Thin lines

At Pravah, we talk a lot about "walking the thin line." In the last few days, I'm thinking about a lot of thin lines, especially ones that I talked about at length with Sarah Wider. If you are reading this, Sarah, those conversations from last year are informing these thoughts, and I would love to know how you respond.

The first is the thin line between the objective and the subjective. The line between being passionate about an issue and distancing yourself enough from it to be able to see it clearly. I've been thinking about this with respect to myself as well as many people around me, but on this blog, I'll keep the comments about myself.

I'm beginning to realize that it's hardest for me to work on issues really important to me. I have had all these big plans about working on the issue of disability, but I'm not sure I can do it effectively; it is simply too close to my heart. Little instances of insensitivity on the part of basically well-intentioned people (there have been a lot of these lately), little slip-ups and mess-ups, little thoughtless remarks or actions, are becoming painful... I don't know how to step back from them enough to understand or explain them rationally.

I've tried clarifying calmly a couple of times, but i've stopped since i didn't see much difference and since I didn't end up able to do it calmly. I've tried asking for things I need different from what other people need and explaining where I'm coming from, but I've more-or-less stopped doing that too because it hasn't made enough of a difference and because it's become too emotionally exhausting to always be making requests, always be asking people to go out of their way, and always be giving explanations.

That isn't "active citizenship." That is making my peace with the denial of what should be rights. That isn't what I would encourage the students in my workshop to do. I know all that.

But it's still my reality right now. It's relatively easy for me to speak up on behalf of others and their issues; it's hard for me to speak up for my own issues. And it's not just about work; it was at least as hard and possibly harder to fight the battle for disability rights at college. I'm trying to do it anyway, but it's making personal relationships a lot more complex; the more I sense someone's (unconscious but complete) insensitivity to chronic illness/ disability, the harder it is for me to get along with this person. Yes, it's important for me to separate the viewpoint from the person, but when the viewpoint seems to attack you personally even if the person doesn't know it, that's hard to do. So even as my head rationalizes and recognizes that the person in front of my doesn't necessarily know anything about the debilitating chronic illnesses I live with, my heart closes itself to her/ him for hurting me repeatedly, although unconsciously. I wish it weren't like that, but it is.

Why does this remind me of Sarah, though? Well, she and I had a fascinating conversation about the place of emotions (specifically anger, but others too) in intellectual discourse. We disagreed with the idea that emotions are somehow separate from our intellectual work (or any other work) and agreed that anything we did was only complete if every emotion of ours was in it. In my heart, I believe that. But that doesn't mean I'm ok with bursting into tears as I speak during a meeting because that's the kind of emotion that topic is bringing out. Is it then that i don't fully believe what Sarah and I talked about, or is it simply that I believe everything I have been taught about decorum and appropriate public behavior more than I believe that? I need to walk the thin line between bringing in and articulating my emotions, which I believe are integral to the issue, and not losing sight of the rational, objective understanding of where the other is coming from. I need to walk the thin line between listening to my head too much and listening to my heart too much.

Which, I guess is kind of linked to the next thin line-- the line between the private and the public. In some ways, this whole entry is intensely private and a part of me says it belongs in my journal, not on my blog. In other ways, this entry is intensely public, and the other part of me says this entry belongs on a public space because I truly wish someone else in this kind of situation had written about this (and i THANK the author of "the damaged self" for having the courage to write that book). When i started this blog, I knew I didn't want it to be a public account of private moments-- and if anyone were to compare my blog to my journal, they wouldn't find more than maybe 10% overlap. And yet, I'm finding that the divide isn't so clear.

But then again, how could the journey from self to society ever happen if some of the private didn't, sooner or later, become the public?