The Details Versus The Big Picture
How does one remain happy when misery abounds, both across the world and in his or her own personal life?
I suppose many people ponder that very issue throughout their lives. I learned the answer from my mom.
See, my mom is the type of person who can get excited over the smallest detail that comes across her desk. I remember telling Alex before he met my mom, "You think that *I* am high energy and excitable? Wait 'til you meet my mom!" He blew me off, figuring a woman over 60 couldn't possibly be as I described. A few days after meeting her, he told me I didn't even tell the half of it. My mom can be a pain in the ass sometimes (who can't be?), but on the whole she's a hell of a lot of fun. She's the one who taught me that when everything falls apart, savoring a Godiva dark chocolate rasberry truffle and watching a sunrise can make it all better. She's the one who taught me to jump up and down when I'm happy and to cry when I'm sad. In short, my mother made Auntie Mame's philosophy her own: "Life is a banquet, and some poor suckers are starving!"
Her lessons served me well. I watched my family nearly collapse in 1979, and I carefully monitored how my mom managed the whole situation. In that one year, I had stomach problems that put me in the hospital for a week...my dad had a stroke which paralyzed his left side, and doctors told my mom and dad that dad'd never walk again...a pipe broke in the house and flooded the entire bottom floor...the rain never stopped outside either, and the lake rose up so high that our dock went underwater and the property had plenty of damage...oh man, it was a total crap year. But I still saw my mom smile a lot.
Yes, yes, yes. There are those of you out there who are born pessimists (or "realists," as I've often noticed people try to clarify to me) who will try to state that my mom must be an idiot for being happy through all that. But see? She had warm rain, chocolate, a nice glass of wine, love from her children/husband/friends, sunrise over the lake, orange trees that produced succulent fruit, and a cozy bed. She had the details. If my mom had wallowed in the big picture of, my husband may never walk again! We have no income coming into the house! Half of our belongings are ruined! The doctors can't figure out what is wrong with Kira's stomach! well then, she'd be miserable just like you'd expect.
Being happy is not being stupid.
My mom did what she could to fix the bad parts of her situation. She told the doctors to fuck off when they stated that my dad wouldn't walk again, and she did a lot of physical therapy with dad herself. Pushing, pushing, pushing--literally sometimes as she pushed him to walk around the block from behind, then pushed him to RUN--she got my dad from a walker to a cane to nothing. He still was disabled from his orthodontics practice because he couldn't use his left hand at all, but hell, my mom's determination made my dad go way farther than the doctors ever predicted. When a doctor told my mom I was faking my stomach problems, she told HIM to fuck off too and took me to a specialist to get to the root of the problem. We replaced, slowly, that which was damaged and managed to swing new carpeting and flooring. The next year came, and it was a much better year. Did my mom cry? Of course. Did she laugh? HELL YES! Living life is experiencing it all from every angle. That's what she taught me. The smallest detail matters just as much as the big picture.
What I learned at my mom's knee has served me well. It hasn't mattered what bad problem I've gone through (being raped, being stalked, running out of food, collapse of marriage, etc), I've learned how to survive and focus on the little details so that I can get my most out of Planet Earth. After all, I'm only here for a little while. Sure, I've been pretty damned depressed due to some horrid situations, but it passes. I know it can pass. I know it because...I have warm rain, a nice glass of wine, people who love me, and Godiva chocolate.
My dear friend Colin--suicidal Colin who attempted to kill himself several times before resigning himself to just existing until his card came up--told me once that he was facinated by me because I COULD focus on the details. "I'm a big picture man," he told me. "I see children suffer and die, I see people being mean, I see war and famine, and I can't get happy about much else." He was amazed that I could be a social worker and have to help out children who had been sexually molested, physically abused, or severely neglected...and get mad about the agony those children had...and STILL jump up and down when I ate a particularly lovely bowl of ice cream. They seemed to be on opposite ends to him.
I have found that Colin sometimes lives vicariously through me. After all, this is my dear friend who will go shopping with me forever not because he enjoys it like Alex does...but because as he puts it, "Well, I can sit back at the apartment and contemplate how miserable life is, or I can go shopping with you and do the same thing. Location hardly matters" (and yes, I think of Colin as my personal Marvin the Paranoid Android! haha!). Colin helped me move out of the house and into my apartment, and during that week he watched me bounce and cry, bounce and cry as I settled into my new life. One day we went to the mall and he decided I should get a box of 24 pick your own truffles from the Godiva stand. I was SO DAMNED excited, and he just watched me, arms crossed, leaning up against the counter as I pointed and laughed, pointed and rocked on my heels, babbling happily about my choices. "It's just chocolate, Kira," he had murmured afterwards with a vague smile on his face, shaking his head as a part of him didn't understand but seemed to WANT to understand. How can I explain it? How can I? All I know is this: we can be REALISTIC and be aware of misery in this world and try to stop it...WHILE being happy and laughing and loving deeply. We can get badly, badly hurt in a relationship so that the heart is a pureed mush, and then we can STILL manage to love again one day, fully and deeply. It's all about your choices. It's all about the details.
