Don't Reduce Me
I decided to go with the title "Don't Reduce Me" instead of "I Shall Not Be Reduced" because the proud declaration felt too confident, and I like the ambiguity between issuing a command and pleading. It's been a reflective couple of weeks, but answers are hard to come by. And then my mother said something to me that made explicit a truth that I had long feared.
Note: I'm venting a bit about my relationship with my mother, and in an effort to be honest and unfiltered, I know that what I present here will be judgmental, probably hurtful, and maybe unfair. But this blog seems to have become my confidante for unpleasant things, and in the spirit of not being reduced, I am perhaps oversharing and overstating.
Some context before I share the exchange from this morning: My mother has taken on a mantra, "Live simple, finish well." Unfortunately (in my opinion), this has not meant reducing consumption and distractions to focus on what matters; instead, it has seemed to mean not expending too much energy on difficult things, but rather stick to what is familiar, comfortable, and satisfying. I was for a brief time tangentially associated with an organization/community called "Simply Living" in Columbus, Ohio, and talked about simplifying my life for several years. I don't know for sure, but I've always suspected that my mother picked this mantra in part because she thought it would appeal to my sensibilities. Whether that is true or not, what has been revealed is how differently my mother and I think about simplicity, and when it is meritorious and when it is cringeworthy.
I have been doing a podcast with a good friend for almost a year now, and while the impetus was just to bring conversations he and I used to have on the basketball court into a public arena where others could participate, it has become a bit more structured as we decided we wanted to lay some foundations so we could aim the conversation in directions which interested us. As a result, we are currently doing a third season on subjectivity, experience, and learning (as a preamble to future conversations on artificial intelligence). And in this third season, we've spent some time on two of my favorite topics, language and normativity. I don't expect our podcast to be an enthralling listen, and neither is it intended to advance any program with experts. It's just something we're interested in and want to discuss, because we're passionately curious about these things.
My mother has dutifully listened to every episode of our podcast--an incredible gift of time and attention, as she is not interested in basketball, pop culture, philosophy, or science, which are pretty much the core strands of the podcast. Still, to let me know that she is watching, she comments on every single episode. It's a little embarrassing, since the comments are public for everyone to see, they're rarely about the content of the episode and more about how my friend and I look or sound, and often include some backhanded comment about how uninteresting or foreign our ideas are to her. But I'm grateful to have at least one listener, and for my mother to care about what I'm doing enough to give this gift of listening.
But after a second episode on language, she commented: "Phew…I am glad that topic of language is over. I’m so lost, and I don’t think I want to be found. Remember me….Live Simple, Finish Well. Really focusing on the simple right now." Keep in mind that my academic specialization, prior to abandoning academia, was philosophy of language, and that I have been passionate about foreign languages, linguistics, philosophy of meaning, word games, puns, etc., pretty much my entire life. It's like if I were to say to her, after going to church with her for two services, "Phew...I am glad that religion thing is over. I'm so lost, and I don't think I want to be found. Remember me....Ignore Silliness, Live Intentionally. Really focusing on things that make sense and have value right now." It's such a cruel and reductive sentiment, and even worse, it was said without an ounce of intention to hurt. She just knows me so poorly, and makes so little effort to understand anything outside herself and her own assumptions, that it seemed like the funny conversational thing to say.
So today I am calling her to catch up and to tell her about some difficult decisions I'm currently facing about my future. She asks a bunch of questions about things I had either already said earlier in the conversation or which don't apply to my personality, goals, or values, and when the answers don't line up with what she was expecting or wanting me to say, she said (paraphrasing), "Even if I had developed my training in psychology and could remember everything you had done in your life, I don't think I would figure you out or know who you are." Yep, I know: you don't know me, and that gap puts such a strain on our relationship. I want you to know me, almost more than anything--I think I would rather know that you understood me and rejected me than that you accepted me because then you didn't have to get to know me in any genuine way. And while I was incredibly hurt and saddened, I tried to think about where this sentiment might be coming from, because I know my mother loves me and it saddens her that there is distance between us. So why would she say this? And why would it feel so impossible for her to understand me?
I think it might have to do with her mantra of living simply. I have a very deep conviction that truth is complicated, reality is complex, and people are multifaceted and dynamic. Adages, cliches, and other pithy sayings are appealing because they seem to get at something important very quickly, and there is surprising depth behind what seems to be simplicity itself. And I think this tricks us into thinking that we should be able to boil anything down to its essential truth, something that can be communicated quickly and immediately understood. However, this is an illusion. I do not think proverbs are easily formulated--they emerge with lots of experience, reflection, reformulation, etc. And we have so many proverbs that seemingly contradict each other, yet we find contraries individually compelling. I think this reveals the complexity of life, not its simplicity, and I think we are drawn to the paradox of trying to encapsulate complexity simply. This is not the same thing as refusing to do difficult things, of expecting things to make sense easily and without effort, to reduce things to a quotable catchphrase.
I am complex. I have internal conflicts. I have a history. I have multidimensional feelings and thoughts about the world around me. I have trouble reconciling these things either in real time or upon reflection. And I am not unique. I suspect this is why we find facades disingenuous: we know there is more to someone than what they present. We know our own multitudes, and suspect others have them, but we only catch glimpses, and if those glimpses seem too well-ordered, then how can we relate to someone whose life is so easy or, alternatively, who is spending such energy to deceive us?
So I'm saddened to be misunderstood, and for my mother to feel that I am a mystery she will never solve. I'm also very saddened that getting to know me, getting to know other people and the world around her, is more effort than she wants to make. But if I'm being honest, I do relate to this. I'm a very lazy person, and it would be nice to be able to rest from the purposiveness that the good life seems to demand. So I think I'm simultaneously critical and envious of my mom. I want life to appear simple, and to reduce conflict, challenge, disappointment, failure, etc. But I can't shake the belief that this is an illusion, and this is reinforced when I myself am part of the landscape that imposes a challenge on that simple life. But please, do not reduce me.