Have you ever been put in a corner by a friend? They ask you to give them your honest opinion? Sadly you’re dumb enough to give it to them?
Don’t say something that reveals a character flaw. Don’t. Worse yet a flaw that’s true. I can be philosophical about it and say; pointing out a negative trait is like a pointing out one dot on a piece of white paper. There so much more white expanse than that small dot. So why should that small mark matter? But hold up that piece of paper and ask people what do they see, they’ll always say “a dot”. It seems most people including yourself just home in on the flaws to the exclusion of everything else.
I do believe that our weaknesses are as necessary as our strengths because they give us a world where we have a need of one another. We’re flawed. Everyone has something to learn and something to share. It’s others that teach or inspire us not only on what we can become but how to become it. If you believe that then your biggest weaknesses can with openness and a desire to learn become your biggest strengths. And those people who have been a part of your growth usually you bond to.
But if I think about what I suck at I feel small. I focus on a flaw like a dot is the whole page. I label myself based on a few sucky traits. Good or bad though all labels fail. Labels belong on boxes, on static things, not on living, changing or growing people. No label can represent all the things we are now or will ever become.
So, I was stupid with a dear friend in giving them what they asked for an ‘honest opinion’. I hurt them. And it hurt me to hurt them. I spent the next day crafting this poem and put it in a friendship card and stuck it in their letterbox.
‘Seeing the real you..’
“ I view the world through a camera and you’re caught within my lens,
an ever changing image…caught second to second..in single frames.
A face of you is attractive. I’ll catch that frame in joy,
I’ll remove it, enlarge it and soft focus I’ll employ.
I may choose it over the others it’s to me the essential you, to separate and develop and draw out for me to view…
(And I’ll look, And I’ll say, …I love )
Yet others are blurred.
Images my lens can’t catch.
The inexperience of the eye – can’t place the angle.
The novelty of the movement – can’t place the light.
And in frustration, I’ll lose it, And put the film aside. Losing many precious moments, through the darkness of the eye.
But I’ll move on catching others as they come also to view..
As if in the greater collection. I’d have in composite – you.
And then if I take a moment to study what I’ve seen. I have a kaleidoscope of moments, a myriad of reflections. And yet rare, a whole being.
It’s as if my lens is my understanding hence why the pictures not right,
experience focuses the range of vision,
learning the degree of light.
And it’s a friend though I’d develop.
And hold up for my own. The rare sweet moments of clear seeing..
When I don’t feel alone.
Would my heart in trust, open, and catch love, me and you as One.
To that sweet moment striving please come…and know I love.”
Fraying the Net 