It’s an understatement to admit I am not comfortable here. (Who would be?) So much so, I pretended for years no such world existed for me. After all, I worked hard at presenting a good person to those I encountered. (Note the word ‘presenting’.) I held jobs, volunteered, contributed to charity. I befriended neighbors, went to church and helped little old ladies across the street. I tipped well and left a neat table at restaurants. Thinking myself a positive, contributing member of the human Tribe, I meandered along ignoring the occasional stench wafting up. (And waft it did. Like an over-loaded sewer at a chili-bean expo.)
Some days it was worse than others. Even then, however, I decided it wasn’t my stink. It was the loathsome smell caused by other people’s refusal to evolve. (An endeavor I thought I had a handle on.) Damn it, I was a good person! Instead of judging I ‘recognized them for who they were and treated them accordingly’. Instead of hating I merely decided I ‘would have nothing to do with those people’. What I did wasn’t gossiping; it was expressing concern. (To everyone but the person involved, of course.) Manipulation wasn’t the word I used for the passive, fear-based maneuvers I employed to gain the responses I needed. The untrue things I said weren't actually lies. They were the price I paid to be a member of society. I acted, as I was taught, as if I were an accepting, friendly, loving human being. And I did it so well, I even fooled myself. Until…
You would think having the door to such a deeply-buried, horrid place blown off the hinges would have been triggered by some catastrophic event. Something so inconceivably, gawd-awful it deifies description. But it wasn’t. In fact, the moment the “Welcome to Your Personal Hell” mat was thrown out for me was a small blip on the screen of daily life. In the supermarket, no less. Standing behind two women. And it went something like this:
Woman A: “If you ask me, the state should come in, take all the children and put them in foster care.”
Woman B: *sigh*“I know what you mean. I worry about those poor, little ones. With a mother like that...”
Woman A: said grimly “You mean the ones she has left?”
Woman B: with real confusion “I just don’t understand why God gives children to people like that.”
Woman A: “I’m pretty sure God had nothing to do with the way her children were conceived.”
Woman B: “I mean, what mother goes off and leaves her children in the car. Even for a few seconds?” Woman A: “She’s not a mother. She’s an alley cat who should have been sterilized at birth.”
Several moments of bland conversation as the purchases are tallied and then -
Woman B: “Are you headed for (another store)?”
Woman A: “Not yet. I have to swing by the house and drop off the kids. I picked them up from (a local elementary school) and they’re waiting for me in the van.”
Woman A: said grimly “You mean the ones she has left?”
Woman B: with real confusion “I just don’t understand why God gives children to people like that.”
Woman A: “I’m pretty sure God had nothing to do with the way her children were conceived.”
Woman B: “I mean, what mother goes off and leaves her children in the car. Even for a few seconds?” Woman A: “She’s not a mother. She’s an alley cat who should have been sterilized at birth.”
Several moments of bland conversation as the purchases are tallied and then -
Woman B: “Are you headed for (another store)?”
Woman A: “Not yet. I have to swing by the house and drop off the kids. I picked them up from (a local elementary school) and they’re waiting for me in the van.”
Thunder struck. And I mean it. There I stood (clutching carrots, celery and a loaf of bread) and the whole world rocked. I don’t know why. (Maybe the stars were aligned just right. Maybe it was a rare moment when my head didn’t require locating by a proctologist. Maybe it was because, I too, was a mother who had darted into the house for something while my children sat in the car at some point.) Whatever it was, I stood in a stark moment of crystal clarity; trapped in a tidal wave of insight that blew the mask right off, because in their fragrantly flaunted self-delusions I finally caught an undeniable, strong whiff of my own stench.
I left that store in tears. I walked through my door - in tears. I sat the entire evening while my husband paced and worried - in tears. Because laid out in front of me, unavoidable and undeniable, was my Underground and all I could say (with absolute and total shock) - through tears - was I was, in reality, a horrible person. How many times had I had conversations like that? Thought things like that? Judging? Self-righteous, imperious, morally-arrogant? How often had I pontificated with such callous disregard or flat-out, self-justified disdain? Needless to say, my realization of the Underground was a harrowing, life-changing experience. (I equate it with Willie Wonka’s nightmare boat-ride while on acid brought by the bastard love child of Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol.) Everywhere I looked in the past, I found neon, techno-color examples of it oozing up and out touching and tainting every life it touched. (Believe me when I say, 'that day sucked'.)
