Jack Gould: Untitled [mess on floor of ruined apartment] (1955)

"I'm first coping with the underlying nature of the difficulty."

Last night, for the second night in a row, The Muse and I had been invited out to engage in another dialogue. Neither engagement was intended to fix anything, but each was more focused on better understanding the nature of the difficulties or what fixing might entail. We might have wondered what we'd gain from engaging in conversations while Rome burns, except our experience strongly suggested that failing to engage in precisely such conversations might be the leading cause of failures when attempting to extinguish fires. It's all too easy to run into the burning building armed with little more than the best intentions, only to discover some hidden nature of the fire after entering. Under the Measure Twice Before Cutting Rule, it's often proved better to engage in some aimless conversation before acting to resolve a situation, however urgent it seems. It might even be that the more urgent a response appears, the more necessary the preceding conversation. Improving focus or understanding might better target a response.

This always seems like wasted time. It feels more like procrastination than like aiming. We might be, by nature, Ready, Fire, Aim people, so poised to make a difference that we easily omit necessary preparations. I might prove more effective if I was less ready to act, if I first felt confusion rather than resolve, but I too easily ignore the confusion if I even notice its presence. We not only want and need to get the correct response, but it's also like a race for us. We want to get to the correct answer first!

Successes seem to carry a thousand disappointments. They often become compromises that might not even seem very much like success, even when they bring a secession of hostilities. I can feel I've lost if I win the wrong way. My initial impression might imagine that I'm supposed to be personally concocting the resolution, when later understandings might recognize that better ones excluded my presence. Sometimes, it's better if someone other than me becomes the hero, though this hard charger might rarely initially see this possibility. For ten thousand reasons, one of my Ethical Responsibilities insists that it's my ethical responsibility to Sit With The Mess At First. It does not insist that I sit IN the mess, though it also doesn't demand that I don't. I may sit in the mess, but whatever I do, I should decide to get to know the mess before attempting to do much about cleaning it up. There's never time, of course, to allocate to such an obviously unnecessary effort because the necessity rarely outshines the apparent urgency. This is why I hold this formal responsibility. Without it, I'm more likely to engage naively, as if so engaging might render me a hero. He who considers also contributes.

Both of these dialogues reassured me. I recognized camaraderie within others' testimonies. I noticed that I no longer felt so alone. I sensed definitely shared commitment, too, that I needn't feel so alone and threatened, even if I still felt threatened going forward, and forward seemed more tolerable after discovering and acknowledging some shared purpose. The deeper purpose of MessSitting tends to emerge from the insights it brings. The inconvenience of engaging in benign conversation when your hair's smoldering sparks insights into the more profound nature of a situation. These small glimpses can provide real leverage. Noticing how demeaning another infantilizes them, rendering them temporarily incapable of engaging as adults, might provide a clue about how to resolve disagreements. Nobody ever really knows the true nature of anything, though coming to see previously invisible aspects can better support resolution.

It might be simple human nature to want to vanquish opposing forces, whether they appear as physical threats or unsettling ideas. It's definitely not in most humans' natures to want to sit down with the opposing problem before attempting a solution. The sheer irresolution can feel overwhelmingly frustrating. It's enough to drive even the well-disciplined insane, yet this is precisely what I'm proposing. I've grown weary of the commentators' complaints about how the opposition has yet to declare a coherent strategy and how they remain, at best, loosely connected and apparently unfocused. I respond by remembering how it apparently needs to be at first, when the focus remains understandably fuzzy, when the edges seem as alarming as unclear. The mess should seem threatening, and I should still take a seat near it anyway. I either have time to fritter away at first failing to resolve or trying to gain greater understanding, likely both. I am free to volunteer my energy where it's less likely to utterly undermine my enthusiasm, though I never very warmly anticipate sitting with or in another mess. I sit with a certain hopefulness, reassuring myself that while it might appear that I'm avoiding contact, I'm first coping with the underlying nature of the difficulty.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #CHope , #PureSchmaltz