Hierarchies

Well, it’s that time again, the time of endings and beginnings, the “New Year”. Not for me. The beginning and end of my personal year is September. It goes back to my school days when summer days of freedom and happiness ended, and once again I was condemned to another year of schoolyard incarceration, and boredom. It’s one reason why as an adult I take my vacations in September. I like to gently thumb my nose at that time of misery and despair. I also like the weather and lack of kiddie crowds.

For most other folks the end of December is the time of lists, resolutions, and reflections. Lists made up of the year’s best and worst, resolutions of personal piety and intended activity, reflections on things that made up the past twelve months of their lives, and what they want for the next twelve. In the following weeks they will, for the most part, stay true to their chosen efforts. The health clubs will be full of the resolutionists making it more difficult for regular members to get on with their daily programs. By the end of February most of them will have gone back to their regular lifestyles, leaving the dedicated to their workouts. Diets will be abandoned except for those who might have someone working with them, or those with Doctors or partners who nag, threaten, and cajole.

Most everyone will read at least one list of best or worst, or they’ll make up their own. In effect these lists will create a hierarchy of happiness and misery, accomplishments and failures, and places and people. A year or so ago I was introduced to the idea of how we create these hierarchies on a blog post by the actor Nicki Clyne.  http://nickiclyne.com/high-five-yourself/

Over the past while I got to thinking about the concept of how we create our personal hierarchies. While I was in the Tropics I had time to do some thinking on it. I felt challenged by the idea of not creating “best” or “worst” lists of experience or feeling. I found I’ve been making lists my entire life, but when I took another look through a new lens it all changed. Did I really like Key West over New Orleans, or Paris over London? Spaghetti over Souvlaki, or omelettes over poached? One love over another? 

When I eliminated personal judgemental hierarchical criteria I found I actually liked more and disliked less. I like Key West and New Orleans, and both are places to which I’ll return, but for different reasons and none of those reasons involve one over the other. Same with Paris and London, they are both different, and both have excited me to visit and experience, so I will return to both and probably on the same trip. 

Food? Well eating the same thing every day is like a prison, and food choices depend on so many factors including emotional ones. Spaghetti is still my comfort food even though I have to be careful with all those carbs! As for one love over another? Love it turns out is just love. Accepted, shared, rejected, or continued. It hurts or excites, burns or fades, but it should never be placed in the same hierarchical terms as cars, books, or travel destinations. Doing so simply devalues the humanity of both people, and the exceptional nature of humans sharing each other.

There are so many lists at this time of year, all of them based on some kind of personal or institutional hierarchical formula. A formula based on behaviour or performance we expect or dislike. A lot of them are simply based on the voyeuristic value of the subject. Best and worst dressed, Lindsay Lohan meltdown moments, the antics of pop porn queen Miley Cyrus, politicians, movies, cars, Bieber blunders, Mayor Ford fails, and oh so many, many more. Then there are your own personal moments. Everywhere you look this week someone’s hierarchies of importance are being placed in your field of view. 

One afternoon in the Tropics, I sat in my office chair watching the mangrove islands, boats, clouds, birds and tides. I pondered which of them I valued more, with the critical value being which of the elements I would prefer not to see. It came as wonderment when I realized that there was no way to make that list work. All of the elements on that list were the elements that made the experience whole. That moment refocused me, with the sudden mental shock of how much we rely on hierarchical reasoning to get through our daily lives.

This year I have decided I have no resolutions, though I have decided to try and even out my eyes on the world and try not to think hierarchically. “What if…” I am thinking, that every moment and person gets the same value as the last, or next? Except for packing and shopping lists I’m done with the idea that an entire year of our lives can be whittled down to ten best or worst. Isn’t every moment with your loved ones the best moment? Especially the loved ones we miss because they’ve  left us?

I discovered while sitting in my Tropics chair that every moment, even the problematic and troublesome ones, were the best moments with my late parents, Aunts, Grandparents, and friends. I could not find a reason for a hierarchy of good or bad, because there will be no more of those moments, making every one as precious as another. 

So for this year I’m going to try and not live hierarchically. I’m going to try and live every good moment as the equal of the last, and treat the inevitable sad moments as equally valuable. I’m not sure how it’s going to work out but being a lazy sort, I’m hoping to save a lot of mental, emotional, and intellectual time and energy by not creating lists.

Happy “You” Year Everybody!