On invisibility, celebrations & week 36 of 52

moments of reflection

I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously. —Christopher Hitchens

Moving through the world for even a few minutes of our lives with the idea that we could already be gone elucidates just how many brilliant moments there are to experience.

In a way, this experiment is about what it means to be visible and invisible, to see and not see.

I did. When I was a kid, I used to pretend I was invisible ALL THE TIME.

The game would entertain me for hours. I think a lot of kids pretend to be invisible. Or maybe I was strange. Either way, it was a fun game that allowed me to see the actions of my parents and sister in new ways. As I hid or moved silently through the house, they weren’t about business as usual.

George Bailey: Isn't it wonderful? I'm going to jail! ― It's a Wonderful Life (1947)

The fact is, when we die, the world WILL go on, business as usual. It’s kind of like when I go to pick my loving dog up from the sitter after a long trip and she seems to have forgotten who I am for a moment before getting excited. She was sad when I first left, but after a few days, she was just fine without me.

The entire world will be. But I don’t say this to make anyone feel inconsequential. I say this to say that every moment is huge. It’s everything. Every moment is everything. The world is constantly in flux. To explore these ideas is to create art.

“We’re all carrying our coffins with us every day.” ― Edwidge Danticat

While our names may or may not live on, we have no control over what is remembered and chances are it will be minuscule. But what is left is our impact. I didn’t watch It’s a Wonderful Life this year, but I did watch other movies, including A Christmas Carol remake with Bill Murray, Scrooged, and it struck me how many movies are about realizing the ephemeral nature of life and remembering this in order to better live.

My husband’s aunt died recently. Younger than 60, she was a woman I’d only met twice but who left a marked impression on me. She was strong willed and not self-conscious (at least not visibly) in the least. I admire these qualities, and I am happy to have met her, but I barely knew her aside from this snap impression.

When we feel the urge to shrink back, away from attention or when we reconsider sharing perspectives, maybe we should imagine the opposite. What if we truly were invisible. While we’re visible, why not share our stories? Why not share our successes? Why not share our experiences?

This is a simple concept but one that I’ve observed is often lost on many principled people. We don’t have to be self-serving to celebrate and share our wins, and we don’t have to minimize what we do in the world. In fact, maybe if more good people learned to share their ideas and wins with confidence, perhaps fewer people would rally around the villains that seem to be taking over leadership positions globally.

Maybe Hitchens didn’t have confidence in the world to be quite ready to digest his arguments, but he made them nonetheless. And while I align more with a magical version of reality than he did, I am so glad he did.

No one has all the answers, but if we hide, we can’t bridge ideas and find what we—perhaps only collectively—are capable of understanding about this short life.

Photo by David DINTSH

AYTL experiment: Where in your life are you not listening to those who think differently? Can you find their wisdom, and can you better celebrate your own? (Just a question - do with it what you will.)

Writing prompt: Write about the person who always hides emerging from the shadows and facing all that comes (rewarding and confrontational) with exposure.

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” —Emerson

A meditation for times of fear here.