Perhaps the most compelling note I took from Rebecca Solnit's Recollections of My Nonexistence (a book I summarized briefly back in December) explained how monstrous people are sometimes nothing more than those who adhere to the norms of the time, never questioning their training in how to think, feel, or notice. I could undoubtedly reflect on this idea and add my own thoughts as it regards the origins of monstrous people, but I'm actually more intrigued by the possibility of considering the inverse - what does it mean when someone who never questions that training ends up becoming not monstrous but average, just another among the scores of acquaintances who pass through the eternal mystery of your life?
A few other notes I took from this book offer an initial (and for today, a final) direction. Solnit comments that language can be protective more so than expressive, especially for those younger or inexperienced people who try out difference voices in the process of finding their own - imitating others is their way of hiding a lack of knowledge or perspective. She makes similar points about busy speech (protects a speaker who has nothing of value to say), cleverness (the speaker sounds so smart it hides their avoidance of self-expression), or anger (the speaker buries feelings such as fear, hurt, or sadness in the process of focusing outside themselves). Her point that it takes great courage to speak from the heart ties together these observations. Our training, imposed on us by the so-called norms of our time and forever reinforcing those norms, embeds the need for protection to such an extent that it almost feels instinctive to keep the locks tight whenever the heart knocks on our door. In these moments only courage allows us to answer the call, but our training doesn't equip us to do so.
What happens to the majority of us who never question the way we are taught to think, feel, or notice? At best, you'll live someone else's life, and that's not such a bad thing - so many great lives have been lived, are being lived, that aspiring to those standards will be fulfilling in some way or another. But I don't think it's possible to live your own life. I think living your own life starts with the courage to open that door so you can express yourself with the authenticity that is unique to you. I think living your own life means stepping outside so that you can see if the life only you can live is waiting somewhere over the horizon. I think living your own life means recognizing that the only thing you're protecting yourself from is the thing you might say if you let yourself speak, and the thing you might do if you let yourself listen.
