(e)scapegoats
Why are we caught off guard when strangers we thought we knew do things we don't expect?
I’m deeply saddened by the passing of anyone who departs the world. Even the “bad” ones, people who’ve committed great atrocities. It doesn’t mean I’m not glad the evil they’ve perpetrated is gone, ‘cause I am. But death is sad.
Robin Williams, the incomparable actor, died. That is sad.
But I didn’t know Robin Williams.
Steve Jobs died. Although it seems he was often an ass; his death is very sad.
But I didn’t know Steve Jobs.
Similarly, I don’t know any of the famous people in the media who we are so quick to deify and then vilify the next second.
What is going on here? Why are we—as a culture—so attentive to these people and so quick to write them off when they’re naughty?
It’s time to stop being surprised that people you don’t know do things you don’t expect. Your understanding of them is theoretical based on abbreviated, Limited, controlled knowledge.
This is as true for a star as it is someone in your community that you see around every once in a while. What’s unfortunate in particular about it is that it’s can also be true about people we consider our close friends. We go about our business from day today with all of the things that are on her plate to do for better or worse than we move on and on to thing to thing to thing. How we stop to think about what we’re spending all her time doing? Who were spending our time with? Who we are spending our time being? All of these answers are different but correspond together to form our reality. I’ll too often the answer to those questions are that we are trying to optimize for the best fill in the blank, life bank account friend base notoriety etc. What are we doing to make a difference in the lives of those people around us one of the keyways we do that is by being with them, spending time with them. Knowing them. That knowing happens not only in a once a month dinner or once a week hang out or even getting together twice Per week, it happens in the every day spending time around people, living life with them. But ends up happening is we end up saying goodbye to our friends for two weeks or seven days or whatever amount of time and then we see them again it’s like having to re-introduce ourselves to them. “How’s everything been?“ “So, what’s been going on in your life?“ “ how was work? And, it’s not necessarily bad that we have people like this in our lives, what is bad is that we don’t have people in our lives on a more regular basis who are always there. This is not just a spouse. This is about community. it’s not just about having a large amount of friends, it’s about having quality amount of deep friendships who you interact with regularly. I know so many amazing people, But it incredible few of them know how to be regularly intentional in other peoples lives. Someone say that they don’t need to be because they’re so introverted. Someone said have enough friendships. Some would say they don’t have time. But in general I would say that that’s mostly BS, because the two most important things in life are caring for the people we’ve been entrusted with and caring for the things that we’ve been entrusted with. And it’s a reality far too common that we are looking for the best scenario is in our lives present themselves so we can have the best possible things in our world. It’s not always necessarily about having the friends that align with you the most, we’re having the opportunity to have the most fun, or being empowered to be able to do the thing that you have long dreamed of. Yes, things are great. They’re not what’s most important. And we’ve spent so many years treating them like that at the detriment of deep, intentional, filling community. This is evidenced in the type of people that we have. Most people don’t know how to have conflict resolution, so they just ghost when things get tough. Most people don’t know how and when to have deep conversation. This is more of the same. Most people want these relationships but what it comes down to it they don’t prioritize it and I don’t know how to have it because we are a Society that is built on convenience and self achievement and personal validation. There is so much more to us. And that is found in deep community or we can learn to be truly ourselves.
