That Guy

Illustration by Randy Rackcliff

Sometimes we open ourselves enough to allow the things we do to change us. If we are willing to expose ourselves, if we may crack open our hearts and lower the barriers that prevent us from learning, from feeling, it is possible to change and grow. Unless we are afraid to.

What we do, when we do it hard and long enough, marks us; the thousand yard stare written permanently across our skin, and also deeper, into ligaments, into our bones. The marks of some experiences are shallow, exposing the lack of depth expressed by that journey. Skin deep, they say, and this term perfectly describes all of the things we pursue that do not matter.

Then, there are other journeys, undertaken separately, alone and apart, the journeys that change us permanently, some taken voluntarily, others thrust upon us. The heavy trips. The things we did and felt, but were never ready to hold because they were too much, too overwhelming. We could barely bear them at the time. Maybe, eventually we lived into them, assimilated those outcomes, and we carry their consequences through all of our ensuing days. Often, we don’t understand in the moment or hours or days of the doing that these actions will forever affect us. We can't see what matters because our eyes are constantly attacked by things that don't; by stimulus so perfectly designed to distract. And disorient.

I recognize and accept that what I have done has marked me, changed me, shaped and broken me, and built me. It is visible on my skin, my posture, and how I move if someone has the eyes to see it. I’ve learned to see the same in and on others, and to recognize the lack of it. Some experiences aren’t powerful enough to leave a scar yet give the experiencer the illusion that it did so. At some point in our lives we have all carried a superficial weight and presented it as something more. This is youth — the ferocious desire to appear as if we have lived and learned more than we have, in the hope that we will be offered a seat at the table where our elders hold space. Some of whom have offered counsel since before we were born.

I was that guy. The “look at me and what I’ve done” guy, the under-accomplished but overly-confident-in-his-ability-and-knowledge guy. And my elders slapped me down as was appropriate. They told me to go back to those mountains, to crack open my chest, immerse myself in genuine experience, and—if I survived—to return to petition again. I recognized then that it would take something that almost killed me to provide such awareness as might grant me access to the wisdom and wise ones I sought to consort with. And that if all I was seeking was to appear beside and among them, well, I wouldn’t be long for this earth in one way or another; either dead or simply cast out socially, ignored.

How do we confront the thing we fear most, the thing we barely understand? How does one choose action, take action that might utterly destroy the identity s/he holds so dearly? It's no easy thing to volunteer for exquisite, lasting and uncontrollable change. But if we don’t come back in tears, if we don’t come back with the scars of injuries that changed us, did we actually have the transformative experience we believed we were seeking?

I have admonished inexperienced fellows for arriving without the requisite knowledge that would grant them access, angered by their overly-enthusiastic desire and lack of experience. They are just young, age-wise and otherwise, and on their own journey, using what skills and knowledge they were born with, taught or given. I recognize (now) that anger is a period, akinetic, and may teach little while encouragement can help us all move forward and grow. Each has its place, of course, but defaulting thoughtlessly to one or the other is a dead end.

Still, sometimes, when a fellow journeys far physically—believing that all of the wisdom he seeks or seeks to exploit automatically comes with the physical accomplishment—I do get angry. We need the deep scars to teach us; we cannot grow without wounds. A single hard physical journey cannot inform us in the same way as a lifetime of difficult experiences. Until the weight of every single thing we have felt and learned shapes us, until life shows us what truly matters, until we endure the unendurable and carry the unbearable weight, we cannot grow or change. And until we experience those deep and difficult confrontations with Self, we should probably shut our mouths and keep seeking.