As for me, I'm content to be a detail woman. Life is good.
I suppose many people ponder that very issue throughout their lives. I learned the answer from my mom.
See, my mom is the type of person who can get excited over the smallest detail that comes across her desk. I remember telling Alex before he met my mom, "You think that *I* am high energy and excitable? Wait 'til you meet my mom!" He blew me off, figuring a woman over 60 couldn't possibly be as I described. A few days after meeting her, he told me I didn't even tell the half of it. My mom can be a pain in the ass sometimes (who can't be?), but on the whole she's a hell of a lot of fun. She's the one who taught me that when everything falls apart, savoring a Godiva dark chocolate rasberry truffle and watching a sunrise can make it all better. She's the one who taught me to jump up and down when I'm happy and to cry when I'm sad. In short, my mother made Auntie Mame's philosophy her own: "Life is a banquet, and some poor suckers are starving!"
Her lessons served me well. I watched my family nearly collapse in 1979, and I carefully monitored how my mom managed the whole situation. In that one year, I had stomach problems that put me in the hospital for a week...my dad had a stroke which paralyzed his left side, and doctors told my mom and dad that dad'd never walk again...a pipe broke in the house and flooded the entire bottom floor...the rain never stopped outside either, and the lake rose up so high that our dock went underwater and the property had plenty of damage...oh man, it was a total crap year. But I still saw my mom smile a lot.
Yes, yes, yes. There are those of you out there who are born pessimists (or "realists," as I've often noticed people try to clarify to me) who will try to state that my mom must be an idiot for being happy through all that. But see? She had warm rain, chocolate, a nice glass of wine, love from her children/husband/friends, sunrise over the lake, orange trees that produced succulent fruit, and a cozy bed. She had the details. If my mom had wallowed in the big picture of, my husband may never walk again! We have no income coming into the house! Half of our belongings are ruined! The doctors can't figure out what is wrong with Kira's stomach! well then, she'd be miserable just like you'd expect.
Being happy is not being stupid.
My mom did what she could to fix the bad parts of her situation. She told the doctors to fuck off when they stated that my dad wouldn't walk again, and she did a lot of physical therapy with dad herself. Pushing, pushing, pushing--literally sometimes as she pushed him to walk around the block from behind, then pushed him to RUN--she got my dad from a walker to a cane to nothing. He still was disabled from his orthodontics practice because he couldn't use his left hand at all, but hell, my mom's determination made my dad go way farther than the doctors ever predicted. When a doctor told my mom I was faking my stomach problems, she told HIM to fuck off too and took me to a specialist to get to the root of the problem. We replaced, slowly, that which was damaged and managed to swing new carpeting and flooring. The next year came, and it was a much better year. Did my mom cry? Of course. Did she laugh? HELL YES! Living life is experiencing it all from every angle. That's what she taught me. The smallest detail matters just as much as the big picture.
What I learned at my mom's knee has served me well. It hasn't mattered what bad problem I've gone through (being raped, being stalked, running out of food, collapse of marriage, etc), I've learned how to survive and focus on the little details so that I can get my most out of Planet Earth. After all, I'm only here for a little while. Sure, I've been pretty damned depressed due to some horrid situations, but it passes. I know it can pass. I know it because...I have warm rain, a nice glass of wine, people who love me, and Godiva chocolate.
My dear friend Colin--suicidal Colin who attempted to kill himself several times before resigning himself to just existing until his card came up--told me once that he was facinated by me because I COULD focus on the details. "I'm a big picture man," he told me. "I see children suffer and die, I see people being mean, I see war and famine, and I can't get happy about much else." He was amazed that I could be a social worker and have to help out children who had been sexually molested, physically abused, or severely neglected...and get mad about the agony those children had...and STILL jump up and down when I ate a particularly lovely bowl of ice cream. They seemed to be on opposite ends to him.
