Classroom Talk
Winter 2002 Archive
About asking one's Self, "Did I go too far this time?" Posted by John on March 07, 2002 at 17:14:59:
What a pleasure and a privilege it is for me, to be sitting here with you in candid conversation, Sally, collaborating on this exercise together . . . and
having you being so transparently human. This is good work, well-started on your part.
And your response shows that you have already done a *lot* of reflecting on all this on your own.
Yes, "envy" is another good cognitive term for the emotional feeling I'm talking about when I say "jealousy, bitterness, rejection," etc. Envy is the
emotional feeling that comes upon our bodies when we envy what the other person has that we don't have, and we become bitter about it, and
perceive our Selves as being rejected.
So, our dear loving friend is going on a long, exotic trip. It takes money for that. And we can't do the traveling that we want to do. We don't have
any money. Will envy come up in this situation? Will it get in our way, put a strain on our friendship? You bet it will, for most of us! Once the brick
has hit our foot, it's too late to vote on it. "Oh??? You're going to see the Eiffel Tower, too? And then on to the Prado Museum???" . . . . . Aaargh!
A flash of heat comes upon the face, and the body goes into hot torque. You want to be friends. You are drawn to the person. But "the beauty is
spoiled for you" because *you* can't go. You feel rejected. You don't want to have anything to do with your friend—you are torqued away from
close contact. You want to hug your friend. You want to reject your friend, too. It's human. And you feel bitter about it, too. It's another sample of
the ordinary human condition.
And, whether you know it or not, your bitterness *shows*. And your friend is reacting to *that*. So it is, that different ones of us can get in the way
of our own dear friendships, without realizing that the emotion of envy, and the acting-out of envy is going on.
By any of these cognitive names we've mentioned—envy, jealousy, etc.—the emotional feeling itself is the same. You have the experienceable hot face,
and the perceptible twisting torque of the torso—pulled toward the object of our envy, and pulled away from the object of our envy internally at the
same time. In folk-language, burning-faced envy is sometimes called "twisting in the wind."
I call envy the most volatile of all of the eight negative emotional feelings around the wheel. And the sheer volatility of your unexpected explosions as
"Six-gun Sal" seems to me to be one of the most obvious characteristics of that phenomenon, when it happens in Classroom Talk from time to time. (I
call it "Six-gun Sal" to shock you for a moment, as I know that "goes against the grain.")
I often speak of the Rebel's outrageousness, and when this phenomenoin has occurred with you in Classroom Talk it always seems obvious to me that
there is a quality of outrageousness about it. Firing off at now this person, now that one, it is not just "blowing off steam" at somebody. It seems to
"go that extra mile"—heh, heh—in "getting the other person where it hurts the very most," so to speak. (Oh, this is gonna be another shocking low
blow on *my* part! Sorry, Sally!) It is more like "nuking" the other person, than just "steaming" them.
Well, that really *isn't* fair! I apologize. But when you fight, Sally dear, you sure fight *hard*! . . . . . . And when you aren't fighting, who are you?
Why, you are anti-nuclear Sally . . . . . anti-violence Sally . . . . Sally, the Peace-marcher! You are Sally, the Anti-War Demonstrator. You are Sally, the
Civil Liberties advocate. You are Sally who helps the poor. There is a softer side of Sally, for sure!!! There is a Sally who is dedicated, profoundly so,
to peace!
Yet, once-in-awhile, when the tensions have built up in you enough, and something goes wrong, and you react to it, all of a sudden and by surprise,
you are "Sally who goes for the balls."
Are you with me on this so far? — So . . . like the little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead . . . . . when you are good, you are
very, very good. And when you are bad, you are hell on wheels to have to deal with. It's enough to scare some would-be friends into *disappearing*
. And the ones who tough it out and hang around are the few of us who can take it.
This is a behaviorism that has a way of carving out a whole lot of the human population around you, leaving you with just the thin slice that sticks
around for you to choose your friends from. Think of all the men and women you've passed in your lifetime who couldn't handle these outrageously
flaming eruptions, and who, solely because of the heat of this, drifted away.
You probably said something like: "Good! They aren't my friend! Fuck them! If they can't handle outrageous flames, good riddance to them. If they
can't handle the way I am, they are no use whatever to me." And you probably washed your hands of them.
I'd like for you to re-evaluate that "attitude," Sally. Going on doing that may not be doing your inner enlightened Being any favors. You may be
cutting some good people out that way, my friend. The narrowness of your selection in the world—the isolation that you have been so angry about—
may be partly, or even largely your own doing.
