Longitude

We are no longer who we were!

Each self has passed the other by

And in so passing, passed themselves

you are not you

nor am I, I.

When you were

who you were before

And I was

who I was back when

We shared a space

And time called 'Ours'...

Now you've a now

I am not in.

Where you are I cannot say

Where I'll be I cannot tell

The who and we and where and when

Has left my compass-soul to spin

Wheeling, seeking

That place,

that time

where You were You when I was I.

The Offense of Overlooking

It is easy to suppose that the damage done to souls resembles that done to the body—that an attack on the former resembles an attack on the latter. But is this so obvious? Is it even true? A body ignored/overlooked by attackers is not attacked. But a soul ignored....is it also un-attacked? Or is the reverse the case—i.e. is it that, with regard to souls, to be ignored is to be attacked?

Our souls seem to know this difference between physical and spiritual damages, even if we do not. The soul, so acutely vulnerable to indifference, even detects a certain compliment built in to overt forms of attack/aggression, emotional, physical—or, at least, such aggressions come with one great solace one might whisper to oneself while weathering the blows: “Yes, there is this—but I have not been overlooked!” Those directly damaging us take account of us, consider us of some account, deal with us, face us. Malice pays attention. Personal attacks are attacks; but they are also personal. To be intentionally injured is precisely not to be ignored. We are taken seriously; we appear to the attacker as significant in some way, or seem to. “He hit me” the lyric tracing this consolation goes, “And it felt like a kiss...”

Compare this to the incomparable crushing power of a casual indifference, the common defenses of which (“Oh, I didn’t realize you...”, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you...”, "I didn't think...") simply doubles the force of the original blow. Indifference all the more authentic for its being unintentional! an overlooking so complete we do not even appear as something missing; our absence to them an absence so thorough it does not register as a lack--seems natural--goes entirely unmarked. This, from the soul's point of view, compares unfavorably with the franker forms of abuse just mentioned. For what defense is there for our initial insignificance? Some solace! Not to be thrown aside only because one was never taken in hand? Not to be thought of evilly only because one was not thought of at all? Such a defense is no defense, but rather, a new and deeper obliviousness that needs defending. And this double-offense—this overlooking—is emotionally frustrating. For it generates a sense of loss and anger that is difficult to place; its source hides from us. This is because it is generated by nothing that happens (but should not), but rather, by things that do not happen (but should). I speak, he does not answer. I enter, she does not look up. I wave, he does not see. I am in town! She does not mention meeting today...nor tomorrow...and it descends on my mind with a slow, sad power that it has not and will not cross her mind to try.

In its most spiritually lethal form, this absence of engagement, acknowledgement, openness—this abscess which hollows me out, leaves me empty— is not aimed towards me by intentions—yet it is oriented towards me, strikes me unerringly, does not miss, devastates me. No one nods to me: this does not strike me as neutral. No one speaking to me says something to me. And non-acknowledgement, this easy overlooking, accumulates. To move through the day, the week, the month, in this void of acknowledgement is to walk through a gauntlet whereby one’s insignificance is shouted from every corner; one's irrelevance is unfailingly articulated by what people neither say nor do. No one says anything to me. What else am I to hear? No offense is meant towards me in particular, yes. But again, what solace is this? For this is consistent with the thought that NOTHING is meant towards me. And this is not nothing! Quite the contrary. It seems to unravel my meaning—seems the greatest possible offense. ************

There have been awful, even overtly violent, reactions to the quiet brutality of non-acknowledgement. Instead of responding to non-acknowledgement by resolving to give acknowledgement to others even in the absence of receiving it, as Jesus taught—instead of responding to being overlooked by making a private promise to oneself never to be an overlooker— a wounded vanity is nursed; the fact that others have deep concerns one cannot fathom is ignored; feelings fester; revenge is sought...

