Life would be grand if it weren’t for the people – Alice Munroe
The gut is a mixture of fire and ice, the mind an insatiable dome of fear, and the brain a theater of electrifying crescendo, morphing into one impenetrable loop. It is your first day at work.
There is a phenomenon that successfully slips under the radar of discussion and awkwardly stumbles under the lamp of scrutiny. It is The Firsts; a life event being experienced for The First time. We don't like The Firsts, especially compared to the seeming omniscience of The Experienced.
With any First, there accompanies an overwhelming wide-eyed sensation, innocent in nature, that surrenders you to the circumstances and bares you open to the process of maturity. It's humid, embarrassing, and equally, transcendent with opportunity, but do you remember when it wasn't always anxiety-inducing?
Children are a fascinating bunch because they are in desperate adoration of Firsts, always wanting to open doors to new opportunities and find themselves strangers in a foreign land. One of my youngest coveted Firsts was my first purchase. It was a $20 Target horse that ate plastic straws and roamed the delicate, vivacious province of my room's carpet. Walking up to the cash register, I brimmed with an unquenchable thirst for the yet-to-be claimed that twisted my fascination into a tree of endless excitement. It was the same on my first day of school, my first leg shave(I felt like a woman, to loosely quote Shania Twain), and even my first friend. Yet, as we fledge, our love of Firsts shrinks, bringing a new love to the forefront: stability.
It is a true psychological fact that our brains disdain discomfort. Either through nurture or nature, we are wired to love familiarity and to instinctually caution the unknown, while our imagination and curiosity fall wayside. I have experienced this wild west puberty of the brain first hand. Where once I was so freshly christened by renewed air and lifted across a plain of extraterrestrial experiences, I now find myself tangled underneath soft, weighted bedding, unwilling to relocate. Where I once had FOMO(Fear Of Missing Out), now I have FOBI(Fear Of Being Included). Have I become complacent? Or worse...jaded?
If we are laying blame, I would like to point my finger at the nauseating and bloated general public. See, before I met "people", I had this notion that within each individual was a ray of light that, if nurtured, broke through the inherent webbed phlegm that wraps around the chest, melting away the insecurity and hurt to produce sauna-inducing temperatures. I had no idea that those "sauna-like temperatures" often turn into mind-roasting barbecue fests(Hmmm, medium rare brain), as discovered through my first solo journey to the library.
“No one can take a compliment these days!"
As I sat on the bench, pretending I was the starring role in a John Hughes film, my daydreams were abruptly shattered by a stout, gaunt man whose comment closely followed after he mumbled what I guessed to be a "compliment" about my appearance. He sharply shuffled away from me with frustrated hands thrown towards heaven. He didn’t feel human, but instead, a rare and budding species of alien that was unaware of the existence of Dove soap. I was attempting to examine the words of the book in front of me, but not digesting them due to my mind’s eye focusing on the pale terrestrial life 20 feet to my left. He had walked to the nearest bench over, slumping into position to hack up what I could only guess was one of his lungs.
“Ye-ya you gorgeous, ain’tcha?!”, he elegantly barked at a passing brunette sporting her trendiest outfit which I assume she envisioned to garner a cleaner fan base. I could feel hot fear bubbling in my stomach and rising to my throat, and simultaneously an uneasy churning of my breakfast caused by the anxiety of imminent unpredictability. He was my cue to exit. I gathered my book and bag with the inundated inconvenience. The alien looked at me, and where his eyes were once so brazen with idiocy, they were now uneasy to be noticed by other life. I was equally disturbed to learn of his species.
Over time, starting with interactions such as this and alike, I came to understand that instead of being affixed with a halo at birth to become oxidized with time, we are by and large, devoid of good to begin with. Fortunately, this does not mean that the remaining characteristics are evil. There is not a thick cloud of psychopaths roaming the streets, ready to scalp you at any moment's notice(depending on where you call home). I have realized that those lacking goodness, but not necessarily passing the rubicon of complete apathy, fall into the mediocre category of normal. What I was looking at in the unhinged eyes of the homeless librarian man was the general public.
From our first interactions on, we start to uncover the normality of daily exchange. It is the purest study of human behavior, the most concerning litmus test, and maybe most disappointing, a perpetual affair.
During my first day of college, I expected a flurry of young minds, intersecting one another with ideals that held their weight. I had visions of hypothetical mind melds with the best professors and the strongest learners, up until the shadowy figure of reality greeted me with a cold hand across the face. I passed my peers in the hallways, greeted by their laser stares and reluctant shuffles. I felt as if I were wearing suspenders and yelling “HOWDY!” to my passing neighbors, offering them the fresh morning eggs of my beloved chicken, Bertha. I wasn’t looking for their monetary approval or even a hug, I was just looking for something... something more than nothing? I came home to complain of what I perceived as utter rudeness, distinct nastiness, and downright lowness of student society to my mother. I was baffled by this untenable human behavior. Until my first job.
“I do not care,” I muttered to myself as the man of 80 droned on about the history of his daughter’s academic career. It was cute for the first minute and a personal attack after five. His words slowly ejected from his mouth as if waiting to be loaded in the chamber of his machine gun of lethargy with each breath he took. As a freshly minted cashier, this was the first time dealing with individuals with too much time on their hands. They wanted to purchase their items and in so doing, tell you why each item applied to their life in a very special and beautiful way, while the line behind them elongated like a python preparing to squeeze me. The muscles in my body tensed and my brain wrapped around itself enough times to choke the logic out bringing me to a bout of full internal combustion. More importantly, I was starting to not care.
