our own wills are virtual power players among the people around us, subtly changing histories all around us 'simply' by being kind and gentle. It does seem simple, but it's an everyday grueling sort of thing that goes against our natures, and sometimes puts us at odds with people we love. But we choose to open our eyes, take the extra step onto a precarious balance, and reach out to others like us, others who are waking up and changing the world in ways never before imagined in human history.
That sounds lofty. I say it that way because we are living in an age that has never before happened in human history. We can all see each other now, all over the world, any time day or night. We can all whisper our secrets now, share our sadness, and talk about our dreams in a way the world never could even a hundred years ago. But so many are still caught in sticky webs, trapped in lies, hostage in their own families, doing what they have to do to survive.
We live on a planet where wars are fought with children, where children are rented and sold as sex toys, where children are beaten from very young ages for the most minor infractions by dysfunctional adults who were broken as children themselves. What we see on the top- schools, malls, churches- is just a cover over what we don't see underneath. Right now there are children in cages in every country on this planet, and we talk about someone rescuing a kitten in traffic. Right now there are children acting more grown up than everyone reading this because they've learned they have to hold it all in to survive being a rape toy. Right now there are children in training to be super soldiers, and yes, we are seeing this more and more in TV shows, and my opinion is that the more we see stuff fictionalized, the more calloused we get to reality. We fuss over filming details. We follow actors around.
There are very important things going on all around you every day in real life that you don't see, because you've been trained to stay asleep, keep your eyes shut. Open your eyes. Notice the person who is different and apart. Smile at them when they glance up to let them know you really saw them standing there. You don't have to do anything else. Just let them know you saw them. Let your presence on this earth touch people who are closed off because they have secrets you know nothing about. It doesn't matter what those secrets are. What matters most is that they feel like someone saw them, because they are part of us, and not something to ignore and hope goes away and never touches your life. If you knew the half of what already touches your life you'd throw up.
You can't fix anyone, and you most likely can't save them, and if you try to reach out without knowing what you're doing you might wind up in all kinds of mess. But you can plant seeds. A genuine hello via eyes and smile is a very human thing to do for someone who is hiding that they are having a very bad day and possibly a life you wouldn't survive yourself. They don't have to smile back. They might even look at you funny, or get upset. Just look away again and mind your own business, it's ok. The important thing was that you made an invisible connection, a tiny change that down the road might make a difference. We don't see how that happens, so we aren't rewarded for doing that, are we? We just have to trust that it works.
It worked for me. I remember every person who made a genuine invisible connection with me when I was my most closed off. Those teeny tiny connections added up to a great big thought forming in my mind, and that thought started changing the way I see and live. Sometimes the most fleeting glimpses into a kind stranger's soul can make a lot of difference.
In the meantime, that vid (movie short) I'm talking about is 20 minutes of deeply haunting story with all kinds of dangling questions, and you can read more about it here.
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