Some seek to avenge non-acknowledgement with weaponry; and those who take this road deserve to be put down; the proper response to such random violence is precision violence—an ethical violence for which we need not apologize. But note that, given the nature of the offense, such outrages are also always failures in what they hope to effect. These physical revenges for this spiritual offense are inevitably inadequate; their end is never attained; they always strike too shallow. Non-acknowledgement cannot be avenged in this way. This is not opinion; it is analytic. For those who explode announce to the world the inestimable esteem in which they hold the acknowledgement of others. They say “You do not think enough of me even to form an opinion of me—and your non-opinion of me is all I think about!” This high opinion of the opinion of others is precisely what makes so unbearable to them their being overlooked. They then set out, absurdly, to attack indifference from others with intense interest in others (recall our second paragraph). And in this clash of anger and indifference, indifference inevitably wins, regardless of where the bullets go. For again, to arm oneself to say “You WILL acknowledge me” is to say how inestimably important the acknowledgement of others is—all while still being overlooked (what has their attention, you fools, is your gun, not your person). And this means such efforts are necessarily unable to compete with the original offense. All the bravado ends up an expression of impotence; waving weapons only ensures the weapons-wavers will themselves be overlooked in their last moments—will not be seen, will remain invisible to those they threaten in retribution for not seeing them. The gun in such circumstances is nothing less than a cloak of invisibility, erasing from their target's mind the significance of the gunman in favor of the significance of their own now-threatened selves. So the reasoning here is entirely broken. Such vengeances are contradictions incarnate. The offense the unacknowledged hoped to avenge was not an attack in the traditional sense, making traditional counter-attacks ridiculous. That original offense was, as we said, an effortless overlooking—something with which no effort, however violent, can compete. So the aggrieved come to collect the attention they feel they were owed—but their approach ensures they leave with none. Meanwhile, in the midst of their fallacious fantasies of revenge, they pay to the overlooking others, with their last breaths, the inestimable compliment of attention.

To raise points like these about the offense of overlooking is not, as some would have it, to diminish the culpability of the mind which can plan—much less relish—such a fearsome, if feckless, revenge. Often nothing more is involved than an adolescent grandiosity—an indignation that seeks to skip the hard work of first being dignified; it is also true that one may be complicit in one’s own overlooking. And as noted, there are alternatives to dealing with non-acknowledgement, some of which suggest that not to be acknowledged oneself is required to produce selves capable of the most beautiful form of acknowledgement: that form which takes no account of whether its infinite attentions to others are ever returned. *********************

So nothing said about the vengeful need be unsaid--particularly as regards culpability. We are not responsible for their outrages. But, in our eagerness to exculpate ourselves, we should not miss the broader point these outrages and their paradoxical structure bring to light. We should be aware that, though we “mean no offense”, it does not follow that we are not giving it. We should remember that the soul takes greatest offense, not at what we do, but what we do not, mean. We are thus, at this level of interpersonal interaction, responsible for more than what we mean to do. To lack the positive intention to acknowledge (or not acknowledge) another is never to leave them unrobbed or unscarred, because where two souls are present, one can never leave the other completely alone. Total neutrality of response is impossible. One welcomes or one rejects. One takes note of, or condemns as unnotable. There is thus a certain environment we may create, and towards which we daily contribute, by the simplest sins of omission--by an unconscious refusal to meet the eyes of others, by a hundred effortless turnings-away a day, by a comfortable numbness or easy indifference which it pleases us to think of as ‘autonomy’, ‘minding my own business’ or ‘keeping to myself’. And this lack of responsiveness—this overlooking— is something for which we are, irretrievably and at every minute, responsible.

It seems, however, that the ever-presence of this relentless responsibility should strike us as ethically encouraging. It is ever-present, yes: but that is to say we can fulfill it anywhere. It gives us no quarter: but this is to say it can be met at any time. More generally: to say we are responsible is to say we are able to respond. And we can respond to this. For if effortless overlooking is the greatest offense, we can resolve to look more carefully—can consistently and quietly refuse to be so steadfastly ‘neutral’ to each other, so discrete, so 'withdrawn' (which implies a prior natural proximity). Moreover, in the everyday of overt actions, the change required by the resolve to undo our effortless offense itself generally requires little effort. By resolving to acknowledge each other, we not only undo our offense of overlooking: by looking to acknowledge, we answer a positive requirement most often entirely discharged by nothing over and above a wink and a nod. The greatest attack on the soul is thus not merely undone but inverted by an instant’s wordless welcome. And how blessedly little this inversion typically costs! “My yoke is easy; my load is light”—too true if the ethical inversion of overlooking is effected by nothing over and above this un-defensive openness towards others—this acknowledgement—this availability/self-presenting--a simple, raised-eye ‘Here am I, and I see you there’", to each other--nothing more!