I do not care...
I felt as if with each First, it was consequently marred by the truth that followed, and somehow my imagination was blasted from its roots and subjected to the baking of negativity. I had not previously felt this because I was homeschooled, sheltered in all of the positive respects, and dosed with darkened corners of existence for flavor. I thought I was prepared, but I never knew a simple truth.
People are not nice.
After a year of college, work, and volunteering, freshly birthed out of my homeschooled bubble, I was infused with the worries of man. Every hour of my day was met with the absent eyes of a stranger in necessity and complete repulsion. I felt a thick shell melt across my chest to divert the sordid and draining reality of people. To the point that the full eyes of a friend similarly grappled the back walls of my heart with exhaustion. I didn't want to give, didn't want to say hi, and as I roamed the halls before class, I kept my eyes pasted to the floor with a bottomless stare.
Molecules move at a certain speed in the air, which is called thermal motion. The more energy the molecules have, the more rapidly they move to create a production of heat. This means it takes an input of external forces for a molecule to be an energetic, golden retriever of the thermal motion world. Consequently, without that outside force, they just stroll in the park at a leisurely speed, lamenting humanity, and looking musty. We, at rest, are slow-moving molecules, and without any external pressure that we place on ourselves to act outside of normality, we remain at rest.
I held loyal to the theory that if I simply moved enough, similar to shaking a flashlight, I would eventually illuminate for people when needed. When in reality, my motion had run for so long that my batteries were overheating. What happens when batteries overheat? They stop working. I stopped working, hating The Firsts with a personal vendetta. The only vice I could find was the flat safety of crinkled lines and hollowed puddles of comfort on my bed sheets, wishing for a time when I was not this exhausted.
Should I not keep running? Why stay down in this hole?
As a child, I dreamt of lands foreign and wide, occupied by pending mysteries and perhaps even aliens. Now I live in a land, filled to the brim with obscure mysteries, and shockingly..also with aliens, although they admittedly look more benign than imagined. It is as if the Lord knew exactly what was in my heart. The only difference in my enjoyment of this translation of dreams is my control. The older we get, the more our will takes hold, where all of our wants and wishes materialize into a pole of unmovable mass. The minute the gift of imagination weaves through our circumstances and flips our life open to an innumerable life of Firsts as an adult, we denounce our joy, hide under our beds in fear, or perhaps angrily scream in our cars(I would never do any of these by the way...).
"You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household."
To combat this daily Willy Wonka World of Wonders, we do as I did, which is slip into the cursed daily dialogue of "Hey, how are you?...Hmmm, I am good...". All the while our eyes glaze over as if morphine is slowly being injected into our vains, lulling us into a pained sleep. You may even take this a step ahead, smiling so wide and large that the creases on your cheeks have become a permanent reminder that you bear enough worldly weight for two. How could we not cope with such behavior? People are so predictable with their clothes, mannerisms, and venaculars. I could box someone up in two looks and send them off to get judged by my "merciless" benovelance. We can only do so much, so we settle by giving the immediate world the responses they need based upon their personalities. It is uninspiring
It is this approach, willing yourself to violently vibrate to generate normal function among the day walkers, is a sure way to entitle yourself to the common resentment of life. We are not creatures of complacency, sadness, or resentment, for those are simply the beasts that impede the pathways of circulation, stealing the color from our cheeks. The Lord made us aliens and foreigners, to venture with innocent conviction into new lands, embracing His ineffable imagination, until we are strangers no more. With each new day, we have a decision to embrace the Firsts of each new interaction, believing that each individual we lock eyes with has more than we can respect in a glance, be it their story is beautifully simple or wickedly complex. That does not mean that the majority of those who we encounter will originate from Mr. Roger's neighborhood, because in fact, many are a constant stream of the unacceptable. Yet, our ability to discern and grow our heart attitude, is the growth that our spirits crave. When we can no longer look into the faces brought forth around us, is the minute our imaginations begin to die, our bodies slow down into dormancy, and our ministries lay cold.
Our bright and diverse colors of joy orginates from investment of the self in the future, preparing not for the know, but gearing for the Firsts. That is the movement that brings goodness to the forefront of our vision, lifting our hearts into a hammock of rest. We are more than the burdens of man because God never asks that we subsist on a diet of modern mediocrity, but He always asks we transcend the visible for the implausible.
I do not mean for this to sound as if I, personally, am a bright shining star, constantly running towards the brimming sunshine up past the hill. In fact, I struggle to find His sun/Son in many ways throughout my day, but when those rays crack through the smog above our brains, it is a sacred sight to see. As soon as the clouds part, I am in a full sprint to find the sunspots that warm my back and coat my face in His love, reminding me what it means to have faith of a child. Overwhelmed by His beauty, I want to feel so full that I cannot help but radiate the heat of my Lord. It is my first day at work for Him, as every new day begins.
Look that strange homeless man in the eye, wave back to the stranger across the street that is actually waving to the person behind you, and walk through a very unhappy Walmart checkout line with confidence and resounding audacity. It is the purposeful and accidental interactions, where we choose to keep our eyes wide open, that allow us remain youthful in your exploration of the Lord's land. In so doing, you may just find there are more extraordinary Firsts than you could ever envision. In the process, you will become your own alien, foreign in nature, and remade into an image unimagined. Now, go find your next First, whatever or whoever that may be, not running, but sprinting.
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