Have you ever been wrong about something? Repeatedly. Consistently. As in the entirety of your experience concerning this particular issue has revolved around your incredible capacity for wrongness.
Let me tell you something. That kind of experience screws with your head, because it turns out, you've only EVER experienced a type of fiction in this matter. You begin to perceive outside stimuli in the light of a narrative that exists only in the gray matter between your ears. It’s a happy little narrative, but if such a thing is to mature it must inevitably escape your private perceptions and be presented to the very real world of other people’s reactions. In my case, every instance that sees this narrative cast into the cold, hard light of truth results in it being dashed (again and again) against the unforgiving asphalt of reality.
So, the you that lives inside your head concocts a new narrative. One that hopes to supersede any further narratives that come along. And that is this: the particular experience that you’ve been seeking is for you only a pleasant fiction. That’s not to detract from other people who experience it rapturously (the jerks). It’s just that your own track bypasses this station altogether.
Life goes on. You begin to take to heart the narrative that insists you of all humans are denied this one thing. It becomes your shield against the inevitability of future soul crushing forays into real experience. And then events begin to take shape. The old evidences you would have considered definitive in past come again across your path, but this time your prepared to sweep them aside. You will not be taken captive by your imagination’s overactive story weaving. You KNOW this time that such a narrative is foreign to your experience. So, you deny evidence and press forward with the conviction that in this one issue you are indeed alone.
I can’t really point to the single blow that tumbled this house of cards I had built around myself, and as I consider recent history, its distinctly possible that it was always a rickety and wavering thing. During the last couple of weeks, the light has been shining through the cracks in my self-deception. I spent more and more time considering evidence that I have been and idiot. I allowed myself to consider old reactions and exchanges in the light of those forgotten, familiar narratives.
The tipping point came earlier this week while at work. I was presented with a situation that, to my mind, betrayed the possibility that I had fought for my own self-preservation in a foolish and deceptive way for far too long. I considered that I had not only stubbornly denied myself a great blessing, but that along the way I had unintentionally caused some degree of hurt as well.
That change in perception was in some small way cataclysmic. And because my mind, never a courteous beast, thought through these perceptions while at work, I started breaking down. Surely, my irritability was caused by a difficult customer. My sullen attitude was due to a smashed hand. My watery eyes and coarse voice were the result of being bent over hands and knees trying to clean a chlorine spill. These are the excuses I gave to my coworkers. I attempted to use them to convince myself.
The truth was I had experienced a very private apocalypse. I had to recognize that one world had ended. I had built a world of perceptions and deceit that I was an island in the world. That I could stand alone, and it wasn’t going to matter to anyone else. It was a sad, deceptive little narrative. I thought it kept me safe, but mostly it kept me blind.
Now, that world was gone. It imploded under the weight of my changes in perception. This cataclysmic change in the landscape of my mind eventually accomplished two things. First, it revealed and crushed my self-deception. This hurt. It is never a comfort to learn that you have been lying to yourself, and especially to imagine that those lies result in real pain in the world.
Second, it helped me to realize anew how fortunate I am. Despite my card-constructed fortress, I have people that care about me. Despite my faults and foibles, Jesus Christ found me worthy to redeem. Despite the lies I use to hem myself in, I am free. Free from sin, free from my broken past, free to act and aid those who are less fortunate.
There are plenty of those. There are 27 million people in the world today who are enslaved in one form or another. About 11% of the global population is restrained by cultural and economic factors from such a basic human need as clean water.
Sometimes it takes a private apocalypse to breakdown the fictional worlds we build around ourselves. Coming to the end of yourself allows you to see beyond the narrow confines of personal problems. It gives us the opportunity to realize that we continue on beyond these fictional barriers we’ve erected, and we are stronger for it.
In this way, breaking down is like resurrection. I can come out the other side feeling stronger. More whole. I can cast aside the stories I’ve been trying to force myself into and try to move forward. Isaac Bashevis Singer puts it this way, “Life is God’s novel. Let Him write it.”
I look forward to the next chapter. How about you?
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