My friend, Kai, and I were conversing about our particular habit of being able to forget completely when we get hurt – or rather to toss the memory away like an empty bag of potato chips as if the events and the actors just stopped existing in our minds. We concluded that we had this ability because we had both moved to different places many times as children. Thus, this ability, we realized, was a function of our need for flexibility and a survival technique adopted as children.
Then, I jetted off to talk to one of my favorite Professors, who has a real keen sensibility and a sweet demeanor. The Professor of Contracts, Sir Boyer, has a perfect photographic memory with which he sweetly teases his students. With one sweeping glance of a lecture hall filled with 80 students, he can quickly determine which students are absent. He also knows exactly how many classes each student misses throughout the entire year. What an unbelievable ability to remember detail – what most think is impossible is merely customary for Professor Boyer.
I recounted the former conversation that I had just been lucky enough to experience and presented the conclusion to Professor Boyer – and then I found out that I had another lesson to learn.
Professor Boyer told me the truth. He said that this ability to make a person, who has hurt you, a “non-person,” is a function of sensitivity and that really sensitive people use this mechanism because they get hurt, and the hurt overcomes them. Maybe, a function of sensitivity in a hostile environment is to shut down? But, if the environment is hostile, how can we be artists? And, if the environment becomes safe, will we all become artists? I believe so.
Then, I jetted off to talk to one of my favorite Professors, who has a real keen sensibility and a sweet demeanor. The Professor of Contracts, Sir Boyer, has a perfect photographic memory with which he sweetly teases his students. With one sweeping glance of a lecture hall filled with 80 students, he can quickly determine which students are absent. He also knows exactly how many classes each student misses throughout the entire year. What an unbelievable ability to remember detail – what most think is impossible is merely customary for Professor Boyer.
I recounted the former conversation that I had just been lucky enough to experience and presented the conclusion to Professor Boyer – and then I found out that I had another lesson to learn.
Professor Boyer told me the truth. He said that this ability to make a person, who has hurt you, a “non-person,” is a function of sensitivity and that really sensitive people use this mechanism because they get hurt, and the hurt overcomes them. Maybe, a function of sensitivity in a hostile environment is to shut down? But, if the environment is hostile, how can we be artists? And, if the environment becomes safe, will we all become artists? I believe so.
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