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Sunday, 27 October 2002
In our wakes... ::
Last weekend, when I checked in at my SoHo bed and breakfast, B, the proprietress was talking with K, a young friend, about her acting aspirations, and I joined the conversation. K talked about an inspiration she’d had some time ago, and had been so excited about it she’d woken up her then-boyfriend to tell him about it. He’d been thoroughly unimpressed, and that completely deflated her; she let go of the idea, and thus also the dream she’d been pursuing. B had been trying to tell K that things don’t always work out the way we think they’re going to, but they still have a way of working out. I offered one of my occasional interjections into their conversation, without much thought, “so, why don’t you do something now with that idea you had?” K’s face lit up for a moment and then the conversation took another path. K thanked me earnestly when she left and I just took it as a polite thanks for the general encouragement.
B told me later that K had really taken to heart my question about why she didn’t follow through with the idea that her now-ex-boyfriend had shot down long ago, and intended to do something with it.
When I saw him last night, Justin mentioned his recent diary entry about the limitations of language. He told me that I’d said something to him once about how language conveys polarities, light/dark, good/bad, but (in his words) “always falls short” and that this had been part of his inspiration for the essay. I told him I’d particularly liked it.
It’s a momentary pleasure to find out that one has had a positive influence, however slight, on another. It also makes me wonder, how many of the effects of my words and actions, both positive and negative, am I *unaware* of?
Postscript, 29 Oct: Obviously I’m unaware of the vast majority of the effects of my words and actions. We’re always moving forward, and even if we turn around from time to time and try to look at the wakes behind our boats, we’re only seeing how a tiny bit of the lake has been affected by our passings. It seems the most we can do is try to remain aware of what we’re doing just now.
References:
In our wakes 2 (17 April 2006)
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