Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Will we ever know?

At my son's place of employment, the security staff has extra duty in the warmer months. They become rattlesnake wranglers.

In the hills of Pasadena, chaparral and eucalyptus flourish and an asphalt parking lot becomes fine sunning ground for groggy reptiles. Last week, van-pool riders could not disembark until security had vanquished the rattlers. My son reported that the "Watch out for rattlesnakes" notices would be posted at once.

When we sign on for a job, a relationship, a task, we can never be sure how it will turn out. I hope the job description covers these scaly doings in the wild kingdom, but years of drought have brought animal life closer to civilization and construction has carried civilization deeper into what was once untamed. What might have been two required captures per season may now be dozens.

All things are not as advertised. We edit. We don't always choose to tell each other about the snakes.

Truth, though, has its own natural laws and eventually foams out past the tightened lid. Or explodes in the manner of my grandmother's canned peaches, stored in the garage rafters, unequal to the heat of too many summer days. With or without warning, someone is left to clean up the fermented goo and side-step the broken glass.

We learn wariness, which can blossom into cynicism. It is not a thing I admire in myself. I want to think well of people, to trust their motives and take them at their word. Some evasions we can survive, more or less intact. Others leave us scarred and altered. But I am unsure whether, in my case, the bad surprises were really secret or did I not want to see them. After the fact of some earth-shaking revelations, I have been told that others knew, could see, but decided not to tell me. What is the right answer? I like to believe that I am mature enough (in age, at least) to behave well when told an unwelcome fact. But I can't swear to it.

Some of these thoughts are the result of wondering how much of the real story we will ever know regarding events from 9/11/2001 through the May 1, 2011 death of bin Laden. It has been years since I felt our government, or any government, allowed us the dignity of handling the truth. I don't know if we are a society or a planet of secrets. Reasons are so wide-ranging, nationally and personally: shame, fear of retaliation, fear of spreading panic, fear of loss, fear of humiliation...shame and fear, various mutations thereof.



Will we be fooled again, at home, in the street? Are we being fooled now? Not impossible. Our best hope is to pay better attention, maybe not shout down intuition when it wants to be heard and believe in our own ability to endure, to prevail, to carry on.

(The lyrics to Won't Get Fooled Again may be found here.)

16 comments:

Nicolette Wong said...

I'm a very transparent and have a good number of close friends who put themselves on the line for others. Or we're the type who'd do what we say, and respond honestly, even passionately to the gestures others make. As you can imagine, this has resulted in never-ending disappointments, annoying little failures, absurd scenarios of all sorts. Most of the time I'm good at accepting the reality as others finally present it, by thinking 'no one is obliged to give me anything'.

Sometimes I think that I - or any other person who qualifies as an artist - must be too idealistic. There must be a way to abridge this gap between one's insistence on truth and real life. But I haven't figured it out at all. While I do give a lot of room for people and things, I seem to become more determined to protect my freedom in my 30's - so much so that I wean people/things off me pretty quick. Sometimes it doesn't make sense even to me!

melissashook said...

thank you...this is an interesting entry...when I was little, a hundred years ago, I believed that the government told the truth...but I knew there was an undercurrent in my home, one that effected me deeply, an undeniable fact.

RachelVB said...

It seems the only truth we can know for sure is our own. And even then it gets a little dicey.
xo

Erin in Morro Bay said...

At least with rattlesnakes, you know where you stand. Not so with government (no matter which side's on top at the moment). I wonder if they could ever be trusted. Possibly we're just more aware of it now then in the halcyon days of yore. I'm a generally very optimistic and non-cynical person, but not when it comes to politics. A federal system that says equal rights, but won't allow 10 per cent of the population to marry? How do you trust that?

Marylinn Kelly said...

Nicolette - If we endeavor to live by our own truth, I don't know that we have any way to bridge from that to what real life presents. People and circumstances can drain our energies, much as we try and defend ourselves, and sometimes the only effective form of preservation is to walk away, to let them go. I am very fond of solid ground, feel teetering and unsafe on lies or flimsy half-truths. Idealism is not a defect. Thanks for your thoughts.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Melissa - It was during my younger days, also a hundred years ago, that I stopped trusting my intuition. I ignored it for decades, having been told that I misunderstood, misinterpreted what felt true. The many faces of betrayal. Thank you for commenting.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Rachel - When we start doubting ourselves - and there seem to be vigorous campaigns encouraging us to do exactly that - we are lost. Some part of us usually knows. xo

Marylinn Kelly said...

Erin - That's right...and the rattlesnakes usually give warning. They did not mislead us. How DO we trust the source of our bartered futures, our diminished expectations and bold lies about our rights and our perceived human worth? Optimism is my preferred stance but, as has been said, when someone SHOWS you who they are, believe them. xo

susan t. landry said...

i think this discussion circles back a bit to an earlier one, in which some of us were thinking about authenticity. i think the more you feel like you are living your own life, the life that has evolved from being honest with yourself, then the more you can reliably follow your gut sense.
i still feel that i flounder through many days, and yet...i at last feel like i have a strong sense of which people i should be spending time with, approaching intimacy with--and which i should avoid like, well, like a nest of rattlesnakes.

thanks, marylinn; another provocative post!

Jayne said...

How I love your metaphors, Marylinn. From the rattlesnakes to the spontaneous combustion of peach-filled Ball jars. I just took a little break from writing my thoughts about Bin Laden's execution, because I'm having such a difficult time with it. I think it's because the story is not about Bin Laden. It's about human nature, how it's presented, how it's manipulated, and as you said, how truth can't stay bottled forever. But what is revealed when truth finally explodes in our face is often an unidentifiable messy, smelly mash.
I agree w/Susan. Trust your gut) instincts. ;)

Robert the Skeptic said...

My college roommate spent his summers working at the Kahneeta Resort in Central Oregon. Among other responsibilities, he was expected to cruise the golf course in the morning and remove the rattle snakes as well.

As far as threats to our national security; we naturally become complacent over time, letting our guard down. Something will happen and a top official will be fired though there was nothing the could have done to truly foresee the event. We do love to fire people, as The Donald will attest.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Susan - Thank you. It seems to be a time (our age? the cosmos?) of listening to inner wisdom, of realizing our truths, which may not match those of anyone else. A stronger sense of that is no small achievement. Would that I had learned to sidestep danger long ago. Ah, well. xo

Marylinn Kelly said...

Jayne - Thank you. Our instinct, our inner knowing, is really our greatest resource. I try not to put too much energy into regretting how long I ignored mine. But when it tells me, at volume, that something stinks I pay attention. Knowing is not proof, but it gives us a place at which to begin. The messes keep on coming. xo

Marylinn Kelly said...

Robert - We don't just love to fire people, we are very fond of blaming, even more fond of eluding responsibility for heinous acts. There is no way of knowing where any of this week's actions will take us.

And I hope your roommate survived his patrol assignment unscathed. Ewww. Glad they didn't call on me for that task. xo

Antares Cryptos said...

At times it "feels" like "the truth is out there", but whatever sense brings on that instinctual reaction is ignored.

I still ignore that warning, dismiss it, when I should know better.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Antares Cryptos - As I don't believe in coincidence, I assume there is meaning in the events of this week and my own stage-mother pushiness about listening to intuition. We ignore our deep wisdom at our peril, yet how many among us even know of its existence, let alone trust it to guide our actions? We are called, until we listen, I suppose, to make a leap of faith.