And you couldn't fulfill the greater leadership roles in life that you seem to be otherwise qualified for (in your smarts, your strengths, your ability to
take charge of things), if you have to go on rejecting people who have to reject you because they just can't handle the heat in your kitchen. What
about adjusting the temperature of your role on the stage of everyday life? Is that possible? Yes, I think it is . . . if one really wishes to grow, and to
change, if one is fed up at last with getting in one's own way that way.
When you are reacting a certain way, Sally, it has an extremely hot intensity to it. It is an honest-to-God *"flame"*, as they've dubbed this common
form of behavior pretty universally in the realm of Webland chatrooms. I've visited five or six chatrooms—even "spiritual" chatrooms, where it seems
flaming is going on in them all most of the time. Flaming is very human then, as we see! We can almost say, "To be human on the Internet is to flame."
Classroom Talk is a place where we can *flame*. And, with minimal effort really, this is a place where we can be forgiven for flaming, too. (I count on
that mercy, personally, to keep on around here, for the flaming that I'm liable to do.) And Classroom Talk is a place where we can consciously and
intentionally practice not flaming, too, at those times when flaming is about to erupt.
If we can wake up and see what it is that is happening—in the present when it is going on—we can learn to step aside from it.
The rest of us in this class, most of the time, look up to you, Sally. You have earned a lot of respect, and admiration. You are a senior member of the
class. You have done a lot of the finest metaphysical research around here imaginable. Sometimes your work is beyond imagination. You seem to
have an uncanny knack for discrimination about real spiritual teachings, and your timely postings, so many times, have hit the nail right on the head.
You have an Artist's sensitivity for doing that. We have come to rely on you for this *high-level competence*. You have a position of leadership in the
class. I know you won't care for this—and I don't mean to make you squirm—but you are a role-model around here, like it or not. I don't mean to
put you on the spot, or embarrass you, but you have earned respect like that.
All that being said, here is hotseat key question number three for you:
3. What do you think Perk meant, the other day, when he said: "Sheeeeeesh!"
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>anger...hmmmmm...Is all I can say...if one says what one really needs to, then one is pegged as "in personality" so what is the fine line that distinguishes .....see, I am really "angry" about . . . that poem . . . Wadsworth
Even "Wadsworth" is over the line, hee-hee. It is, ahem, "Wordsworth." ;-) — Say: "I am feeling angry about that Wordsworth poem." That
doesn't go over the line. That doesn't wound anybody else, unnecesarrily . . . not even, heh-heh, Wordsworth. It doesn't go too far. That doesn't
sting the other person. It doesn't provoke the other to sting you back. It only expresses honestly the candid understanding of what *your own
human experience* with that poem has been.
Speak for your own side, only. Don't put it on the other. There is really no "restraint of what you have to say" in this. You can even say, "I'm *very*
angry!" or "I'm angrier than I have been in my whole life!" or, "I'm so angry I'm spitting and pounding on the table!" LOL. "I'm so angry that I'm
kicking a hole in the wall!" Hee-hee. And then . . . *cut*!—don't add any judgments or wounding words onto it. Just try to take responsibility for
your own natural emotional feelings, without putting anything onto the other person, if possible. The message will be *adequately* conveyed! When
you put it on the other person, when you "whack them" personally over what you are being angry about, that's when it gets "pegged as personality"
around here.
>seems [my classmate] thinks I must have "laid" my x husband in order to 'get' my new computer
First of all, wasn't it *you* that was being pissed off before at your classmate for talking about private, personal things outside of class? And here, you
are doing that back. That's personality. That's the Judge punishing hard, and the Rebel rejecting hard, and, yes, outrageously. And that flaming
bomb is really *superfluous* to the conversation around here in class, isn't it, after all, in all fairness? What has that funny stuff got to do with the
posting of "Tintern Abbey?"
So here's hotseat question number four. And this will be enough for today.
4. Regardless of everything else that's gone on between you before . . . . . on that day, were you being unfair to your classmate in posting that way?
Was it unnecessarily "over the line?" Do you peg that as "personality?"
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There are some more points in your "Re: About some typical Rebel things" response posting that I'd like to give feed-back about—including that
attitude that a happy and balanced relationship for you with a man can't even exist.
But this is enough for today.
Hope you are finding some of this helpful, dear friend, or at least stimulating some ideas you hadn't thought of before. May I go on?
Yer ol'
Coach
who respects you
and loves you,
whatever you do.
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Archived 05/02/2002