I, Fly

I see the world through the eyes of a fly. Many panes, many angles, a kaleidoscope of shapes, each a split-degree off, pointed at the source light but absorbing it a micrometer from the pane next door. It makes me aware, vigilant and tormented. It's a gift and a burden. It's not just seeing. It's an overall perceptual tax, a sensory ingestion that informs the way I encounter the relentless world around me.

I hear a word and I instantly conjure every definition of it and even the tangential definitions of similar words. I've often joked that I have a hearing impediment, which is cute and casual, but is actually true. Well, a more accurate term would be an "interpretation impediment." Most often I figure out the intended meaning of a term and therefore function quite well amongst the fertile world of spoken syllables, but too many times to count I'll pin my assumption tail to the wrong donkey and I'm left confused.

Now would be a good time to share examples but I'm at a loss. My memory fails me. Sorry.

It makes me bad at lyrics. I don't listen well to songs. I've known people that can hear a song and immediately sing along as if they were there the day the napkin got scribbled. But me? I get tripped up on an un-understood word in a song and I focus on that word, my brain desperately processing the possible meanings, like a computer in a hurry to answer a Jeopardy question. Meanwhile, the song has propelled forward, dooming subsequent lyrics to the bin of noise. I just don't hear it right. I don't. And so over the years I've learned to file most singers' voices under the 'instrument' label. Never leave me in charge of the music to play at a funeral.

Ooh! Here's an example. For years I thought that song with the lyric, "Going to the chapel and we're... gonna get married" was "Going to the castle and we're... gonna get married." I was certain that was the lyric until a beautiful laughing girlfriend pointed out my poor aim once it came up somehow. I coulda sworn it was castle. To me, getting married at a castle is much more appealing than at a chapel. It made sense, so that's how it got etched into my brain's hard drive.

It works for emotion, too. All these angles. I'm highly emotional, even though I spend most of my calories hiding it. It's a real fucking burden. It's enough of a challenge to struggle with the insistent presence of my own emotional reactor's output. Add to that my ability to absorb the emotions of those around me. Jubilence. Tears. Peace. Anger. Fear. Worry. Anxiety. Ease. Panic.

Discomfort and awkwardness are two I specialize in, or have at least been honing in the last two or so years since I started doing stand up comedy. I attend many many many shows and I'm fascinated by the entire interaction. I know what it's like to be on both sides of the microphone. Doing it aside, watching it is always a ready lesson in the hows and how nots and in the ripples of shiny shit puddles we all struggle to rise above. The iguana community could learn from my dual sightedness. I always keep one eye on the performer and one on the crowd, seeking the most nutritious insect morsel I can glean. I see someone sitting stiffly and straightening their sleeve and I immediately want to rescue them. I see a comic glance around, brain racing, confused, self-focused, being bitten by the slow accumulation of dumb mistakes and I empathize.

Empathy. There. One of my favorite words. That's the word I've been trying to talk about here. Except it's loaded. Because a lot of people confuse empathy with compassion. They're not the same thing. Empathy is compassion without the caring.

I really don't care. I mean, on some level, sure I do. I won't stand aside during true suffering, physical pain, or acute desperation. But by and large I chalk up the emotions of others as ingredients in the shit sandwich existence foists down our uncloseable throats. Maybe that's what death is: the final insistence that we're not gonna swallow any more shit. Final breath. Relief from the onslaught.

It makes me tremendously good at keeping secrets. Tell me whatever dumb crazy stupid sinful dirty thing you have to share and it'll go straight to the copper-wired cement dungeon of my mind, to be buried, neglected, but most importantly, forgotten about. I like gossip, sure. I'm human. It's provocative. But I simply don't give a shit, nor do I care if others give a shit. That's the secret to secret-keeping. I'm a safe-deposit box that immediately erases whatever you put inside me.

It's the absence of compassion. Seeing, not caring. Feeling too much, not feeling anything at all.

This is all probably why I find the sound of a crying child so painful. Because I don't like experiencing that kind of honesty. It's too pure. This seems hypocritical but I make an exemption for children. They don't know better. They deserve neither blame nor credit for the silly actions of their impulsive instincts.

Adults, however? Adults should behave, or at least they're expected to. You have to draw the line somewhere.

This is why I don't expect anybody to care about me. Because I've proved my adulthood readily with my aging skin and early-onset baldness and bouts of bad credit and paying rent and masturbating to conjured images of other adults. I'll suffer just fine, thank you. Don't feel sorry for me. This attitude contributed to why I broke up with my girlfriend. Cause she was filled with care. She had a sincere ability to love, but I refused to let her do so fully, because I couldn't share my hurt. And because I lack the good sense to let myself feel something sub-surface; to expose someone I care about to the trauma that swirls under my waters. It bubbled up occasionally, sure, but I always beat it down. "Let me in," I remember her pleading.

Never did.

In two years of dating I never told her about this blog.

Maybe I'm not as adult as I think I am.