In college one of my friend groups used to play board games nearly every night we got together. Not chess, or monopoly, but more abstract games that I would learn for the first time. I remember sitting down, and trying to pay attention to the instructions being read. Then the game would start, and I felt like I was taking a test. My old high school anxieties of worrying about other people's judgements would seep back in for the night as comments were thrown around in light regard commenting on people's performance in the game. Looking back, I realize that positive friendships shouldn't make you feel anxious to play a board game.
Whenever I hear someone tearing down another for no reason, I look at them with compassion, because it means that they are still struggling to find their identity and place in the world, and their judgement is a coping mechanism to affirm their own sense of self despite them wobbling on unstable grounds. Identity is something that might never be completely figured out, and that is natural because we are ever-evolving people. However, we feel the need to have somewhat a handle on our identities, and one that is in too many pieces can cause a person to harm either themselves or others.
Games and puzzles have their time and place, but I find it much more exciting to examine the people around me, and let them be the puzzle to figure out. What can be more exciting than unpredictable life that is unfolding right in front of our very eyes? This type of puzzle is one unobserved by others, with no time limit. You can spend your entire life with a person and still be putting the final pieces into place, because they are also doing the same with themselves.
This past week, I find myself carrying five kids' backpacks up a trail. Many of the 8 year olds are whining to me about how their legs hurt and that they can't possibly continue. It is a 1.8 mile trail and we are .3 miles in. I do my best to assuage my disappointment and annoyance, and remember that they are little ones and I am an adult. I carry the backpacks of the struggling ones, in part because I want to finish the trail, and also because I want to show them that this struggle is doable and not going to end us, rather make us stronger. One of my kids carries his backpack and the backpack of another student. He does not complain once. About half of the students chose to carry their own backpacks, and the other half gifted them to me. I find myself examining these two groups, and wonder what makes a person decide to give up or go on.
Children are in such raw states of growth. Judging them based on one action here or there is unfair, but I think there is something to the trends that I have seen. One could say that physical fitness is a factor in children's willingness to get uncomfortable, but the boy who carried the other students' backpacks wasn't the fittest of the group by far. I think it is a mental toughness that can either grow from parenting centered around independence and growth, or hardening trauma. Then, when neither of these reasons are applicable, is our strength woven in us from the start? I like to think that our identities are not written in the stars, and are malleable as clay as long as we are willing to put in the work.
I am standing at the edge of the woods with the same group of kiddos. One boy looks up into the trees and exclaims that he sees a bear. This immediately puts an end to the activity and all the kids flood to where the boy is standing. I look up into the trees extensively and see nothing. About three quarters of the kids all say that they see a bear, then they see cubs, then the say that the bears are eating... grapes. All of them have no humor in their eyes, just persistent certainly of what they see. The few that don't see this circus of bears are frustrated and keep peering into the trees. I ask the few to affirm that they don't see any bears, and they still stick with their truth. I don't want to completely disempower and discredit these bear-seers, but I am 99.99% sure there are no bears. I find myself feeling proud of the few that didn't see anything. They didn't fall into the pressure of group-think, even when it was favorable. The ones that saw a bear wanted to be part of the group, and one could say also had vivid imaginations. Groups and communities are so important, but when independent thought is extinguished and group-think is dominating, they can become a very dangerous and toxic thing. When independent thinkers function in a community-driven setting - that is the balance where human civilization can thrive.
I wonder if these very small moments of backpacks and bears foreshadow the personalities and characters of these kids' futures. I think of my past and the bizarre moments of childhood, and I hope that is not completely the case. People certainly change and grow, and these moments show people at their current state. One can grow, or stay stagnant. Some of these kids will continue to see the bear or not, others will stop seeing it, and some might even start to see it. Whatever the case, we have the power to choose what we see, except sometimes that power does not come until we have years of life under our belts, and the natural freedom that aging brings us.
I will continue to prefer the human puzzle to the literal one. Humans need to critically think about fellow humans, and not let the unstable identities of others affect the formation of our own. I think that the ability to not let the changing nature of others affect our own mental wellbeing is the greatest superpower in the world, and it is one that I am still consistently working on. That is the one guarantee in life, that people will never stop shifting and evolving.
Does your past explain your present state? Do you think that we can look at kids and see who they will be in the future?
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