If anyone here has managed a better set of boundaries between interior and exterior, would be delighted and amused to hear stories.
....How does one achieve that state of sublime indifference to (most) others which is, nonetheless, neither repression nor ignorance?--Mia
I don't know that I have any useful answers, Mia, but it's an interesting question. As a divorce mediator, I watched hundreds of angry couples glaring and sometimes shouting at one another in my office while we worked out the terms of their separation.
I rarely took any of it home with me. I think my "detachment" was not indifference, however, but the recognition that we all have to struggle through loss, jealousy, fear, and anger and try to find our way to peace and self-awareness as best we can. In that struggle there is often pain, sometimes scorching pain, but if we persevere with honesty and honor we grow morally, spiritually. None can escape the anguish nor the challenge it presents. I've been there plenty of times myself. So witnessing others' suffering--whether through belligerence, grief, vindictiveness, or grace--is witnessing how we each in our different ways shape our souls, wrestle with our demons, and experience the challenge of life. It's a gift to be privy to such intimacy, to watch as a soul strains, sweats, and claws to find its way. This is not indifference, and it is not being sucked into the emotional vortex. It is empathetic awareness, wishing the other success in her inner battle.
That's a very helpful perspective. I can see how it is perhaps a positive good to simply witness rather than engage. I'll have to think about this... Thanks.
