Brimstone Lark

The Mantis Shrimp has 12 cone photoreceptors in their eyes, compared to the 3 that we have. These cones allow them to see colors in the physical world which we will never understand. We are blind in their eyes.

The human experience is colored by the thoughts and feelings we have each day. But some of these perceptions aren’t accessible to us until we develop a sensitivity to them through experience. We begin with dim photoreceptors, but the cones of human perception are there, waiting to be awakened by our relations with other people. The closed heart only knows a thin segment of the spectrum of human emotion because the closed heart only allows a narrow set of possible relations to others. When we open our hearts, we allow a new class of feelings to enter.

You attend a gathering of friends, existing and unknown. The lively chatter is colored by a lack of familiarity with the people in the room. You becomes keenly aware that you are being perceived by new eyes.

When you observe another person observing you, your brain models the other person’s perception of you. You may become aware of this model at any point. Your brain’s representation of your perceived self is a function what what you put on display for others to perceive.

You begin chatting with a new person. That evening, they create a perception of you. You feel comfortable and connected enough to see them a second time. A third time. A fourth time.

As you go through time with this other person the many interactions allow them to see patterns in your words and behaviors that illuminate a truer contour of who you are – one that they never could have known that first time you met. They start to see things you didn’t know about yourself, things that you’re hiding from, truths that you haven’t faced. At some level, you become aware of what they have discovered. They hold a mirror up to you and through it, you learn new truths about yourself.

All relationships exist on the spectrum of how deeply the mirror they hold up to you penetrates. If you’re lucky, you might find someone with very clear mirror – one that shows you what you need to see. If you’re lucky, that person might hold up the mirror softly, with kindness and understanding. This person might help you become a better friend to yourself. You too hold up a mirror. Polish the surface of your mirror so others can see clearly. You can be a vehicle of truth for others, use this strength with kindness and soft intention.

You realize that you want to continue going through time with this person. That you’re invested in how they feel. That you want them to feel about you the way that you feel about them. You want to feel secure in their feelings about you but they’re outside of your control – you feel fear. There is a choice: to move through time with a heart that is open to this fear, or to reject it and become safe again.

Desire, fear and insecurity, a choice to brave the fear. This pattern repeats itself over and over again in love. In braving this pattern with an open heart and with the help of an understanding partner, we become more human. On the other side of these choice lay brighter cones of perception.

Your open hearts brave the depths and so you continue. Weaved into the conversations, laughs, tears, trips, and all the easy moments that fill the time between events but which evade memory, you create a kind of beautiful secret.

The way that you are makes this other person feel things. You try to make them feel good things, to make them feel glad that you’re around- not because you always have a smile on, or because you tell them half truths. You make them glad by virtue of your goodness, by expanding your definition of goodness, by having the courage to share yourself with them.

The people in our lives are our teachers for how to become better at being good to others. You’ll succeed in the effort to be good at least as many times as you fail, and you’ll fail many more times that you never become conscious of. Don’t beat yourself up when you make a mistake. This is the process that teaches us about cause and effect. This is the process that teaches us about other people and about our internal geography.

In relationships with others, sometimes there are endings. This is particularly true for romantic love. The sense of “I-will-be-there-for-you-ness”, which is built up over time can end for any number of reasons. It can end quickly, because of something that forces two people apart. It can end slowly, because of chronic behaviors that erode intimacy and create isolation. Even in endings there is a way to move forward with bravery and with an open heart. Over time, your relationship with that ending will change and heal.

You go your separate ways. You re-learn what it is like to be alone. Who you were with them, who you were together, and the story your wrote becomes a daydream of the past.

When looking back at these stories, we may feel pain that we are no longer characters in them. Don’t kick the memory in the mud because it hurts to look at. Don’t seal it away on a high shelf, like saffron strands that are too precious to even smell.

Instead, honor these stories – don’t shy away from the person who to helped write it, smile at the past together not as strangers but as co-authors who, through their labors and passion produced something complex and enduring. Draw from these stories – they can inspire art and wisdom. Share these stories – trusted friends can benefit in learning about what you’ve helped create, though they can never really know. The relationships we cultivate never really go away.

You cannot experience love without exposing your heart to the risks of love. Transience is inevitable in all experiences <See: Home>, but it is especially abundant when it is conditioned on another person. It is especially painful when moving on means a deliberative neglect of the roots which have so fondly taken.

Wisdom borne from the wounds of heartbreak and the rapture of love returned to us should be cherished. These things can enrich our experience if we let them. Their transience can cause us pain, but this too should be cherished, and allowed to enrich.

Explore reality in great detail, as if you had the vision of the mantis shrimp. Do not reject experiences which magnify your capacity to feel. You will nurse a few wounds but you will also have loved, have learned, have created something beautiful, have enriched another human’s life.