Complaining, Noticing, Connecting

When I wrote about complaining last week, I was really thinking about a constant engagement in the analysis of our political moment that could condition our brains to miss out on the beautiful moments, the caring kindness, the community building. I wasn’t thinking about the normal everyday complaining of normal everyday life.

But then my friend Anne-Marie wrote about it in her blog and then without intending to, I began to notice my own complaining. I generally think of myself as someone who doesn’t complain much but wow is that wrong! A lot of my complaining has to do with travel. Rare is the week that I do not get on a couple of airplanes, and all the lines, security, being in airports, cramming into a small space with a couple of hundred people – it brings many invitations to complain.

I started to notice myself having complaining thoughts, even if I don’t always voice them.

Complaining is a deep expression of ego. It is a statement of me, mine, my needs, my concerns, my sensitivities. It is an insistence that the world should serve me and a noticing that it doesn’t.

Then I started to think about the difference between complaining and noticing. Complaining seems like a particular kind of noticing, and one antidote to complaining is trying to notice more things.

On a long flight from DC to LA, I found myself sitting by two men who talked the entire time. They didn’t know each other before boarding, so their conversation was largely small talk, which I can’t really deal with well anyway. And because of the noise of the plane, they had to talk quite loud to be heard. Even with headphones on and loud music I could hear bits and pieces of their conversation. I was so tired and anticipating a long and arduous week, so I was hoping for quiet and some time to process and prepare for what lie ahead.

I started getting really annoyed and rehearsing a litany of complaints in my mind.

But then one of them kindly offered to me that I had missed the drink/snack service and did I want any of his snacks. And when I had to get up to go to the bathroom, they both graciously got up and were very kind about the disruption.

I couldn’t help but feel more kindly toward them. Noticing more about the situation than just what I wanted. When you feel kindly toward people, it is almost self-renewing and expands your own internal feeling of happiness and well-being.

Then I was at a retreat center in the mountains for two days. On the drive up it was rainy and foggy but beautiful to see glimpses of rain on the trees. When I met up with friends there, I almost said – this place is so beautiful too bad we can’t be out enjoying it because of the rain. But I caught myself and tried to turn it into a hope, an intention. Instead I said – I hope we’ll have a chance to walk around and see more of this beautiful place.

Maybe still in the vein of complaining, but invested with something more positive.

And then at the airport getting ready to come home, I was standing in the security line, dealing with the wait and people merging in and getting ready to assemble all my belongings for the check. So many unvoiced complaints running through my head. I was coaching myself through it – trying to remember that I had plenty of time, it didn’t matter how long it was taking, I should try to enjoy the moment. I noticed a woman near me giving clear, direct, kind instructions to the three children travelling with her about how to get ready for the security check. It really made me happy how kind she was, but also preparing her kids so that they wouldn’t slow down the line or cause a disruption. I caught her eye to smile, wanting to share that sense of good will. And then she said she had a friend reading the same book I had poking out of my bag and we shared a brief conversation about it.

Connection. Because of trying to notice more than the one experience that fixated my attention and focused the complaint.

I’m reading another Rebecca Solnit book – A Paradise Built in Hell. It’s about how people behave in times of disaster. We have an image of disaster reality as a hellish state of nature where people cling to their own survival to the detriment of everyone around them. She contends that image is sold to us by pop culture and media and that in fact, more often, the reverse is true. Drawing on interviews and archival material, from 5 or 6 disaster moments, including 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, and she documents how many people responded from a beautiful, community-building place. They fed each other, they risked their safety to save others. They created innovative ways of meeting basic human needs. And in many cases people expressed joy in the community they found.

In a crisis, we usually don’t fixate on everything that’s going wrong. Emotionally, psychically, it’s too risky. It would be paralyzing. Many of us get really practical, do what needs doing, focus on what is working, help people around us however we can. I have experienced that myself. Rebecca Solnit says this is an expression of our true humanity, our true desire for wholeness and connectedness that gets suppressed by the stresses and pressures that arise during normal life.

Trying not to complain in normal, everyday life is an effort to tap into that deeper desire for wholeness and connectedness.

There’s a lot here that connects to yoga, noticing, non-attachment to our own perspective. Anne-Marie is focusing a lot right now on the sutra that talks about maitri, mudita, karuna, upekashanam -  friendliness, joy, compassion and detachment. That’s the ecosystem of mind and emotions that banishes complaining thoughts.

So many gifts. So many moments of feeling okay in the midst of a moment that is terrifying. So much gratitude for the loving community of activists and leaders I spent 2 days with this week.