A special skill

Along the way I developed a special skill of sorts. I always feel like I am in that movie Napoleon Dynamite when I use the word skills.  It's like I am talking with the goofy haired kid discussing what abilities we have to bring to the table.  I may not have good drawing skills, but I can sure peer into someone's soul.  I had no idea when I was younger that I was developing something that was going to give me an ability few others possess.  I was just trying to feel close to other people.  I was simply trying to fill a hole within myself.  I just wanted to not feel alone, to not feel broken, to not hurt anymore.  One of the ways I would ease the pain was by talking about my life, my childhood specifically.  Telling the story helps let it go.  By doing this it opened the door for others so that they could do the same thing.  I have had a great many friends over the years and we have shared our stories together.  We healed each other.  I have always been a great catalyst in this regard.  It made it easier for them to tell their story when they contrasted it with mine.  More often than not my childhood was more traumatic so it alleviated a great deal of self consciousness others had regarding their own story.  It made it easier for them because I would always go first.  I had no shame in mine and that freed them of theirs.

It goes a bit deeper though.  It wasn't always just about healing.  It happens to be something about me that just is.  As they say, if you do something long enough it just becomes who you are.  People feel safe talking to me about certain things.  You see, people tell me their secrets.  Not just regular secrets but the deep down inside dark secrets.  People tell me things they don't tell anyone else.  I have always known the darker side of life because of this.  The average person never sees this side of people, the secret side, for whatever reason, but I have always wanted to know why, so I kept my eye open to the dark. 

All my life people have looked at me crazy because I will say, such and such, about someone, which will completely contradict what they are thinking.  It must be that I am crazy right?  I can’t possibly know what I am talking about.  They will ask me how it is I know that about such and such.  I'll say things like, "that guy beats his kids when no one is around," or something like, "She cheats on her husband whenever she gets the chance."  More often than not, even my personal friends do not believe me at all. I just shrug and go on.  They just think I am being arrogant or something.  For me it is like seeing someone's aura, except it is not visual. It is just a "knowing" I get when I see people do things in a small way.  I am always that guy standing around paying attention to what no one else is paying attention too.  When I see some small happening, for instance, a sharp word spoken to a child in some certain way, it shows me the dark side of that individual.  Not because I am gifted or something, but because I have spent so much time studying people.  This is not something that can be taught to another person either.  One must learn it alone, and it seems to take a long time to refine.

A classic example is the story of the promiscuous girl.  If you didn't know, all girls are promiscuous just like boys are.  Girls are just taught to be ashamed of it, so they hide it much better than boys do.  Honestly, for me now, this is the easiest to realize simply because I have seen it so much.  Imagine a social gathering.  You know the typical setting.  Ten to fifteen people, everyone knows everyone to some degree or another.  People are gossiping like they do.  Maybe someone isn't at the party and usually is, so people are talking about the person who is gone.  Maybe the person gone is having problems with her boyfriend cheating so she couldn't make it because they are breaking up or are at home fighting. Cheaters always try to keep each other locked down at home.

 Surely we have all witnessed this before?  Or at least know the couple of which I speak.  Peggy, a girl at the party, is saying that she would never cheat on her husband like such and such does.  Or she is saying she would never stay with a man who cheats on her.  She gives her emotional reasons like most females do.  It is wrong, it would hurt him, they have a kid and it might split up the nuclear family bleh bleh bleh.  In our setting, everyone knows Peggy, and they all agree with her.  Peggy is a nice person, she would never cheat, and no one is even questioning this.  If you would pay attention like I do, you can see me though, as I often am, standing in the circle, acting uninterested yet coyly watching it all go down.  We all know a Peggy or two don't we?

What you don't know is that Peggy cheats.  The problem I have though is that no one seems to know this but me.  What you don't know is that in this situation I can get at this Peggy girl any time I choose.  I say this because I have known a few people just like Peggy in my day.  They create this huge façade about how moral and great they are, but in reality she is a cheater just like the rest.  I will never forget the first time a heard a girl convince everyone of how good she was.  They were friends of mine, friends of hers too.  They all believed her.  I just stood and watched it all go down.  The very first time I met a Peggy was in high school.  I really crashed and burned too because I let her secret out.  Shouldn't she have been the one that crashed and burned?  Nope.  No one believed me!  She made me out to be the bad guy and everyone helped her do it. 

I learned my lesson that day.  I don't let out the secrets anymore.  I was young then, and we all have to touch the flame once in awhile to learn our lessons don't we?  The whole social scene turned against me because I was lying about Peggy.  Lying?  I wasn't lying.  I slept with Peggy!  It turned into such a mess.  I lost friends.  I lost social standing.  I made enemies.  You see I learned that day that when you let someone's secret out they turn on you with a vengeance.  They turn mean and nasty.  They, themselves, do not wish to admit to reality.  It engages their ego, and as they say, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.  I was just being idealistic.  I was doing the right thing whether I liked it or not.  To me the right thing was acknowledging the truth.  She was lying to everyone and I thought they should know. 

I'm getting on forty years old now.  I am no longer some naive high school punk.  I have lost count of the Peggy's I have known.  I am not saying I slept with them all.  Honestly I avoid them.  I am just saying I know who they really are.  In my life now I have held so many secrets, for so many people, it has created pessimism in my life.  I should say, it seems like pessimism to others.  I don’t live my life thinking it should be some picturesque thing.  People will often call me negative or say I am just tainted or something because of my past.  This is not true.  I am simply a realist.  I see what is really going on.  Seeing the dark side is a double edged sword; I get to know the truth, but I never get to share it.

Being abused as a child is another way one can see what I mean.  The woman who raised me always tried to hide the truth.  I though, always wanted to know the truth.   Growing up I got to see both sides simultaneously.  It was a perpetual state of affairs.  I got to see her façade and reality at the same time.  The darkness within our home and the façade that they all created to hide it simply couldn't be hidden from me.  I was in both places at the same time.  I saw it all.  It taught me to see through the lies people create about themselves.  It taught me to see the mask that people wear, and to know it for what it is.  I've spent my whole life living those lies for other people. I spent my whole life living in the darkness they created.  When I see parents act like mine did, and I see how their kids act too, I know what is really going on. 

You see, everyone will say Peggy is a good parent.  They will say, "Look, she has a job, she goes to church, she does this and that for her children.  I see something different though.  I see what is really going on.  One of the greatest works of literature is The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.  He successfully compiled his understanding of human nature.  In it he says, "Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are."  When I read this for the first time it gave me chills.  It made me realize I am not one who judges by the cover.  It made me realize how my childhood forced me to see what was really going on. 

I could list examples for weeks.  I could write a book alone on the lies that people live. I have friends who have burned me really badly and I still keep their secrets.  If knowledge is Power, then the secret of others is True Power.  That was what I ultimately learned.  Keeping those secrets gave me a certain power in and of itself.    

Don't believe me?  Start paying attention to what people actually do instead of what they say they do, and you will soon learn that the world you live in is dark indeed.  Be warned though, to do it well, you must first learn to see it in yourself.