Blog Post #22
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| Harry Potter in his Invisibility Cloak |
Have you ever tried to pretend you're
not there? I have. It's a ridiculous thing to do. (Although would-be "flies on the wall," like me, understand why people do this.)
If you aren’t sure of my meaning,
perhaps one of the following scenarios illustrating how people sometimes
pretend invisibility will trigger understanding:
- You’re in a classroom setting, and the teacher is staring down students, asking for an answer. You lower your eyes, avoiding eye contact, thereby achieving invisibility.
- You’re visiting the home of an acquaintance when a bickering match erupts between the person you are visiting and another family member. You slink toward the door attempting to excuse yourself, but the elephant in the room is blocking your path. You pretend you are part of the wall—not there—until you can make your escape.
- You’re not feeling very sociable while walking down the street. Dog walkers and joggers pass by, but you keep your head down. No eye contact makes you invisible.
- You spot a solicitor sitting at a table outside Wal-mart. Rather than walk the direct route to the entrance, you make a huge circuit through the parking lot entering the store behind the solicitor’s table. When you exit, you wait until someone else is exiting and walk behind them so they effectively block you from the view of the solicitor, or, if a blocker is unavailable, you focus your gaze in the distance, planting an expression of intense distraction and extreme urgency on you face, making you, essentially, invisible.
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| Henry Holiday "Dante and Beatrice" (notice how Beatrice carefully averts her eyes) |
Just as our young daughter thought she
was invisible when her head was hidden, so adults seem to have narrowed the
range of their invisibility from their heads down to just their eyes. This is
evidenced by the illusion the lack of eye contact creates as illustrated in the
four examples previously given.
There are occasions when it is
impossible to achieve your own sense of invisibility, no matter what you do.
For example, if you’ve ever been in the presence of an incessant talker (whom
we’ll call “Chatterbox”), there is no escaping his or her vision. Any attempt you make at invisibility is immediately
thwarted by Chatterbox's complete inability to “see” you as another person, or personality, with
thoughts and ideas of your own, thus, in a sense, making you invisible. This may sound contradictory, but it really
isn’t. Your attempts to respectfully release yourself from a prolonged discourse by breaking
eye contact, appearing distant, uninterested, or downright bored have no
effect. Even if you begin walking away, Chatterbox will follow you, never pausing to
catch breath. As you get in your car, and start the engine, Chatterbox is not
deterred, but walks into the busy street to—not see you off—but talk you
off and on your way. Essentially, Chatterbox is the only "visible" person in the
world; everyone else is invisible, existing only as a target toward which Chatterbox effusively flings his or her superfluous arsenal of words. (For the record, I know some Chatterboxes and I really like them--they are my friends. But their speech can be overwhelming at times.)
There were times when I didn’t need to pretend
invisibility because, in certain situations, I was, essentially, already invisible.
As a teenager, I became well acquainted with this type of invisibility. In
classrooms where only “teacher’s pets” or troublemakers were visible, or in settings in which I was the
quiet introvert among a group of popular social butterflies, the invisibility
issue was driven home in multiple ways.
But you must not assume this type of invisibility was necessarily unwelcome--at least to me. Quiet personalities can enjoy a certain measure of invisibility, provided they have close friends and family to whom they are visible in positive and worthwhile ways.
But you must not assume this type of invisibility was necessarily unwelcome--at least to me. Quiet personalities can enjoy a certain measure of invisibility, provided they have close friends and family to whom they are visible in positive and worthwhile ways.
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| Harry Potter sneaking about in his invisibility cloak |
One of the motivations for my own
pretended invisibility wasn’t so I could sneak about in a secret cloak like
Harry Potter, spying on people. Rather, it was
to enjoy conversation and interaction without the strain of interacting, which
is often wearying, or difficult for more reserved personalities.
The idea of being a fly on the wall is
terribly appealing to people like me. It
isn’t so I might listen to idle gossip, or be privy to secrets not meant for my
ears (types of interaction I try to avoid). No, it’s not that at all. It’s simply
because I am clumsy at conversation. It can be stressful and tiring to interact
with large groups—draining, in fact. Still, I’ve practiced conversing for years
and years, partly out of necessity, and partly because I really do love people,
and enjoy getting to know them. To be a true participant in a conversation is more rewarding if both people are present. The truth is, if you put someone like me one-on-one with someone, I have no trouble making conversation. In fact, I thoroughly enjoy delving headlong into a deep and heartfelt exchange. It's group interaction that I shy away from. I haven’t completed my study of being a good
conversationalist, but even with all my efforts, I still find myself wishing
to shrink into invisibility at times.
There are occasions where attempting
invisibility is useful in sharing joy with others in an anonymous fashion. Our
family often employed the Ding-Dong-Ditch method to drop-off goodies to
friends. In this method, the driver sits in the darkened, idling car a short
distance away, while runners secretly place goodies on the front door step of
the homes of friends and neighbors, ring the doorbell, and run back to the car
without detection. We’d done this as a family activity so many times over the years,
we were quite expert. However, one particular time didn’t follow the typical pattern of
success. I was driving our old 1982 yellow Suburban (which is roughly the size of a
school bus). The kids got out of the car to Ding-Dong-Ditch the goodies while I
quickly pulled around the corner to hide our car in an inconspicuous spot—behind a
small parkway tree. It was like trying to hide the Goodyear Blimp behind a
toothpick. By the time the kids ran back to the car, the folks receiving the
goodies were out of their house and flagging us down! We tried to pretend we
were invisible, but there was no fooling them! Anyone remotely acquainted with
us could spot that yellow car from dizzying distances. If you ever want to
remain incognito, be sure not to
drive a conspicuous yellow Suburban. (Either that, or find an airplane hangar
to hide behind.)
