notes on misunderstoodness

"I often looked at myself with furious discontent, which verged on loathing, and so I inwardly attributed the same feeling to everyone." Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground

"I'm just a soul whose intentions are good.
Oh Lord! Don't let me be misunderstood." -- Nina Simone

I continue to notice that the world gets along, promotes itself, energizes itself through misunderstandings -- the world of the individual as well as the world of groups and the world of nations.

Many do not wish, even if they could, to come to a full understanding of themselves or of others because the game would be over.

Harmonious understanding among one's angels and demons, of one's multiple aspects of personality, of one's thoughts and emotions and actions and relationships is seen as undesirable. Conflict and misunderstanding are kept alive as a way of feeling alive.

Harmony is mistrusted. Misunderstanding is a way of staying "safe."

Most everyone feels misunderstood. That is partly because all the folk around the misunderstood one feel misunderstood. "Misunderstand others as they misunderstand you."

When one feels/thinks another person understands them, that person becomes a friend or a life partner. Both friendship and marriage are based upon the continuous working out of misunderstandings.

Understand means to stand under the other person's stance, to take the low ground, to put the other "above" yourself at least for a while. It is best if the other person does the same. You continue standing under each other's stance in the world. Somehow standing under each other's stance allows that stance to loosen and to change.

A little boy, maybe three years old, sat on his mother's lap on the bus yesterday as I took my weekly pilgrimage to the physical therapist healer woman. Our eyes met with understanding. We smiled spontaneously and simultaneously. He was enjoying a lemon lollipop and without hesitation reached his arm out and offered it to me. We both laughed. We understood each other.