You’re Not So Good with People Anymore….Breaking Beyond Aloneness and Despair
“You’re not so good with people anymore, are you?”
On a recent cross country trip, a much needed excursion from a year that started with much promise and hope but has yielded nothing but pain and despair, I watched the movie “I Am Legend” starring Will Smith. I’ve seen it many times before but only half listened to the dialogue. In this sketch of a post-apocalyptic, end-of-days, doomsday scenario, a deadly virus, which was the result of a breakthrough cancer cure, has become airborne and has decimated the world’s population of 6 billion by 90 percent. It left 12 million healthy survivors immune to its debilitating effects and roughly 588 million “seekers,” a zombie like craven beast whose survival is dependent upon feasting on the healthy 12 million.
In a particular scene Smith’s character, Dr. Robert Neville, takes in a survivor by the name of Anna and her son Ethan, as a result of radio broadcasts he had been sending out for the nearly three years he has spent alone, save for his companion, a German Shepherd named Sam(antha). A recent attack by the seeker’s dogs left Neville injured and his dog Sam rallying to his defense became badly injured and transformed into the very thing Neville sought to reverse the effects from. Unable to cure his friend, he humanely put Sam down in a touching scene that rips through the sinew of every person who has ever loved and cherished the affection of a pet and has had to put her or him down as an act of mercy and kindness.
Anna, recognizing that Dr. Neville may have become suicidal as she rescues him from another attack, one Neville sought out, provided the human contact Neville had so sorely missed over a period of 32 months. As he snaps at Anna and Ethan with a 9mm. pointed at them before realizing that she was in fact his savior from the night prior, she uttered the line that is the premise of this musing.
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We have great expectations for ourselves and those who we bring into our lives. Boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, close friends, acquaintances, family members and children, our human experience is enriched by these close, interpersonal contacts and relationships. These relationships mold our character, assuage hurt and pain, provide comfort, nourish the soul and feed the mind. The absence of these human connections leads to darkness and despair, sadness and loneliness or, rather, aloneness.
I have often remarked in the past how much I felt very much alone in a crowd. A seemingly extroverted exterior provides great cover and a mask for my truly introverted self who constantly seeks validation and approval. You grow up feeling worthless and not deserving and overcompensate by being the best or the top, or the head of everything, only to eventually sever those bonds that bring you into the human family and become adrift, alone in your own state of despair and aloneness yet all the while looking for a way back in to prove to everyone you are deserving of their love and affection.
When this no longer works, you become sullen, angry, mostly with yourself, but choose to lash out at a world that has no understanding of your mood and is unable to grasp the true level of desperation you are communicating — a lifeline you reach out to that does not seem to be available or within your grasp. I know much of this to be true because as I teeter between moodiness and a silent acceptance of things that I may have little control over or ability to change I find myself lashing out, as if I were a seeker, toward those survivors who are immune to my virus and are living lives of fulfillment and happiness.
As I embarked on my travel, I found myself purposely distancing myself from others, hoping to maintain a cloak of invisibility in order to focus, or as the case is, not focus, on myself and my own well-being. At several points perfect strangers with innocent intentions queried me about things that through the normal course of human interactions I would have entertained but now my mood would not allow me to be so courteous. I lashed out, teeth barred, and went for the jugular, forcing back those interlopers who chose to step into my world and penetrate my self-imposed solitude. I thought that by doing so I protect myself from engaging in potential human contact, contact that surely will end in me losing yet another piece of my soul and take away the remaining humanity I have left.
This is a silly way to live a life. It is a silly way to survive a life. But it is the realization that because of the many relationships that, through my fault completely, I have failed to achieve success with, I am not so good with people anymore because I am not so good with the one person who matters, me.
So this tale of pity and self wallowing has a point right? No, not really. We are a product of our own minds who travel a course that is part predestined, part self-directed. It’s like those decision books you read as a kid with multiple endings, based on which path you chose to take the character. We all have the capacity to be happy beyond our imagination, if we choose such a path. We also have the capacity to be miserable beyond belief, choosing to walk alone and stand outside of the community of humankind. That walk will take you only so far. The more we disconnect (that I disconnect) the less compassionate I feel. The great many things I care about seem far less important than the great many people I feel I have disappointed, troubled, letdown or otherwise turned away.
Maybe it is time to learn how to become, once again, good with people. Maybe this should start by me simply being good with me.
