Two things happened yesterday, about which I'm going to try to connect as they loom large in my mind this morning.
The first occurred on my busride home from work. From my seat near the back of the bus, I watched a small drama play out and I'm still pondering about it. Sitting near the front of the bus was a man, unkempt and unwashed, drinking from a can and talking out loud to himself and to unseen listeners. A crazy man. People skirted around him, but the bus was crowded so inevitably the seats filled up beside him with weary commuters just trying to make their way home, and in no mood to engage. The judgment, fear and tension around the crazy man was evident in people's body language, as they ignored his repeated attempts to make eye contact and to speak with them. I wondered at how isolated he must feel.
And then... a young girl, maybe in her late teens or early twenties, sat down into the seat opposite him. His attention focussed upon her and he started trying to chat her up. She smiled nervously but it was clear that she felt uncomfortable with the attention. He began to tell her loudly that she was attractive, and then he reached out and gripped her shoulder, imploring her to respond to him. She shrank further down into her seat, trying to make herself as small and unobtrusive as possible.
Thankfully, this scene escalated no further. He leaned back into his seat, muttering, and she gazed out the window. He stood up to leave at Abbeyhill, and she waited for several people to queue before also disembarking, so as to maintain her distance. As the bus pulled away, I could see them each on the pavement: he was rifling through the cigarette butts on the top of a bin, and she stood several feet away waiting for her next bus. Her body language spoke of self-consciousness, of trying to appear invisible behind other people in the queue, steering clear of the unwanted attention.
I have immense sympathy for the crazy man, for his clumsy attempts at human connection. I also have immense anger, that he cornered this young lassie and that he felt entitled to touch her. Madreality bumped up hard against feminism, and I'm still reeling with the complexity of what I beheld.
The second thing that happened yesterday was that I met up with some new friends: neighbours that my daughter had introduced to me. We followed the familiar social scripts of hospitality offered and acquaintanceship explored. We chatted about friends and family, jobs and travels, gradually situating one another according to our values and interests, and finding many points of common ground. They were lovely hosts and I enjoyed meeting with them immensely.
What lingers for me is how comfortable I felt speaking about my job within a professional body for doctors and consultants, and how tentative I felt speaking about my personal work as a mad activist. It reminded me that we scaffold ourselves with our social identities (our personas, as my friend Tony reflects upon in a recent post.) How firmly bound we all are by social cues, when in reality – in madreality – we are all simply human beings bringing our vast webs of perceptions and assumptions and complexities into the mix.
But back to the crazy man on the bus. Surely the most valuable lesson to be found in insanity is that it peels back those layers of social scaffolding and reveals us in our starkest vulnerability. Professions and personas are swept aside when we realise how bound we are by consensus and convention. Without that scaffolding, how do we approach relationships? How do we relate with one another, in all our beautiful complexity?
photo by Hu Jiarui on Unsplash
I find myself dipping towards depression in these difficult times, which I'm sure is a common experience.
But then I remember that most of what I see around me is probably a prediction created by my brain based on what I happen to be noticing, possibly bearing only a passing resemblance to what's actually going on. And that applies to my feelings & emotions as well: they are as real as anything else in the moment, but maybe not permanent or anything like as solid & unavoidable as they seem. Personally, I find that comforting rather than threatening - but not everyone is so lucky.
As to the conflict between feminism & what you called "madreality" in that scenario: we all need to take responsibility for protecting the vulnerable, and in that situation, that was both sides of the interaction.
There are so many situations where that is true at the moment, and the culture wars are making it particularly difficult to apply a nuanced perspective. Let's hope we can progress past that soon.
This piece really captures the layering of complexity, Julia, that 'we' seldom take notice of! There's so much in this. I think it's why it's so hard to have conversations for many. There's also something about the criss-crossing of vulnerability and the silos people feel they have to erect in order to survive. And sometimes they're right!