I have found that Colin sometimes lives vicariously through me. After all, this is my dear friend who will go shopping with me forever not because he enjoys it like Alex does...but because as he puts it, "Well, I can sit back at the apartment and contemplate how miserable life is, or I can go shopping with you and do the same thing. Location hardly matters" (and yes, I think of Colin as my personal Marvin the Paranoid Android! haha!). Colin helped me move out of the house and into my apartment, and during that week he watched me bounce and cry, bounce and cry as I settled into my new life. One day we went to the mall and he decided I should get a box of 24 pick your own truffles from the Godiva stand. I was SO DAMNED excited, and he just watched me, arms crossed, leaning up against the counter as I pointed and laughed, pointed and rocked on my heels, babbling happily about my choices. "It's just chocolate, Kira," he had murmured afterwards with a vague smile on his face, shaking his head as a part of him didn't understand but seemed to WANT to understand. How can I explain it? How can I? All I know is this: we can be REALISTIC and be aware of misery in this world and try to stop it...WHILE being happy and laughing and loving deeply. We can get badly, badly hurt in a relationship so that the heart is a pureed mush, and then we can STILL manage to love again one day, fully and deeply. It's all about your choices. It's all about the details.
As for me, I'm content to be a detail woman. Life is good.
posted by Kira | 4:54 AM
13 Comments:
Excellent post! Everyone has times when it's hard to see the details, but it's all about how you handle those times. Life only sucks if you let it. (I learned that from Kira!)
I don't think it's so much a details vs. big picture thing so much as focusing on the good vs. the negative. I've always been a details guy, but I used to obsess on the bad things - bills, classes, suicidal tendencies, having to write 500 words in a day and hating it, etc. I'm still a detail guy, but I'm more balanced - bills, ice cream, beer, having to write 2,000 words in a day but only being mildly afraid of the white space, etc. The same could be said for the big picture. Sure, there's war, famine, and death; there's also charity, forests, and Asian women.
Although I do agree that we should all learn to take comfort from the simpler pleasures in life. Also I've made the same observation as you - pessimists (and cynics) like to call themselves realists. In fact, I observed that years ago. This is a copyright violation and you owe me money and/or sex. :p
Some of us really are realists and still manage to be happy. The part that is realistic is the part that is able to weigh options/risks and plan ahead to avoid much of the disasters. In no way does not being a total optimist prevent one from appreciating simple pleasures. In fact I think it is the disappointed optimists that feel the most betrayed by life.
Amanda--thanks! I had no idea I was the one who taught you that...I thought I just taught you how to kick asswipe men to the curb ;)
Grant--You have a solid point there. Focusing on the WRONG details can be just as deadly as not looking at the good details. Also, I have no money, so you'll have to settle for sex :P
SC--if you say something like, in 1979 I was an infant, I get to smack you :) I was all of nine years old then, but I think of it this way: two years earlier I got to see HAN shoot before GREEDO...as it should be!
Prom--well, just as you don't see being a realist as an obstacle to being happy, I don't see being happy and being an optimist to be at odds with being logical and aware of the problems/issues out there. I KNOW bad things can and do happen because they have, both to me and to every other person on this planet. I know what I need to do to keep my feet on the ground while I oohhh and ahhh over the birds flying in the sky above me. I'm an optimist, but I don't typically get disappointed by life because I know that life can be crappy sometimes, and I know how to prepare for those outcomes.
Kira: I've read (somewhere) that pessimists have a more accurate view of the world, but optimists have happier lives. I think the ability to see the big (and often horrible) picture and still be able to focus on the joy in life is a gift, and one we can work on.
Fortunately, I have never been tested with true darkness (I didn't live in Rwanda, Kosovo, or Cambodia when widespread slaughter/genocide was occurring), and the regular vicissitudes of life merely seem to contrast with its pleasures. That's the real thing to aim for (and it seems you have it) to enjoy the good, fight against the bad, and live to fight and laugh and love another day.
SC:
Alex was in England in 1979 ;)
And just so you know, Kira and I share everything...
Great post dearest :)
Because you are the best thing in my life, and because I focus on you, I am always VERY happy. *kiss*
Kira, this is one of the best essays I've had the pleasure of reading. How much better off we would all be if we could live like you. I, for one, hope to remember what you've said and take it to heart. I'm really going to need to focus on some Godiva chocolate in the very near future. You know, I think I'll buy a box. It will remind me to focus on the best details life has to offer. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!! XOXO.
All I know is this: we can be REALISTIC and be aware of misery in this world and try to stop it...WHILE being happy and laughing and loving deeply. - Very, very well said, Kira!
