I Think I Love You

Disagreements are no fun. But they can provide the fun opportunity of learning more about yourself and others. I stumbled into one such disagreement recently and was taken aback by the fact that it happened and then the underlying reason for it.

Ultimately it stemmed from two divergent views of the world. This post isn’t about those views or their differences though. It’s about a small epiphany I had this morning — five days later — based on part of my response to them concerning the initial rub.

I’m not a loner, yet I’m also oftentimes detached in a very real sense. It’s not that I don’t care about people, but reaching out to make contact and foster a relationship isn’t a forte of mine. Add distance to the mix and it goes to shit pretty fast. Proximity is very much a factor .This is a good place to apologize to all of you in Mobile that I really do care about but have done a piss-poor job of keeping up with.

What I realized, though, is that the largest contributing factor to who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ is the person’s ideas. Or perhaps the way they arrive at their ideas. Both. Put another way: my relationships are largely defined by my relationship to someone’s ideas.

This is true in some form or fashion for all of us, I think. But I guess I learned that it’s a direct and ultimate type of connection for me. The people I like the least are the ones who refuse to think. The ones I gravitate towards are the ones who are thoughtful. We don’t have to agree on things by any means, but something more substantive than kneejerk reactions have to compose their train of thought. If that’s how you operate then we should go ahead and part ways. Or, in some cases, the duties inherent in familial ties may keep us loosely associated, but no more than we must be. Douche McGee over here, huh?

I’m not certain yet what this says about me. In one sense I feel as if it may make my affections and interests in people more sterile. While not concerned with beauty being only skin deep perhaps it’ a form of shallowness all the same. Then again, who are you as a person aside from your thoughts? If you suffer a traumatic blow to the head and your personality flips then you are no longer you. Or are you? Obviously things get pretty tricky quite fast when talking about personhood and ontology. I think we can all agree, though, that in that case (or senility, Alzheimer’s, etc.) you at least aren’t you in the exact same measure or sense. Thus, in a meaningful sense, we are the summation of our thoughts.

“Words are wind” and “we’re the sum of our actions!” one could retort. And rightly so. Yet, once more, I’d tie those actions back to our truest, most pure thoughts. And by ‘pure’ I only mean to say what we truly think, behind the charade and veneer we convince even ourselves is who we are.

Behind every action stands an idea. What we do is always based off of what we have or haven’t thought through. Maybe if Jesus were here today he’d say something like “therefore what biochemistry hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” Separating our person, our actions, or any other piece of who we are from what we’ve thought is a fun discussion perhaps, but a fool’s errand in truth.

Here’s all the rambling of this post in one sentence: if I care about your ideas I care about you, and if I don’t then I don’t.