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| 1982 Yellow Suburban like the one we had. |
The desire to be invisible, in this
instance, was a worthy one. Doing good—to “let
not thy left hand know what thy right
hand doeth” (Matt hew
6::3)—is a positive occupation. There are, however, attempts at invisibility
that are not as admirable.
For example, there was the time my
daughter and I had spent a long day working in the heat, and ended the day
sweaty, grimy, stinky, and hungry. Normally, I wouldn’t have ventured into a
public place on such a day, but we were both famished and fatigued. We stopped
at a café to grab a quick bite to eat. Standing in line to order, in a state of
exhausted oblivion, I didn’t notice an old acquaintance enter. As we waited to
place our order, I casually glanced at the line of people forming behind me and
saw the old “friend.” (I put friend
in quotation marks because, for all I know, we may possibly no longer be friends. There’s no
explaining to someone that you had pretended you weren’t there.) That’s right.
I was the invisible woman. The sweaty, stinky, grimy me did not, at that moment, exist. In a sense, it was my version of
Hide-and-Seek all over again. If I don’t acknowledge my existence in
circumstances such as this, perhaps no one else will. Faulty reasoning, but
there you have it. (The fact that the friend, having seen me, did not
acknowledge me either made it much easier to rationalize that I was invisible.)
You must not assume that because my
behavior was beyond ridiculous that I wasn’t aware of just how foolish it was.
Nor must you assume that I was Okay with my behavior. I wasn’t. I was, in fact,
ashamed of myself. Such behavior was inexcusable. Ludicrous. Pretending
invisibility did not make me invisible.
If truth were told, it made me completely transparent. Certainly, anyone
in that café could see me plainly. The only one I fooled was myself—thinking I
could fake “invisibility” to protect my vanity—without truly protecting it,
having obviously being seen.
I have since repented of this foolish flaw in my nature, and my unfriendly behavior. There is a price to pay for vanity—wanting to be seen as a “put together person” (or at least as a non-stinky person!). Isn’t it ironic that “wanting to be seen as” (or not to be seen at all), more than likely exposed me as oblivious, unfriendly, vain, and anything but “put together.” So sad, but so true.
I have since repented of this foolish flaw in my nature, and my unfriendly behavior. There is a price to pay for vanity—wanting to be seen as a “put together person” (or at least as a non-stinky person!). Isn’t it ironic that “wanting to be seen as” (or not to be seen at all), more than likely exposed me as oblivious, unfriendly, vain, and anything but “put together.” So sad, but so true.
My mother used to repeat an old saying,
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when
first we practice to deceive” (Sir Walter Scott). I don’t think of myself as being a deceptive
person. Nor do I intentionally “practice to deceive.” Deception is contrary to my fundamental
beliefs, and is repugnant to me in every way. The day and circumstances just
mentioned caught me completely off guard. I strive diligently to be honest. I rejoice
in honesty, in light, in truth, and in simplicity. However, —given my
beliefs—the irony of the whole charade was not lost on me. I swallowed a giant café-sized slice of
“humble pie” after pondering the true nature of my pretended invisibility.
Dear Readers, now that I have exposed
myself to judgment and possibly to ridicule, let me assure you that it has become one of
my goals to rid my life of the pretense
of invisibility. To rid my life
entirely of pretense would be even
better. I shudder to think I have been, at any time, guilty of pretending
invisibility, but I must admit, I have been guilty.
To pretend is to be fake. In reflecting on this topic, the word hypocrisy reared its ugly head.
Hypocrisy is, essentially, to pretend. What greater hypocrisy is there than to pretend invisibility? To pretend invisibility is to deny existence, which reeks with ingratitude to God, The Giver of Life. As His child--His daughter--there is never a time when pretending invisibility in any uncharitable sense is appropriate or desirable.
hy·poc·ri·sy
həˈpäkrəsē/
noun: hypocrisy
Middle English: from Old French ypocrisie, via ecclesiastical Latin, from Greek hupokrisis ‘acting of a theatrical part,’ from hupokrinesthai ‘play a part, pretend’
Hypocrisy is, essentially, to pretend. What greater hypocrisy is there than to pretend invisibility? To pretend invisibility is to deny existence, which reeks with ingratitude to God, The Giver of Life. As His child--His daughter--there is never a time when pretending invisibility in any uncharitable sense is appropriate or desirable.
I so admire people who are
straightforward, respectful, forthright, interesting, interested and real—people who put you at ease and make you want to be
visible because you feel trust and security in their presence. I hope to be that
way, too—to be plain, honest, interested, respectful, present, and kind in all aspects of life—in other
words, to be
visibly real.
Being "visibly real," (according to my definition), has, by its selfless nature, the capacity of making you the best kind of "invisible" you can be as you "lose yourself" in the service of others.
"He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." (Matthew 10:39)
From the bottom
of my heart, I thank you for reading.
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| © January 24, 2015 |
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