Dipika Kohli
By Dipika Kohli
Have you ever encountered someone who is kind of, for lack of a better word, insist-y? Who tend to run at high temperatures and pop easily if you offend them? I have. Too many.
I’m not jaded or a cynic, I promise. But I want to write this in case someone reading is in denial, as I had been once when a kind acquaintance, who works in healthcare, told me after reading a piece I wrote, ‘The opposite is also true.’ I had made excuses for poor behavior of people I felt obligated to give attention to. Her note was frank caution: Not everyone who says they have your back really will.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Someone I knew in Durham said when you run a crowdfunding campaign, you will find out really fast who your friends are. I think she meant the way it felt to be told you ought not to be doing that. I guess that it’s not easy for some people to like it when other people are trying things in earnest that they want to try in this society we have. But she also said it was good learning about how to filter. Do you lose that much, really, if you say no to people who dismiss you, or aren’t curious, or outright insult you?
‘Human contacts are dangerous [because] they matter so much, and no one knows how much they matter. Even the most trivial meeting makes a difference, slight or lasting, to one or both,’ said George Vickers, who was profiled in a book on systems thinking. ‘Intimate contacts make heaven and hell, they can heal and tear, kill and raise from the dead. These contacts are the fields in which we succeed or fail. I believe they matter far more than anything else in life. What we are is written on the people whom we have met and known, touched, loved, hated and passed by. It is the lives of others that testify for or against us, not our own.’ (Systems Thinkers. Sprinter: Rampage, Shipp, London, 2009)
But how do you know which contacts make heaven, and which ones make hell? Who heals, and who tears? Even the most trivial meeting makes a difference. Discernment matters, here. A lot. Whether work or personal relationships, you have a choice. To stay or go. To try or not try. To give, or to keep yourself occupied with other things that grow you. That choice is yours.
The road has so many great teachers. I got some distance from old ties. As I met more and more people in more variations of cultures, I could perceive others better, become changed, even, and question my own belief systems. A lot of shifting from place to place all the time has had these positives. I wasn’t aware of them at those times, but stuff like knowing who is what to you, and knowing what you like, are valuable tools in today’s world where you have to be careful with these relationships. These contacts are the fields in which we succeed or fail. I can say with some confidence, now that as I’ve had a good deal of quiet time to reflect, I see better.
Thanks to reading systems thinkers, and other experiences, I have learned. We have to be careful with people who pretend to care, but just want to manipulate. They can seriously hurt us, long-term. All the people we meet will in some way influence us, for better or worse, and we will change as we go. But kindness is so nice to find. Did you notice that? I feel like things have changed a whole lot since even just five years ago.
Aging changes us, too. There’s such a variance in how people are when they pass 50, 60, 70, 80. Some stay warm. (A few, anyway.) I’ve seen people change as they find out what they have isn’t what they want, after all this time. Or the whole waiting ’til retirement to do things, those are the people on their world tours here in Southeast Asia. But some of them don’t get to grow from having done things like come see the world. They are just here, passing judgments on what falls into their paths. It feels like a missed opportunity, every time I see this.
Sure, no one’s perfect, and that’s okay. But seeing with fresh eyes is valuable. So is exiting. You don’t have to put up with things that make you feel miserable. We learn from fails; we build and grow. (If we want to, that is.) On to the next place, to make more zines. Also, more surprises ahead to look forward to.
Dipika Kohli is an author who is based in Phnom Penh. Discover her books at kismuth.com and other projects at dipikakohli.com.
