1:28 PM - 16.10.04
Ghosts
The snow arrived right on time. The forecasters had said 6 pm and 6 pm is when I first noticed snow on the neighbour's roof. There is a gut feeling that likely hits most people born and raised here. I was just going to go and pick up some cat food at the graocery store early in the day but the nesting instinct was so strong that I ended up buying things that normally only see the inside of my larder when it's the deep of winter. You know things like baking supplies for Christmas and food that is too heavy to digest during warmer months. They all found their way into my shopping cart somehow. The nice thing about it was that everything I picked up was on sale so I saved about 30% off the bill too.
Other than that I've mostly just researched and entered contests on the internet today. The contests? Well when there is no money coming in any free and legal way to bring extra in is welcome. The research is with respect to the essay I mentioned working on about two weeks ago. Need to get my facts straight don't you know. One of the reasons I started writing to you, dear diary, was because writing down things that confuse me or where I am having trouble finding good solutions often brings the answers I need in it's wake. Hopefully when I've completed this thought process I'll know what to do. We'll see.
So here is part one of my essay - haven't finished the research because there is still something wrong with the computers. The rest - the part about the ghosts - will follow tomorrow barring any further difficulties.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In James Michener`s novel �Hawaii�, he described the struggles and sacrifices successive waves of settlers from cultures, races and faiths around the world experienced to make that paradise a home - their home. I read the book several times, because I was fascinated by the blending and compromise that went on over centuries to make the Hawaiian culture unique. What always saddened me was how each successive wave of settlers dismissed or dishonoured the work of those who had come before them. So much of their real world was shared both physically and with respect to their experiences, yet it always seemed to be that they focused on their differences when trying to interact with each other.
Those small differences were usually exploited and exacerbated by those who most benefited from maintaining the status quo within their own distinct community. Not surprising I guess, but the lengths that the destructive people were willing to go to in order to maintain their power upset me greatly. Their strength seemed to be to appeal to the "ghosts" of the past of each group`s separate lives before coming to Hawaii. You know, the things of cultural and faith practices left behind in order to thrive in their current circumstances. It was easy to shift �the blame� for the lost treasures of their heritage on the �others�, rather than accepting it as the price of admission to a new blended world. Those old ghosts were often the driving and dividing force in the relationships between both individuals and groups in their current situation, even though so much else was shared. �That which is repressed manifests.�
In a more current fashion, that phenomenon was expressed by one of my favorite bloggers when describing a movie he just viewed. �The first short film was, perhaps the most poignant, it was a Brazilian film about childhood. The juxtaposition of rich white girls with ballet classes, and tap classes, and talking about swimming and gymnastics versus the boys, about the same age, talking about work. Footage of boys at work, or playing soccer in the dust versus the girls at class, or strolling in the garden.
It was billed as a documentary, but the power was the message - and the way it was delivered. Pretty strong short work, but objective? Brown boys and white girls?
In bleak way, I was commenting on the gender differences whereas my Aquarius friend was commenting on the color differences, I never noticed the difference in hue, and she never noticed the gender point. Combine them together? Just what was the message?
A very powerful short film. �Xenon�
Two people, likely sharing much that was similar in experience, but still seeing different aspects of a story based on ghosts of their pasts. As I read his description of the story, the first salient point I noticed was the division between those who had material wealth and those who were not allowed to sit at the table. Ghosts of my own too. Three people in one �conversation� all talking to themselves. More than likely the film maker had a very different intent from what each of us perceived too.
So what am I on about? Well if hints dropped are any indication, we may find ourselves dealing with another Federal election sometime next year. Ouch. One of the areas I really feel I need to work on is the tension that was evident among different workers from the whole range of races, cultures and faiths who worked in my office. I think I mentioned that we had 42 language groups identified as available for translation just from our polling day workers` backgrounds. Think again about the novel Hawaii where only four races and cultures were negotiating relationships. Now multiply that by ten and stick all those factors in an office where the pressure is intense, the tasks overwhelming. Where everyone is dealing with a lack of resources, support and information from a remote head office 2000 miles away. That head office changing gears almost hourly to accommodate the eccentricities of a population spread across a vast landmass, each with it`s own little ghosts created by different periods of settlement and different mixes of settlers.
The easiest way to describe most of the conflicts would likely be to call them �racism�, but that really doesn`t capture the real nature of the tension. What dominated was the unspoken and the unseen - ghosts from each person's past - where conflict built around the fact that each person in the room may have been using the same words, but each one in turn heard and understood very different things based on their own subjective interppretation of reality. Those subtle, spectral barriers to communication were then exploited by about half a dozen people who had political or "hunger for power" axes to grind. They massaged that tension, creating little firestorms that each had a debilitating effect on the rest of the staff � me included. It was exhausting to have to keep trying to have everyone focus on the non-negotiable end results we had to achieve by election day.
When I was thinking about strategies to ease the problems the other day, I approached someone whose opinion I have enormous respect for and who is also of a different racial and cultural background from me. The difficulty of what I will face trying to mitigate some of the problems was illustrated graphically by their own reaction. It was obvious I hit a very painful nerve for them. The emotional energy I felt coming from them made me wince as if they had yelled at me � something they would never do. �Just make them stop�. I explained that I had let two of the worst and most vocal offenders go � those who were driven by malice or bigotry � and that complaints against me, because of my actions in dealing with them, had been registered with Ottawa as a result. There is a price to be paid for calling bigots or bullies by their real names � usually a violent attack of some description on oneself or one`s work. I have no problem with that.
However, I also have no desire to have the rest of the office polarized by extending the punishment to those who are suckered in to the troublemaker�s game plan through appealing to their own ghosts. Stupidity, naivite or blindness is better dealt with by education than by retaliation. There are times when getting other people to see behind the mask of those who are wilfully destructive is a cure for the problem rather than the band aid that retribution offers. The difficulty lies in divorcing oneself from their own ghosts � my own ghosts � so I can tell which is which.
The problem is that people often see and hear through their own pain, fear, sense of loss or alienation first. Often what one says hits built in triggers that shut down the other person to absorbing what is meant rather than "heard" through those ghostly ears. When I worked with a survivor of torture from the Middle East we would talk of ordinary things using the same words. When it came to discussing world events we would have to work very hard at not letting our emotional and psychological triggers be tripped. You know, those deeply embedded and mostly unconscious cultural and religious beliefs that had been programmed into us from childhood. They often drive what we experience subjectively as a result. �That which is repressed manifests.� Too often in the form of violence or dysfunction I might add.
My ghosts? I try to explore them as follows. The comments at the end of my little diatribe is the list of conclusions I came to to explain my choices. I can`t always see what the outcomes are going to be - whether those choices are right or wrong - because I`m not reading a novel anymore. I envy Mr. Michener`s opportunity to put his observations on paper without being immersed in the situations he described himself. So here are the sources of my less than functional behaviours dear diary. How do I out my own ghosts so I can deal with the ones in my office this coming election?
�
�
