Disorientation

To see comments on recent posts, click here for What if I lose this? and here for The Image Within.

The concern which most of us have for what other people may think of us is ridiculous at best, though perhaps there is some logic in it when we think of our colleagues at work or those to whom we have romantic intentions. It's best to zip up your fly when you go into work, for instance, and not to slurp the soup on your first date. But we sometimes seem to care just as much about people we'll never see again, people whom we may only have met for a moment.

I don't know why it is, but people are always stopping to ask me the way. Do I look especially intelligent, I wonder? Or do I look like the kind of hick who's never set foot outside of his home town and therefore must surely know the name of the street around the corner?

That's where they've got it wrong though.

I know it's called Blackduck Something, but that's as far it goes. I know that I live in the Blackducks, but whether the street round the corner is Blackduck Mount, Blackduck Green, Blackduck Terrace or Blackduck Close I haven't a clue. I know that I live in Blackduck Drive but that's about it. The exact identity of the other Blackducks is a mystery to me. I probably wouldn't even notice if one of them was pink.

But they will keep pulling up in their cars and asking the bloody way. So I try to pretend I'm not from round here. Sometimes I even adopt a foreign accent. But it gets a bit difficult when you're out mowing the front lawn. They tend to assume that you kind of, well, live there. I can see their point, I suppose. I try to make out I was just passing by from somewhere a long way away - like Kazakhstan, for instance - and just thought I'd offer to mow the lawn as a friendly gesture.

I don't think they believe me.

So we have a nightmare scenario...

I either a) have to admit I don't know where the road they're asking for is, even though it's clearly only a stone's throw away, or b) take a wild guess and send them off in what will almost certainly be the wrong direction - and in either case, they'll know I'm really stupid. They'll know that I live round the corner from Blackduck Way but I think it's called Blackduck Avenue and that Blackduck Way is round the bend where Blackduck Road really is. They'll know that I haven't the faintest clue what's going on around me. And so this person I've never met before and will probably never see again will think I'm a total prat.

Aaaagh!

How can I stand the embarrassment? How can I ever live it down?

Or - to look at it another way - why should I give a damn what this person thinks?  They'll have forgotten I even exist in a matter of moments. They're hardly going to expose me on national TV, are they? So why the hell should I care?

Because there's something wired deep down in my brain that tells me it matters. There's that old familiar voice which asks me "What will people think?"

Is there some way to get free of that fear, I wonder?

More next time...

 

These may also be of interest:

The Need To Be Right

The Image Within

Comments

[Otis]

Hi Simon, just wanted to thank you for your comment on the Free To Be blog 'Success Ruler' where I talk about public speaking...your comment was very thoughtful. Interestingly enough i had to do another one yesterday - went all the way from London to Leeds for a one hour session (so it had to be worthwhile:)) in any case...i decided to go for it...I mean not hesitant...I got there early too before anybody arrived and so this helped in that I could create the atmosphere. Somehow when you choose not to judge...you step back...and you allow creativity to flow...which enables you to part of something new which is quite refreshing...it's like when an artist paints a picture and at the end of it they didn't feel it was them doing it.

[Mr Zip]

I used to get a similar thing. People would come up to me in department stores and ask me where Haberdashery or the knicker counter was. I guess I just exuded an air of authority in my nice office clothes. Now I've opted for the Scruffy Artist Look, I'm never bothered by such enquiries.

But at least then my only repsonse was, "I'm sorry, I don't work here."

None of this is, of course, of any use to you whatsoever.

[Andy]

Seeing is the first step towards freedom.

"Why should I give a damn what this person thinks?"
Simple. Because you you want them to like you. Why? Because they will do something for you? Because their view of you has become your view of you?...

[Secret Simon]

Otis - Glad you found my comment useful, and it's interesting that you refer to painting, as it reminds me of a comment I left about creative pursuits on Mr Zip's site recently. It went something like: "Such considerations as personal success or failure can get in the way. So set them to one side for now and focus instead on the reason you were drawn to your art in the first place: for the sheer love of what you are doing. Realise too that on some level the universe has chosen to bring this work of art into being and has chosen to use your skill and judgement to enable this. So don’t talk back to the universe. Put your trust in its judgement. Get your worries out of the way and let the thing happen." You and I were originally discussing public speaking, but that's a creative process too, I guess. It's interesting also that you I were both delivering a session in Leeds on Wednesday. Spooky, eh?

[Secret Simon]

Mr Zip - Hanging around in department stores can get you into trouble. I had an ex who used to like Taking A Very Long Time to browse through the clothes in C&A. I preferred to take the weight off my feet in the meantime, but the only place to sit down was in the women's shoe department. So there I would sit, surrounded by women trying on high heeled shoes, leather boots and so on... After a while, the staff began to get the wrong idea about what I might be doing there.

Interestingly enough, I didn't get too upset about what those particular "other people thought", perhaps because I guessed I might one day be able to use the incident to comic effect in blogs (even though they hadn't been invented yet).

Andy - Nothwithstanding the above, I think what you say is very pertinent. A lot of my life I have felt so insecure in my view of myself that I've allowed it to be influenced by that of whoever I came across last.

[Andy]

"A lot of my life I have felt so insecure in my view of myself that I've allowed it to be influenced by that of whoever I came across last"

Everybody else is the same - the difference is that you've now seen it and admit to it.

[Secret Simon]

Thanks for your comment, Andy! In writing these posts I usually tend to assume that the aspects of human experience I'm writing about are universal. But occasionally I'm plagued by self-doubt and decide that it must just be me being neurotic. It's strangely reassuring to have it confirmed that we're all as mad as each other.

[Sally C]

I have begun to realise that it is only in my mind that other people will think this way or that about me. The reality is that they are too busy looking over their shoulders wondering what others are thinking of them! To see that is so freeing .....and makes me remember how hilarious our sense of self really is! It is all illusion.

[Secret Simon]

I once had a brief moment of seeing what Sally describes for myself: I mean really suddenly knowing it deep down, and I was convulsed by fits of laughter. I was sitting there on the bed like a laughing Buddha. And then, after a few moments, the conviction that this was the truth began to drift out of view again, like the sun disappearing behind clouds. I know that the truth is still there behind the veil of thought. It is just a question of making that connection...

[Andy]

Simon,

While making progress 'on the spiritual path' we are hit by insights which appear to drift away. However they only appear to drift away because they become part of us and we cannot see that which is not seperate.

Many people get caught in the trap or trying to recreate these experiences or defining themselves by these experiences and therefore hamper themselves from progressing (until of course they have the experience that reveals this folly).

[Simon]

Yes, these experiences tend to be like everything else in life don't they? If we want them too badly, our fear of not having them tends to push them away.

[Andy]

These experiences never occur with effort - only when one lets go. Of course we are so bombarded with messages from the world that we must try for everything that it usually takes a great shock to the system to halt that conditioning even for a moment.