Twisty Thinking: an Introspective
What is it about other people’s stories? Why, in their stories, do I hear the “somebody done me wrong” song? Why do I feature, unwittingly, in those songs?
It seems to me that there are some people in the world who think I spend more time thinking about them than I do. Should I be? I work and think a lot about my work. I have one child left at home and spend brain time on her. Mostly I think about practical things and activist activities.
I think about tiny homes, gardening, veggies, animals, ethical responsibilities, coffee, living lightly, getting older, politics, art, writing, therapy, Quakerism, Simplicity, retiring, my mother, my niblings, my grandson (actually I think about him a lot), coffee, books, volunteering, painting, teaching, craft, reading, what I am reading, books, science, space, water, coffee, my comfy chair, cleaning (not much, I admit), friends, stories I have heard, stories I have told, new stories, performances, the people I love, the people I have cared for and do care for, writing stories, poetry, listening to poetry, watching poetry, my dogs, my cats, (wishing I had rabbits), butterflies, coffee, teapots, coffee, the house, making a cinema, birds, books, Community (with a capital ‘C’) and coffee.
The theme here is that I don’t think about other people as much as they seem to think I do and I think about coffee a lot. If someone arrives where I am (work, dog park, home) and isn’t chatty or is grumpy, I never assume that is about me. When I was young I thought everything was about me. Eventually I learned that other’s behaviour was determined by their own lives. I am no longer ego-centric enough for it even to cross my mind that another’s behaviour could have anything to do with me. This is handy if I don’t hear from someone for awhile, I assume they are as busy in their life as I am in mine.
Where I come unstuck is when I am accused of thinking things that never crossed my mind. What? Yes indeed. Thoughts and feelings that never occur to me become accusations. How does that work? It’s difficult to defend yourself against irrational accusations. I don’t even try. What’s really hard is when a smidgen of fact gets twisted up in someone else’s reality which then becomes an accusation of my wrong doing. Now, this does not happen much but when it does happen, it comes from more than one. I have a theory.
It’s the full moon this week and the lun-ies are out. Yes, I am resorting to tried and true loony reasoning. There is no other possible explanation when people I believe actually do love me, or at least care for me, treat me as though I have deliberately done something to upset them. Well, for the record, I am sorry they’re upset but the thing is, I really haven’t thought about them that much.
Oh wait, maybe that’s it.