What do we see when we try to imagine a tapestry? A song by Carol King? Perhaps a woven picture featuring Fourteenth Century ladies strumming lutes surrounded by flowers and unicorns? Medieval Twee, anyone? To imagine the work and time that goes into making one of those things that brightened and adorned cold castle walls. Thread after thread, each colour and thread in its place, harmonizing and interfacing with other threads. How the young ladies of the court worked their fingers to the bone, struggling year after year by candle and torch light, with the poorest of materials and the most rudimentary of dyes. Everything was done absolutely by hand. Each thread on its own, gold, blue, crimson or green dangled absolutely useless until it was woven in relation with the other threads to form the lasting and beautiful image.
I sometimes think of us, as humans, as threads in a piece of cloth, or even a tapestry. We all interact, our lives touch and cross each other as we are woven together to form an image much larger and more complex than our individual selves. Every act, every word spoken, every thought somehow touches others and not simply ourselves. We work together, play together, exist and co-exist together, fight together. Even when we ignore one another we are still together. This is inevitable, unavoidable.
To many of us, Hell is other people, to quote Sartre. This is especially so in city life, where we have little option but to have to put up with one another. And anyone who does even a little people watching in any urban centre will notice one particular and jarring tendency that we almost all share in common: we are all pretending that we are the only ones here. The person walking in front of you also thinks that she is the only one here. Say excuse me as she gets in your face and she pretends not to hear you. Accidentally step on her heel and she will glare at you as though you did it deliberately.
Don't get me started about sidewalk smokers and second hand cigarette smoke.
We pretend that we're alone, but we're all together: the banker, the high tech geek, the baker, the coffee barista, the beggar, the construction worker, the hooker, the drug dealer, to name a few. Pretending that we are the only person here we get in each other's way, inconvenience each other, trip over each other, yell in each others ears, ignore each other. They say that not hate, but indifference is the opposite to love.
Even though we are all together, and act as if we don't know or like it, it is hard to visualize the kind of tapestry that we make. Each thread acts as though it is the only thread, the best and most beautiful thread, too good and too lovely and costly to be lost and devalued in a woven composition with other threads to compete with. Every thread forgets, or simply has never understood, how useless it is dangling alone in the cold wind.
Regardless of these illusions of solitude and exclusivity we are together, and way more together than we would care to imagine. Imagine the building you live in, and try to imagine that the walls, floors and ceilings are all made of clear transparent glass. No curtains, no blinds, nothing to cover, protect or shield. Imagine how close we suddenly are to one another, all neighbours, separated by only a metre or two or three feet. We see each other, waking or sleeping; we see each other naked and in the bathroom. I'll stop here (You're very welcome, Gentle Reader!)
We are completely and indelibly dependent on one another. Even though I agree that there is a problem with codependent relationships I also laugh at the absolute fear of intimacy and deep friendship that seems to be the norm in our culture. The myth of independence. Yes, we do each need to stand on our own, inasmuch as we are able, but at the end of the day we cannot live without one another, our existence, our very lives are contained in one another. How are babies born? How do businesses stay in business? How are children educated? Who takes care of us when we are sick, and who disposes of our remains when we are dead? I could go on.
Our complex and often violent human history is no doubt like a huge and incredibly complex tapestry in process. It is hard to visualize how it will all look in the end. Given the wars, massacres, the wholesale brutality that marks a lot of our history, it is hard to be optimistic. There have also been innumerable acts of kindness and brazen beauty. What will we see at the end? Maidens and unicorns? A massive field of gray and black soaked in red blood? Dragons and minotaurs? Maybe all of these.
We are each a thread in the tapestry and our work has only just begun.
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