Names & circumstances were changed to protect privacy and to better illustrate points of view
“She’s a grown ass woman!” Myriam declared as she described the behavior of her sister Rosie and shook her head in resignation and sadness. “She’s old enough to do whatever she wants to regardless of what the rest of us think. She has the right to do as she please, and so she does.”
Oh, lord’n’lady, yo, I’m beginning to wonder if Rosie might be better off named RoZilla? Is she a bit like Godzilla? No? Alas, that would be cruel, wouldn’t it? So let’s stop the name calling even if in jest.
Opposite of narcissism and psychopathy. To feel empathy for others. Compassion for one another. To have the courage to look another in the eye, or, if one or both has a face empty of eyes, bore straight ahead anyway and forgive one another and each other. To forgive one’s self. Choosing to love the essence of another’s humanity even when is otherwise consumed by fear and hatred. Choosing to love the same in one’s self in spite of one’s own loathing.
After listening to Myriam awhile, I felt deep truth rising up to take a stand. “Yes, Rosie does have such rights. And those rights must be balanced with accountability,” I declared. Her rights must be tempered with her own self-responsibility.
Ultimately, Rosie has responsibilities deeper than the right to act out her urges of the moment. Yes? Must she be held accountable for the impact of her actions upon others? Must she hold herself responsible for the effects of her behavior upon not only others who love her but also on her own self?
Otherwise one’s lack of respect is one’s way of stripping themselves of the very rights they claim the liberty to act forward with. One may act as a grumpy child acts. All human beings have rights, however, regardless of their age, gender, orientation, ethnicity, religiosity, nationality, hair style, skin color, abilities and disabilities, and so forth. We humans also have social responsibilities. The tension between our individual liberties and our social responsibilities is an old tension. Been there in one form or another since the first hominins became conscious beings.
Rosie had, according to Myriam, engaged in acts of manipulation, sucked people into her drama triangles, and then vanished after they helped her get back up on her feet. Around and around people went on the drama triangles, stumbling and grumbling from persecutor to victim to rescuer and back again. Psychic whirlpools. Drama rama melodrama. Drama as trauma. Trauma as drama. Unconscious triggers and the same old stories of upset, blame, and shame going around and around in vinyl grooves being hoed deeper into the mud of life by the stylus of a phonograph, a stylus of needles sharp harpooning the traumas of drama into the mindsoul like tattoos needled into flesh.
Must I explain “mindsoul?” Kinda made it up, tho it isn’t a new concept. What is mind anyway? What is spirit? Define soul. What is a soul? Philosophers and scientists have not yet been able to explain and measure consciousness, yes? We ALL have OPINIONS and JUDGMENTS regarding such intangibles, do we not?
Besides I’ve not met my friend’s sister. I’m no longer licensed to counsel people professionally. Gonna write about stuff, tho. Gonna write for stuff, too. I’ve and everyone I know have spent time on drama triangles before getting off. One gets off when one stops the carousel, steps off, identifies the drama triangle, acknowledges their role in it without blaming and shaming anyone including themselves, and without alleging so-and-so’s told-you-so’s an irresponsible psychopathic narcissist. One must step up and own their share of it, of being on the drama triangle, of making a mess. One can make apologies, take responsibility, and declare what steps they shall take next as they go forward in life. Leave the stories of yesteryear and all the incessant allegations of wrong doing behind. Step up with love. Move forward with intention and purpose. Doesn’t have to be clean and organized. We can be shaky and messy. Life is messy. We vibrate alive as well as dead. Shaky shaky shaky!
What are you choosing to be responsible for today, tonight, and tomorrow?
Choose love. Be the energy and the power of love as a choice regardless of all of the many different and constantly changing emotions, thoughts, and feelings erupting up from the lightning-blasted volcanic mud of life. Aye, be you, and choose love.
William Dudley Bass
Sunday 9 March 2021
Seattle, Washington
USA
Cascadia
Earth
Sol
Copyright © 2021 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.