Opaque Transparency…
In the rush of preparations for the Holidays and all the year end activities, I was brought to a skidding stop one day by a post at A Mindful Life. Kathryn always has something uniquely personal and introspective in her Self-portrait Tuesday features. This one impressed me enough that I made notes to think on it, perchance to pen my thoughts.
While Kathryn’s self-photo is interesting … as always, along with her interpretation of it as representing the multi-faceted person she is, the more interesting aspect for me is the juxtaposition of two seemingly paradoxical thoughts that really take some wringing of the gray matter:
easy to see through you…difficult to see into you.
Having revisited this a few times since, I have discovered that it is easy to think about and take a couple of baby steps toward understanding. It is also quite difficult to completely get my arms around the entire enigma … assuming there is an enigma. See what I mean? Kathryn said:
It requires persistence and a willingness to accept contradictions.
Secondly, there come the realizations that yes, there are people like that, and yes, I know some of them, and yes, I may be one of them. I believe they are the people we would describe as being complex or deep. Or perhaps they are simply the people we perceive as being openly honest.
Thirdly, and with all due respect for Kathryn, I am not at all sure that it is possible for us to be completely objective in self-analysis of any type, and most assuredly not on this opacity-transparency judgement. I may make such a judgement of you, but am ill-equipped to do so for myself. F. Scott Fitzgerald said:
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
Lastly, bearing proof that I am sadly short of being a “first-rate intelligence“, I have not extracted near all to be learned from probing the paradox that Kathryn left for us. The readership here includes several intelligent life-forms that I would label “first-rate“. You know who you are! Your comments to further my understanding are welcomed…
7 Comments so far
First of all, thanks for leaving a pin on my blog’s Frappr map. I take that to mean that you are not embarrassed to reveal to the blogosphere that you’ve visited and maybe even read around in my site. Thanks again; I look forward to returning to your site often.
I thought I’d take a stab at what Kathryn might be saying.
My sense of what she’s trying to say in that first statement is that, while “your” motives for a given action are discernible, the underpinning for those motives–”your” past exerpiences, “your” belief systems–are harder to see.
Whatever contraditions might arise would actually occur either when ostensibly opposed actions arise from the same underlying motive, or when two people act in the same way but for very different underlying motives.
Maybe.
I love prepositions for the magic they can make come to life in a thought … the play between “seeing through” and “seeing into.” I think we see through one another all the time - a more or less necessary function for efficiency, the predictable outcome of the busy lifetimes we’re living, or the habit of preoccupation in response to the demands of muli-tasking. Seeing into another person takes time … time… time… time for listening, looking, really listening, really looking. And I think there is very little ME involved in the gentle work of seeing into you; it may be that the first, most difficult task of seeing into rather than through another is to see past myself. I think this is what Kathryn’s prisms make us do: for just a moment, we see a garden, a snowflake, and a backdoor. rest. -mg
Interesting analysis and great SPT photo. I keep meaning to make another entry having only tried it once. I love the comments!
Not a first-rate intelligence, merely a first-rate wit, so I’ll have to hold my treatise on “seeing through” and “seeing into” (though I think I could go off on a pretty long toot about it).
I do believe that who we are isn’t revealed in self-analysis only. Though who we are certainly isn’t just who others think we are (gee, did that make any sense?), it is a part of the equation of who we are. No man is an island, and all of that.
We’ve been influenced, mentored, battered, glorified, loved, hated - the full gamut - by other people all our lives. That stuff folds into the mix of making us who we are. As an individual, I have to understand those influences and come to terms with what/how those influences helped make me who I am now.
Maybe I should just go have another cup of tea.
I love these comments! And Winston, I’m honored you’ve chosen my modest words to ponder.
Sometimes when I write I craft the sentences with great attention. Other times (often on the blog) I write intuitively, spontaneously. This was one of those posts; I’d never considered it might be excavated for deeper meaning. I enjoy everyone’s reflection on these words, because what I wrote was enigmatic.
Further reflection on what *I* meant (to myself as I wrote) reveals a perspective similar to Mary Godwin’s. Yet as I consider the other comments by MaryB and John, they too reflect part of my meaning. I want to avoid the risk of quelling another reader’s creativity if they read your post, though, so I’ll leave it at that.
F. Scott’s well-known quotation is false, one of those literary constructions that sounds more profound than it is.
We all, bright and not so bright, hold conflicting beliefs all the time and continue to complete our daily rounds without paralysis. In fact, the most recent research into how older brains work shows this to be a particularly strong attribute of elders. The ability to evaluate contradictory ideas and remain objective is weak in youth, increases through the years and reaches its fulfillment in our 50s or 60s.
I think it is impossible for anyone to be completely objective about themselves~because SELF is subjective.
And it is a generalization and certainly NOT applicable to everyone~but mostly those who laud their own intelligence, sense of humor, wit, courage, etc are those who are most lacking that particular quality.
But that’s just my opinion.
Now I’m going back to lurking, because everyone here makes me feel stupid.