Planes of existence

Apparently there are quite a few of them that many of us have to traverse.
And sometimes, people cannot co-exist on the same plane of existence.

Or specific bits of people cannot co-exist on the same plane of existence as their family, friends, church-goers and colleagues.

It's complicated.

chelsea5manu0 said in a comment on an earlier posting of mine, 'it's better to lead a simple life than a complicated life.'

Sometimes, we have very little choice in the matter.

Some of us might want a black and white world, where we know clearly what is wrong and what is right. Where choices are simple and easy to make.

But life ... really isn't that black and white. And life isn't simple, especially if life is to be based on conventional wisdom.

From Freakonomics:
It was John Kenneth Galbraith, the hyperliterate economic sage who coined the phrase 'conventional wisdom'. He did not consider it a compliment. "We associate truth with convenience," he wrote, "with what most closely accords with self-interest and personal well-being or promises best to avoid awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation of life. We also find highly acceptable what contributes most to self-esteem." Economic and social behaviour, Galbraith continued, "are complex, and to comprehend their character is mentally tiring. Therefore we adhere, as though to a raft, to those ideas which represent our understanding."

I like complication myself. I like different perspectives, even though I might still scoff at some of them. This intellectual elitism, I must curb. Thanks, Ryan, for reminding me about the arrogance and snootiness embedded in hierarchies of knowledge (see Michael Apple's work on knowledge hierarchies in school curriculums), and for rightfully chiding me for frowning at pop-culture in public libraries.

But complication is tiring. And walking from plane to plane when meeting different sets of friends and family can be very tiring.

In some planes, I can be all of myself. In some planes, some bits of me are ... known but not enunciated. In others, well, some bits of me are almost clearly no-go if I want to preserve the relationships.

And what if the planes collide? Eeeks! It did on Saturday and I think I reacted badly.

But.. a deep breath resolves my panic.