Kira, if you ever do not have anough food and you don't call me -- when I find out, I'm going to get in a car, bring you some food, and then kill you for not telling me -- maybe I'll smother you with cheese. ;)
FW--you're right in that there are areas of the world where it is more likely to have SUCH a level of misery that there's nowhere to run nor hide. However, it's a mistake to think that it never happens in America. As a former foster care worker, I can state with conviction that there are children who never get anything but sexual and physical abuse, are locked in cages, are death marched...starving...around a dining room table while the parents eat in front of them...are chained up and whipped and molested and never have anything BUT that happen until they die. I guess what I'm trying to say is that when the entire gov't is torturing and killing, it's awful, but for small children who can't leave the house without parents allowing them to do so, a home becomes the "bad dictatorship" and there's still nowhere to go to get away from it. Ok! So cheerful, eh? I guess it also proves my point though that despite being realistic and aware of these awful things and the potential for human awfulness, I can still focus on the great parts of life most of the time and be happy. Optimists are happier not for lack of realism, but for the ability to have hope. Like Pandora's Box, the rest of the spirits may have fled, but the one that remains and is shut in tight is Hope.
SC--see? Bastard! I told you not to do it! haha! Oh, and if you're confused by Alex's answer about sharing, I'm pretty sure he meant that one for Grant and his pay me by money and/or sex comment...haha! 1979 was also Alex's birth year :P He was born in England, though, and lived there the first three years of his life (now you might understand why he's completely bilingual!), so that's why he answered England.
Alex my love--I think you meant grant, not SC, for the quip about sharing ;) And yes, one of the most fun parts about you is your cheerful attitude and ability to laugh. You were like that way before you met me, though, so I'm not sure you can give me the credit, my love :)
Juanita--man, you have MADE MY DAY by saying that!!! Thank you! But now you know why Laura receieved Godiva chocolates. I consider them to be the ultimate reminder that life is essentially good and all will be fine eventually...haha!
Angie--thanks! I think part of what I do rebel against in this blog entry is the idea that to be happy and love life means we aren't aware that there is bad or we aren't realistic or we must be lacking intelligence/education. There ARE people who refuse to see the world as it is and THAT is how they remain happy, but I don't see that as the path that most optimists I know take. My mother, for instance, is the ultimate optimist, and after years of doing volunteer work (at a school of the deaf, at a children's cancer clinic, and currently doing meals on wheels), she can't help but know there is bad in the world. However, she does what she can to make things better and be happy despite all of that. It's how I know it can be done!
Joe--now that I have children, I would NEVER let pride get in the way of taking food if we ran out. However, this time of which I speak was right after I graduated from Duke and started up the temp jobs (when I lived in Holly Hills near West). I was being paid minimum wage, and then I broke up for a while with Rob which meant his ass was kicked out of my apartment. He HAD been paying half the rent. He took some of the belongings he had with him, too, and I had to replace a few of them. I don't like credit card debt at ALL. And back then, I think only kroger took cc's for food anyway. So, one month I realized I had NO money in my checking account after paying all my bills. I had about two packs of ramen noodles, a can of tuna, and a can of refried beans plus flour tortillas. And it was two weeks until payday. Yay. It was bad, but at least for ME there WAS an end in sight. My parents found out years later that this happened to me and were PISSED. I knew all I had to do was tell them, or any of my siblings, and I'd have money sent immediately. Pride got in the way. However, for the record, I didn't starve for too long because a friend picked up on the situation and left a bag of nonperishable grocery items on my doorstep. I never knew who did it for sure, but I just came home from work and there it was. Still, for a food obsessive person, it was extremely depressing to not eat for a couple of days. I even passed out once at work in the lab at Duke around dinnertime, and my coworkers panicked. I just told them I was "too busy" to eat and it caught up with me.
So, if I pretend to be out of food, would you drive down and smother me with cheese anyway? :)
All I know is this: we can be REALISTIC and be aware of misery in this world and try to stop it...WHILE being happy and laughing and loving deeply. We can get badly, badly hurt in a relationship so that the heart is a pureed mush, and then we can STILL manage to love again one day, fully and deeply. It's all about your choices. It's all about the details.
I should print that and hang it above my desk. Marvelous.
WRT "All I know is this:... It's all about the details." From my experience, while I'd very much like for those sentiments to be true, it can be extremely difficult for some people to do that.
Smothered in cheese: Kira, I don't see that happening while you're seeing Alex. :) However, if it does, we need a cheese safe word -- something that means "OK Joe, stop pretending that I'm hungry/want more cheese." ;)
Yeah, it always seemed to me that it takes a lot of energy to be angry all the time -- you know, with steam coming out of your ears. Enjoy the little triumphs and be poised to say "so it goes" when the ill winds blow.
I am looking forward to seeing you jump up and down.
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