A Vocabulary, and Application in Discussing Flat Eyes

This is my response to a post over at Hayden's blog. It's posted here because the response got long; it becomes a description of my experience, and requires using the language I've developed in making sense of my experience. So here I am, trying to introduce my language, a bunch of concepts, and say something with that vocabulary, all at once. Here we go.

When someone is in that place, in that space, evidenced outwardly by the flat eyes, I experience it as though there's nobody there. A flat, featureless wall. Dead, lifeless, passionless.

But that also occurs by degrees. The things that we normally perceive as people aren't really people... they are constructions. Take that which is essential, the real person, and then add layer after layer after layer of insubstantial stuff... my sense is that it's like leaves, or dust, it's a pile of stuff but can be brushed away. Or a person can insist on holding all that in place, then it's not experienced as insubstantial but as a wall. (Here I'm just talking about how I experience other people, not about how I experience myself.) And parts of that wall are consciously held and parts unconsciously, the particulars depend on the person and the moment. It's like a surface, a composition of densities, constantly in flux. And the flatness is like an impenetrable wall. That's how flatness can be by degrees.

So, once I've got a bead on the real person, the true person, even if just a glimpse, then there's a reference point for clarity, at least some degree of clarity, so then there's a sense of how much stuff is in the way. So there are degrees of someone (the real person) being present or obscured.

If I've got no reference point, if it's someone I don't know, a stranger in the conventional term, or someone that I don't know, in the more specific sense, then sending (myself) out (as) a search party may or may not have any success. Depends on the degree of resistance. And I'm coming to understand that even though connection may be immediately apparent, it takes time to explore and understand the thing. So that's another thing that can hinder a search party for a stranger, but can also aid a search party for a friend.

If there is a reference point, then the question becomes how much the relationship can sustain. I would contrast a sort of gentle coaxing approach, hoping for some answering echo, with a more direct and insistent one. It really depends upon the strength of the relationship. Too much and a stretch becomes a tear becomes a break. Which means letting people go sometimes, because I wish not to do harm in the name of doing good.

One particularly effective way of reaching out is play. To get someone to play, to be playful. There's an aspect of spontaneity to it. Busting out singing "Dirty Laundry" comes to mind - my PM had been stressed for months and behind a wall, but for a bit, all that was forgotten. The general rule seems to be that one cannot be playful - it reflects something of one's true nature - and keep the wall up at the same time.

Again, this isn't a textbook, it's just my experience, and my thoughts on how that experience might reflect some general concepts about The Way Things Are. All subject to change as my experience, and thus my data set, does. Your mileage may vary; if this doesn't reflect your experience, my reflections will probably be someplace between "of limited usefulness" which is at least useful, and "expectation forming" which will not help, because then one's focus is practically invariably not in the best place.