In hindsight, believe it or not, I am grateful to those two women and I would do it again, daunting though it is considering I am now fully aware of a malcontented, ego-driven, fear-based collective of self-important cowards lurking in my head. Nasty, little beastly-selves so far down the evolutionary scale they live only to react mindlessly at the first whiff of something which might be used to prove me ‘better’ than another human being. Because as I struggled to pick through the shrapnel of my shattered self-delusion, I figured out what it would take to actually begin fashioning the person I wanted to be, the person I had secretly known I was not. To affect real change, I first had to sit in front of who I truly was; ripe, rotten and spread all around me.
Learning to work with them has been an exercise of mentality. Most times I live like a forest ranger in a tower, sniffing for smoke in an effort to forestall a raging blaze of stupidity which can singe my world and others. More often than not, I have to strap on the mud-boots and slog down into their lair in an effort to keep them under my control.
For example: Offering this post triggered the visceral yowling of Fear. After all, what would people think if they came to Modern Prometheia looking for laughter, compassion, insight, or a pleasant way to kill time and instead found my Uglies sprawled about? Would they run out the door screaming? Or better yet, sit around petting their own Uglies? (Because let me tell you, Uglies love to play to, with, and against each other. We deny them but for most of us they make as much trouble as a group of blind monkeys armed with power tools in tin building.)
Anyway. Fear and I don't get along too well, (actually, we can't stand each other) so I did what I sometimes do. I snuggled up to a different Ugly. Reaching for Ego I tackled the issue I knew would be easier; writing this exposé of our Underground. (I are a writer, after all. *grunt*) Squatting around the pit, Ego and I savored the flavors of what we knew would wind up in these paragraphs while Fear stalked in the background impatiently. We daydreamed titles, petted sentences, swapped out words and chortled at how witty we were.
When our game ended Ego strutted off to her hallelujah chorus, abandoning me once more to the most persistent Ugly in my bunch. And as is her way, Fear didn’t waste a second. Bam. Right in my face. What would others think when I openly admitted to the traits oiling occasional backslides into petulant, base humanity? Was I crazy? Self-sabotaging? How could people like me if I let them see that sometimes my life walk is more a snorting, knuckle-dragging waddle?
She had several valid points, but I held out. For me, the majority of my growth towards being a positive part of the human Tribe has come from my efforts to acknowledge and understand this Underground. Because by admitting to the reality of its inhabitants, I have come to know them. Not only in myself but others as well. I can spot them and, on most occasions, inoculate mine against the toxic mob-mentality they thrive on. While it was a fact not all who bought a ticket to my tour would gain something positive, not everyone who came to the zoo would walk away still blind to their own door. There would be some who were ready to face their Underground, people who needed to know opening the door and taking a good look down is not only survivable, but (surprise, surprise) the right thing to do.
So here is my Underground. The gross, nasty cesspit of my human failings at their most disappointing and least desirable: Fear, Low-Self Esteem, Dishonesty, Judgment, Selfishness, Callousness, Prejudice, Arrogance, Pride, Ego, Resentment, and Passive-Aggressive Maneuvers. All of them are here. Tracked, tagged and for the most part caged. Still, I've learned they're pretty good at escaping so vigilance is essential. (Sneaky bitches.) Amidst the grunting, growling, screeching and breast-thumping this is where I sit to ponder my maladjusted parts and while I do apologize for them when necessary, I'm glad to know them. They have taught me invaluable lessons because now that we've been properly introduced I can look into these low-browed, unevolved ladies and understand what created them, giving me a vital place to begin tending the scars and wounds from which they were born. And that, for me, was the first step towards being a positive contribution to the kind of world I want to live in.
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