It had been a strange night, of that I am sure no one there would disclaim. I was at my weekly writers group, my weekly escape from the busyness and mundane repetitiveness of every day life. A place to tap into a warmth of inspiration and the free flow of pure energetic creativity. I had just started to build an image of where I was going to start in my mind when Jack showed up. A newcomer that seemed nice enough, and was happy to join our group. He started to tell us all about himself, as most people do upon first dipping their toes into the waters of this little oasis. And for the next two hours... he didn't stop...
At first he seemed to perhaps feel a little uncomfortable, his demeanor was slightly awkward, his rambling moved from topic to topic as if he was fighting to find some sense of footing within this group of strangers that he spoke to. As time went on he seemed resolved to accept that he would find no foot hold to brace him, to find some form of camaraderie that he had been maybe searching for. His recourse was apparently to improvise, to dip into a well of increasing insecurity that seemed to start to spill over us all from the seat that he occupied. He interrupted when others spoke, he talked about social topics that he found wanting, how society, the system, and even his own parents had failed him. He talked about women who had shamed him, disappointed him, and how they all seemed to be out to get him. He talked about his discomfort with other nationalities, and how they all had seemed determined to force him into the worse living conditions of his life. All of his vulnerabilities spread out onto the top of a table full of seated strangers. His soul laid out bare, put on display for a public that he seemed himself to utterly despise.
At first I listened, trying to find some form of appreciation for what I had initially taken for his passion. I was curious if he could warm his pen on the flames of that fire enough to etch his thoughts into the hearts and minds of the world. But as he continued to talk, I could sense the energy around his words starting to shift, to change into something entirely different. He had quickly begun tapping into the inferno's of a deep negativity. Each word digging deeper, drawing power into its spell, manifesting from it, a vile contempt that had been brewed upon the very coals that kept the forge of toxicity itself, lit. Every word he spoke had been thoroughly soaked in it and then scorched yet again by his undeniable disdain for anything in life that had offered him even the slightest shred of opposition. His voice transformed into a poison that spewed forth from his lips intended or not, set on a trajectory that would encompass us all, like a blinding mist, from which we felt we may never escape.
His hurt, his pain, his trauma, poured from him like a dam lacking flood gates. At first I thought maybe he just needed a little nudge, so I engaged him. Bobbed a few questions in the water to see if he would bite. I tried to speak generally, my questions laid thick in subtly, pausing to hear his answers while I probed my mind relentlessly, searching over and over in my head for a path that I could lead him to, that would allow me to make a few useful reading suggestions, a few self improvement titles that had helped me to sort out some of those same feelings recently, without of course, sounding like one of the condescending assholes that he was repetitively complaining about.
But every word I was able to squeeze into the air between the very few brief pauses of his thought stream, of which were taken only so that he could draw more breath, just floated over him. He was oblivious to the pitch of their melody. His vision was tunneled. He was completely convinced of his own righteousness. You could feel the conviction in his voice. So I stopped. In a flash, the dots connected, I suddenly recognized the space that he was living in. I recognized the frustration, the aggravation, the sheer distaste that he had for well... everything. I recognized it, because I had been to that place. I had lived there before. I had once stood in the eye of the storm of that very darkness and I thoroughly remember the feel of it's seductive caress.
As my thoughts explored this revelation I started to notice how intensely he was staring at us as he spoke. A silent plea, whispering from the depths of his soul for us to listen, and to acknowledge his despair. It drenched the open space between us. The more I tried to pull back from its grasp the more fiercely he seemed to drive forward the assault he waged against us, with his deep seemingly unhinged stare. Even as everyone began to leave the table, or bury their attentions into a blank stare of their own in a futile attempt to proclaim disinterest, nothing phased him. Even when it seemed as if nobody was paying attention, he would continue to talk into that dead space between us, either completely unaware, or perhaps simply impervious to the fact that he was the only one that was still even listening. Its presence covered us with a thick, heavy blanket that had been threaded together with an incomprehensible amount of the awkwardness and discomfort that we all felt and silently communicated to each other through quick, subtle glances that snuck out from the corners of our eyes.
At some point I even began to feel guilty. At first I thought that perhaps that feeling was coming from having encouraged him further while I had tried to engage with him earlier. But then, it morphed into feeling as if he was my own personal messenger, a vision, sent by the universe to show me how I had once presented my own self to the world. That thought form was a catalyst that started to reshape that feeling of guilt into almost a regret for having once swam in those same metaphorical waters. That perception lingered for only a few moments before it morphed once more, this time into a feeling of embarrassment for having subjected everyone at the table, and in my past, to the pure ridiculousness and audacity of it all.
In the midst of feeling the touch of familiarity from the darkness that was seething from the deepest parts of this beings soul, I found within myself a reflection. I found the teaching that that moment was showing me. I thought how much gratitude that I felt for not needing to do that anymore. I realized how deep into that nightmare I had once been, and how much I have grown since my own departure from the shores of that sea of despair that he was now drowning in. An acknowledgement of the progress that I had made on my own journey drenched me in a shower of relief that I had found respite, for having moved forward, for having left that place so far behind, regardless of how long ago I had been able to see my way clear. For the first time in my life, I was able to truly understand what it meant to heal. To be aware that I had been trapped in the dark, and somehow had been able to feel my way, to the light.
My intention to initially guide him, I realized wasn’t my responsibility any more than it was the personal purpose that I had been attempting to put into the experience. Rather, it became a lesson that served more to guide me instead, into a thought stream of realization, a revelation of the definition of gratitude, a concept that I perhaps never really understood until that very moment. An epiphany had washed over me that sometimes someone can know the logical and rational definition of a thing, but that true understanding only comes with the onset of experiencing that thing first hand, of being absorbed into it’s presence, as if it were a living breathing thing, aware of the energetic imprint that defines it, and allowing the feeling of it to seep into your very being, to soak you in it’s very essence.
Eventually Jack either got the hint that all of us had stopped listening, or he had released enough of his inner rage to satisfy his need to spread the sickness that was consuming his soul. Once his well of hatred had run dry, dumped on all of us over the course of the evening, he finally rose from the table, and said his goodbye’s before he crept away, ready to perhaps find a new experience that would once more fill the void of his contempt for the world, to find new opportunities to confirm all of his darkened biases.
We never heard from Jack again after that evening, and though everyone at the table that night may have felt grateful for that, myself included, I was secretly more grateful of the impression and introspection that that evening left on me. I had learned a new way to look at things. A new way to define things beyond the simple words that are applied to it.
The experience made me reminiscent of a quote by Ram Dass, that I had once read, that everything that we as beings experience, contains within it, a lesson. It is only up to us to choose to see it or not. That night I finally understood what that expression meant first hand. I was able to see beyond the facade of bad experience and see instead, the lesson that was carried by it. A reminder, a glimpse that if you dig deep enough into any situation, if you can strip away the attachment to it, see beyond the singular moment, you may find within it a lesson. That night I was able to see such, for the first time and in the end felt grateful for not just it's simple revelation, but also, for the feeling of having been made better by it.
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