Trained Not to Look

If anything was wrong we weren't supposed to notice. That's what made life possible, according to the Disney principles that governed in our household. "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." was a line repeated over and over by our mother. How did I ever develop the hyper-critical attitude of spotting errors; mistakes made by others more often than not? Perhaps it was defensive. Perhaps I was being constantly criticized and needed to deflect attention onto someone else.
I could have chosen my younger sister as my target. She was getting more attention than I was as we aged. I seemed to need to prove that I was smarter than she was. I think that need carried over into the schoolroom later on. And I can remember the pleasure I experienced when I could correct my father when he said something at the dinner table. It was surprising what he could forget, or how misinformed he could be about new developments in science. But, in public, it was essential not to notice and not to embarrass anyone making a mistake. No one wanted to be singled out for criticism. I, especially, could not bear being found at fault.
We lived, as Candide's Pangloss says: "In the best of all possible worlds". Nothing could be amiss, could it? Why was everything so disappointing to me? Why did things always break? I found myself always in a rush to fix something before the malfunction was noticed. I think I learned that from my father. My role in life was eventually to become Mr. Fix-It. No one else was supposed to notice how broken life really was. I could see the faults all too clearly. I trained to see nothing else. In doing so I became invisible.
For a very short while I did function at a higher level of criticism. I was able, with the help of my girlfriends, to see beauty; to look with awe at the world around me. They helped me acquire a taste for art, music, poetry and the intellectual order of the universe. I learned to delight in my senses and appreciate the cultivation of tastes. History, philosophy, and writing stimulated me and drew me into new and different worlds. Alternative communities offered ways to explore possibilities for living in creative relationships. I came to see another life. I didn't see the disappointment that was to come.
The reality of life in the late '60s was summarized by the voices in Washington Square Park that spoke of "co-opting" the principles and approaches that the "Flower Children" broadcast so effectively into our culture. The fix for social problems became the "hype" that corporations and their publicists cloaked themselves with as capitalism responded in force to the innocent steps we had taken. The reality was a disappointment for those of us who struggled with communes, sexual identities, new music and art forms, or the commerce of the future. We trained ourselves not to look, not to see what had become of our insights into this "best of all possible worlds". We became a world culture, trained to follow our dreams, and not to look at what the reality of what we had become. We became invisible, lurking behind the broken forms we had brought into being. Trained not to look. To do otherwise would lead to despair.