SILENT VICTORY

October 13th, 2020

The moment arrives, the fact of achievement crystallizes, the possibility is now a reality and so the instance becomes good news.  What is our first impulse in this situation? As clear as we are a talking, socializing animal, our first impulse is to share the news. 

Look what I did!

Guess what happened!

I have to tell you something!

It’s a completely natural impulse to do this, but how many people slow down and think about whether or not it’s actually satisfying to share such good news?  This may seem a bit odd and antisocial, but entertain the idea for a moment.  How often does the sharing of good news lead to re-sharing it almost immediately because the reaction we hoped to get didn’t arrive and it seems like the audience simply hasn’t grasped the magnitude of amazement and joy that is supposed to accompany this new development?  Is this not almost always the case?  There are unfortunately very few people who know us well enough and feel for our circumstance deeply enough and a similar enough way to have precisely the sort of reaction we imagine when we think of sharing the good news.  

Fact is: there’s only one person who can understand our reaction as deeply as we imagine, and that person is of course, our own self.  That reaction is so often muted by the superficial or mindless reaction of others.  This might seem pessimistic - it’s not, and it’s only to set up curiosity for an experiment:

The next time an achievement is fully grasped, the next time a hopeful possibility becomes a reality, the next time there’s cause to celebrate, just take a bit of time alone before letting anyone know: let yourself simmer in fact and enjoy it unblemished by anything else.

Then maybe tell someone else.