{"id":177,"date":"2015-02-23T08:01:18","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T13:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=177"},"modified":"2015-02-23T08:01:18","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T13:01:18","slug":"boundaries-busybodies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=177","title":{"rendered":"Boundaries & Busybodies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warm-ish for February, the snow hadn\u2019t frozen on the windshield until late in the day. So the note, together with its author, had gone undetected \u2014 until it (note, not author), now soggy and rent in pieces, waved at me from the tip of the wiper blade, belatedly grabbing my attention. I managed to salvage enough to pick up the gist. Allegations of my self-importance, lack of consideration, and general insensitivity to the needs of other drivers \u2014 or, more properly, other \u2018parkers\u2019. Seems a few parking lots earlier, I\u2019d managed to straddle the line demarcating the limits of my entitlement and my neighbor\u2019s turf. Hmm.<\/p>\n

Standing alone, I might have shrugged off the communique (and quietly wished the anonymous writer a fate similar to that of the flayed note). But it had a companion, face to face this time.\u00a0 Mid-afternoon and anticipating a solitary coffee and bickie in my office, I\u2019d brewed a single cup of dark roast from the \u2018one cup\u2019 machine I\u2019d added to the staff kitchen on my recent arrival to our group practice. I sensed her presence before she spoke, unbidden, but evidently summoned by the finishing gurgle of coffee maker. \u2018Read much about those things?\u2019 Once I\u2019d established \u2018those things\u2019 were in fact the ubiquitous \u2018K-cups\u2019 \u2014 too ubiquitous it would seem \u2014 I owned that I hadn\u2019t. (Not entirely true, of course. As a self-confessed coffee snob, I\u2019d researched my options relentlessly.) \u2018They\u2019re an environmental disaster. Choking landfill sites \u2014 no end in sight\u2019. (I suspect the pun was unintentional.) The \u2018hmm\u2019 this time was audible \u2014 and all I chose to say on the subject before repairing to office for said solo treat.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

Apparently things haven\u2019t changed much in the intervening near quarter century since\u00a0 this August 1991 cover appeared and etched itself into memory. It touched me as much then as now. Lance Morrow, a Time columnist puts it rather succinctly, if pointedly:<\/p>\n

\u2018The busybody and the crybaby are getting to be the most conspicuous children on the playground. The former is the bully with the Ayatullah shine in his eyes, Gauleiter of correctness, who barges around telling the other kids that they cannot smoke, be fat, drink booze, wear furs, eat meat or otherwise non-conform to the new tribal rules now taking shape. [He \/ she] has begun to infect society with a nasty intolerance — a zeal to police the private lives of others and hammer them into standard forms. In Freudian terms, the busybodies might be the superego of the American personality, the overbearing wardens.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n

And so when my wife queried \u2018why so prickly?\u2019 (and elephant-memoried!), it gave me pause\u2026and the need to revisit some thoughts on boundaries, empathy, and mutual respect. Living in community, whatever the \u2018population density\u2019, has one certainty attached: sooner or later someone will step on your patch; and just as inevitable, you\u2019ll tread on someone else\u2019s. The typically and compulsively Canadian \u2018I\u2019m sorry\u2019 is the universal signal that a) you\u2019ve done it again and b) you\u2019ve acknowledged your fence crossing \u2014 be it physical (a bump in the street) or \u2018meta-physical\u2019 (whatever unseen, incidental hurt you fear you may have delivered). My irritation, then, was not triggered by the \u2018bump\u2019 \u2014 but by the intention. This was no accidental or incidental jostle. These were calculated and purposeful stampings down of the fence line. These were all about teaching points.<\/p>\n

Rose Seaton Public sat square and imposing, mid-block on the street immediately behind my childhood home. Two choices were available for the walk to school \u2014 twenty minutes around the block; or, the option wildly preferred by us residents clustered at the midpoint of Highland Ave., jump the fence, thru\u2019 the neighbor\u2019s veggie garden and a quick scoot across Emerick. Three minutes tops. I still recall the visit from Mrs. Shisler with whom my mother barely communicated beyond the occasional wave when they both happened to be at the rear of their respective properties. \u2018She\u2019s asking that you boys don\u2019t use her yard as a short cut to school. She\u2019s saying her garden is a mess.\u2019 First time I\u2019d given it a thought. Her<\/i> yard, her<\/i> garden. What\u2019s this to do with me? I knew the fence had taken a bit of grief over the years. But beyond taking care not to snag your jacket on the top wire, once cleared, the rest didn\u2019t matter much. Sure. Whatever.<\/p>\n

Perhaps as ten- or twelve-year olds, we might be forgiven for the egocentric stance we\u2019d been refining for most of those senior elementary years. With adults, I\u2019m not quite so generous. The coffee cop and the parking proctor are, as Mr. Morrow prophetically points out, incapable of adopting a position other than their own pedantic and painfully myopic perspective. Much like the short-cutting kid, not a moment\u2019s consideration for a posture beyond their own. The \u2018moral high ground\u2019 adopted, banner held aloft, out come the wire cutters and the lecture commences.<\/p>\n

Aside the absence of empathy and interpersonal respect \u2014 not insignificant issues in their own right \u2014 there\u2019s the little matter of receptivity <\/i>(to said \u2018message\u2019). <\/i>Is anybody really listening? Does anybody really care? An interesting analysis of the impact of \u2018warning labels\u2019 pasted on gas station fuel pumps (in Vancouver, in case you\u2019re interested), cautioning against the use of fossil fuel and detailing its effect on the planet might be instructive. A researcher points out that the customer rolling up to a pump, with tank on \u2018E\u2019 (and no easy alternate option at hand \u2014 bike in the trunk, longboard on the roof), may be a rabid environmentalist under other circumstance. But at the moment, that priority has likely been bumped from preeminence, and so the wrist-slapping, consciousness-raising effect is, shall we say, non-existent.<\/p>\n

You want me to pay attention. Or, God forfend, change! Don\u2019t kick in my front door and rant. You\u2019ve already lost me. In this case, the medium really is the message \u2014 be it a frozen note or a dressing-down on coffee etiquette. I\u2019m already focussed on the inappropriate affront \u2014 not parking between the lines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warm-ish for February, the snow hadn\u2019t frozen on the windshield until late in the day. So the note, together with its author, had gone undetected \u2014 until it (note, not author), now soggy and rent in pieces, waved at me from the tip of the wiper blade, belatedly grabbing my attention. I managed to salvage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions\/179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}