My friend Tom is a jerk.
That's what everyone says, anyway. Whether he is or isn't I don't know. That's not important. What's important is that Tom has no idea he's viewed this way. No one's told him.
This is the case with millions, actually. People who are routinely put down, ridiculed, discussed and found wanting in conversation after conversation where they're not present. These verbally abused souls live their lives oblivious to the minor maelstrom swirling just beyond earshot.
You'll rarely know how you're truly viewed in this world until you find a way to eavesdrop on conversations as people leave your driveway following a party. The report card is in those automobiles miles from your living room.
It's how it has to be, I suppose. It's how the wheels stay greased and the machinery runs smoothest. Confrontation throws a wrench into the works. Best to keep the venting to those behind-the-back gossip sessions where they can do less immediate harm, or so the logic goes.
I can live with it, but for the Toms of the world there's a price. They're going to live their lives asleep to a reality that matters, unconscious of a fact that's potent, and deserves their attention. Something they're doing is poisoning the well. The gossipers have their own issues, of course, but sticking with Tom, there does seem to be a personality flaw that's turning a lot of people off. The thing is it's fixable, if only Tom knew about it.
He'd fix it too, he would. It matters to him what people think, and it matters to him that his behavior hurts others. But he's oblivious. Perhaps he gets a hint every now and then, hears whispers in the wind, but it's all a bit vague. It leaves him questioning himself momentarily, but then he tells himself it's all in his head, people like him, they must, look how they smile and slap him on the back.
Tom is like all of us. We're pretty sure we're living right, but not quite positive. Others could show us our flaws, and it would be a favor, but they don't, because that's not how it's done. It's surely not done that way in Minnesota, passive aggressive ground zero. And because it's not done here, many things never get repaired that could be, many problems go on and on, needlessly. Complaints are everywhere but they're rarely passed along to the one person who could actually do something about them.
A few years ago, I stepped outside during a summer party at a friend's house and found myself overhearing a conversation between two old pals. They didn't know I was ten feet away on the other side of a trellis. What I learned was that I had my own Tom-like quality. To them, I came off as arrogant, I thought I was smarter than everyone else. Truth is I felt the opposite, but clearly I draped myself in a persona that protected that inferiority complex with exaggerated and phony conceit.
In that moment of revelation there was a great awakening. How I saw myself and how others saw me was quite different. And what they saw may have been more real than what I saw. It was at least as important.
Over the years I've had varying degrees of success eradicating this flaw, but the point is I know it's there, and I wouldn't if I hadn't overheard that brief conversation. It was a splash of cold water to my face. I wasn't mad, I wasn't sad, I was stunned, I was shaken. A light had been turned on and when its bright white blast faded, I found myself grateful. I was able to look back and see how indeed I could be viewed as they were viewing me. I received a wonderful lesson at no real cost, and even though to this day I may still fall into that old trap from time to time, coming off unfavorably due to my insistence on being right. I now know it's my weakness. I can talk about it, laugh about it and more importantly, from time to time, apologize for it, admit to all around me, that in all honesty, I have no idea what in the world I'm talking about half the time.
There's always something so freeing in the truth. But damn it, do we so often have to arrive at it through sheer dumb luck, stumbling upon it, as it were, behind the trellises of our world?
