Understanding and the Sacrificial Altar

No one knows your story.  No one sees the bedsores that your bedraggled psyche nurses.  Anyone can form opinions based on the bits they see, but none will truly understand unless a few criteria are met.  The criteria for understanding are painfully simple, and so often ignored.  They must have had similar experiences, been by your side through your tribulations, or heard details of your story from a reputable source- preferably, your own mouth.  There must be other requirements, but few as important as these.

It is an unfortunate trait of humanity that lives are judged and sentenced without trials.  Orders are given on how each life should be lived by people who have no idea why these lives have become what they are.  Men and women facing woes of all magnitudes are clawed and marred by those who have no knowledge of their conception.  Each man's sorrow or success is an intricate temporal design that he has knocked into place with every sigh, touch and footstep.  Were you there when his pillow was drenched in tears? Who made you judge, jury and executioner?

In Iphigenia, Jean Racine's telling of King Agamemnon's campaign against the Trojans, Achilles and Iphigenia are launched into a maelstrom by a similar misunderstanding.  The gods require a substantial sacrifice if they are to provide wind for the sails of the Greek fleet.  This sacrifice is to be the king's daughter, Iphigenia, who is meant to marry Achilles.  To lure Iphigenia to the sacrificial altar, a doleful King Agamemnon crafts an elaborate ruse in which Achilles' love is brought into question and Iphigenia is convinced that she has agreed to marry a rogue.  Naturally, this information is used to plot their demise.

The story of Iphigenia is a compendium of many elements of external judgement.  Firstly, her life has been mapped and set on a fatal course without her knowledge.  Her duty to family and country also demands that, should she discover the true purpose of this deceit, her ultimate choice is relegated to forsaking familial and patriotic duty or forsaking herself.  Secondly, she very nearly walks away from the man she loves- a man who would possibly battle raging hordes for her in the dead of night- largely because of the advice of external entities.  These entities judge him and inform her of the best course of action without regard for his true intentions, actions or emotions.  To be quite honest, even she knows very little of them.  Luckily, Achilles is able to clear himself and remind her of his love.  Thirdly, the temporary rift that separates the couple becomes fodder for an enemy within their midst.  This enemy masochistically wants Achilles for herself, and plots to destroy any union the two may share by turning the rift into a chasm.  Tragedy and revelation will thwart these plans, but at this stage of the story that is yet to be seen.

Quite often, we are led to the sacrificial altar by the very people we trust to reserve judgement.  Are we ever lucky enough to find such discerning people? Who have we judged when we, ourselves, were so wretchedly wanting? It would be cruel to say you are at fault to point out when a friend is running towards a fire.  However, as a friend once asked me, what if the fire is good? What if it is a cleansing fire? What if your friend's soul is in need of a great conflagration to set itself right again after there has been so much wrong? It cannot hurt you to look at the whole painting before you try to advise the artist on what colours to use.  It can, however, gradually tear the artist from humanity when everyone he meets criticizes a different splotch of paint on his canvas without even knowing what the picture was meant to be.

The Anger of Achilles, Jacques-Louis David, 1819

Plate Throwing Woman

Have you ever wondered what sort of person you are? I don't mean whether you're the type who likes chocolate ice cream or pistachio.  I don't mean whether you sing in the shower or pick at your scabs.  I don't mean whether you like the smell of rain or hate the sound of people chewing next to you.  I mean the wiring at your very core.  Are you obsessive, compulsive, impulsive, passionate or passive? Are you moved by everything or barely touched by anything? Does your spirit chuckle at the flick of a feather or does it rage at the pinch of a brisk word? What provokes those bats in your cavernous heart?

There are many ways to uncover your personality type.  You may go the way of the scientific by taking such tests as the Jung Typology Test, which is an extensive quiz based on Carl Jung’s and Isabel Briggs Myers’ "typological approach to personality".  Essentially, 72 yes/no questions round up your approach to different circumstances and, in the end, you are presented with your personality profile.  Another route is introspection, which is my personal default.  This is truly where the devil rears its ugly head or, if you are so lucky, the angel's halo gleams.  My feeling is that the approaches go hand in hand and are both worth trying.  This being one of my many points of contention, I have naturally tried both.

I tried the personality quiz under the persuasion of a friend, who was convinced that the results would be at least entertaining.  I was slightly surprised at what I found.  Apparently, I am Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging (ISTJ) ("the duty fulfiller", as described by one profile).  It makes perfect sense.  I almost obsessively follow rules, take a stepwise approach to tasks and stick to the facts I perceive.  If this is the way it's always worked, then you can be certain that this is the way I'll do it.  When I am given a task, I work myself to the bone to present the optimal product and if I do not then I feel I am inadequate.  Most importantly, people can be incredibly frustrating and social norms can be colossal sources of confusion (emphasis on "colossal").  That said, there is only so much that can be explored by a detached yes/no quiz.  After all, what you do when intoxicated by passion cannot be determined by a generalised set of questions.  This is where introspection picks up.

I am very definitively a plate throwing woman.  I have long suspected this, but finally accepted it while watching the movie "The Last Station" about Leo Tolstoy's life.  I watched as his wife Sofya simmered in her disgust of the manifestations of his idealism.  This aristocratic wife and loving mother would lash her husband with her cat-o'-nine-tails tongue and, as if to release her inner brute, would toss dinner plates at the walls or floor (or him) to diffuse her anger.  As I watched her pristine dress deflect the shards of her rage, my own realisation bounced from suspicion to conclusion.  I remember a time when I had less control over my rage.  During that time, I did find that breaking things was pacifying.  I tossed figurines, but never plates.  I assume the effect is not as resplendent, but I remind myself that I have no grouse with the walls.  In the end, Sofya was not allowed to see her dying husband until the moment of his death.  I worry about such effects of hostility.  Who are you pushing away and how far? What parts of your inner being do you singe each time you flare?

The song "Forget What I Said" by Noora Noor has been on replay in my head for days now.  I have had to make the same request for forgiveness.  I would rather fester in silence than erupt in anger, but every now and then I choose the latter and the result can be..."like dynamite".  One such example is tossing a chair at my friend in a lab for implying that I was emotionally weak.  I may even unflinchingly make those promises.  "I'll make good of my bads. I'll make nice of all that is sad. I'll cut off the dead hands of my past."  Living up to those promises is often difficult, but the choice to make them is bound to the duty to follow through.

What sort of person are you? What riles you? What soothes you? What is your deepest longing and what would you do to achieve it? When the cold, lugubrious spectre of loneliness approaches the orifice of your cavernous heart, do you allow him to enter? What keeps you from becoming the spectre himself?

"Forget What I Said"- Noora Noor