It's about three and a half hours out of Sydney, on the other side of the blue mountains. It's also close to the world's widest canyon, as proclaimed by a dilapidated billboard by the side of the road. A minute later, a small road-sign indicated one-way, unpaved road to a lookout point. Wendy commented proudly that Australia is like that--they may have the world's #1 whatever, but don't toot their own horn about it.
Within the first 10 minutes, Wendy revealed she had a theory of human nature, which we, of course, wanted to hear. In a nutshell, her theory is that external conflict is a manifestation of internal conflict. When people are not able to recognize or process conflicting or negative emotions, they will project their internal difficulties on to other people or circumstances; or they will sub-consciously seek to create situations in which it would be appropriate for them to express their feelings (e.g. they intentionally try to create drama so they can feel justified in being angry). The solution to the problem is to acknowledge one's feelings openly and directly in a safe and trusting environment, which is the first step to dealing directly with them--rather than pretending they're not there and letting one's behavior be invisibly shaped by them in undesirable ways.
This seemed a fine theory to us. I immediately thought of the character Alexei Alexandrovich from Anna Karenina. He's described as being unable to bare seeing others cry or show strong emotion. When lady solicitors come to him, they're advised never to cry because he will grow angry, shout at them, and tell them to get out because he can do nothing for him. Later in the story, it becomes clear that what he feels is pity, but is unable to recognize it, and doesn't know how to respond. He just feels an inner turmoil, and angrily tries to remove its cause. He undergoes a revelation of sorts, in which he realizes this, and for the first time clearly understands a better way to respond to the pity he feels. I also thought of how Fremont's former principal was an expert at empowering people through honest, direct, non-judgmental acknowledgement of potentially negative things.
We met Wendy's husband, Richard, and another help-exchanger named Danny at a gas station. It's the only gas station I've ever seen where you could order cappuccino and a steak.
Richard and Wendy are like no one we have ever met before, and I actually find myself utterly unable to describe them. They've both lived amazing lives, and have very distinctive personalities. I'll definitely be able to describe them in person, but don't feel up to the task in writing.
In any case, we finished our drive to their stone cottage in Rylstone, which will be the subject of our next post...
No comments:
Post a Comment