NOSE JOB

My entire life I have had this problem. I came by it honestly; it's in my DNA. My father has it. My mother has it. From time to time, I see glimpses that suggest I have passed it on to at least one of my children. Is it psoriasis? No. The consumption? No. An overdeveloped sense of moral legalism? Hell no. Dyslexia? On. Body odor? Ew. Liberalism? Eh. A taste for Russian vodka? Nyet. Surrealism? The fish. No, it's none of these.

I have the pokey nose. I am predisposed to poking my nose into things that are none of my damn business.

Most people suffer from the opposite disorder: snub nose. Most people--or at least many people--live life afraid to get involved, fearful of the risks and dangers of drawing fire or attracting responsibility, inspiring an apathetic monotony in their lives. Or, maybe most people just live with an intelligent dose of wisdom that prevents them from enduring a lifetime of grief. They go about their business with noses tucked neatly into their own affairs. I, on the other hand, don't have enough of my own problems; so I create more by meddling. It comes in handy when someone is being dealt an injustice, or there is a need for bold or decisive action. But, most of the time there is no Bat signal beckoning me, no need for a superhero. Too much of the time, I just make trouble for myself.

The symptoms of nose-pokism may include -

1) using phrases like:
"My advice is..."
"I know you didn't ask for it, but my thoughts on the matter are..."
"I couldn't help but overhear..."
"What she needs to do is..."

2) an overdeveloped sense of obligation to be "my brother's keeper."

3) an abundance of expectations and responsibilities, because everyone is happy to let pokey-nose do it, if he is going to act like he knows everything.

4) less serving of others, and more doing for others. (They are not the same.)

5) a prevailing sense of guilt if you are not solving everyone's problems.

If you experience two or more of these symptoms, you may choose to follow my lead (I'm not trying to tell you what to do...really). I have resolved to do something about my nasal aggression. Eventually it may take the influence of prescription medication, but for now I am attempting to change through mindful behavior modification, a bit of a rhetorical rhinoplasty. My nose job does not require a retreat from active involvement in relationships: the world does not need another passive spectator paralyzed by relational inertia. But it does require that my default settings change from heedless action to a more reflective method of existence.

For instance, some neighbors of ours are thinking about moving. I don't want them to move. I heard a rumor about a great house on our street being remodeled, potentially for resale. It would be perfect for them. The old me would rush over the neighbor's house to give them the news and try to broker the deal. Make it happen. It is likely that the rumor would have turned out to be false, the neighbors would have resented me for putting them in an awkward position, and getting their hopes up. The owner of the house would have been a little put out that I was prying into their business, and, apparently wishing they would move away, etc., etc.

The new me--with the nose job--recogizes that it's none of his business, and further sees the wisdom in filtering out those times when intervention is not useful or important.

I suppose my absence from the blog lately has been motivated partly by this newly developed desire for self-censorship, and an effort to measure out my talk in more deliberate doses. Bad news for blog readers, I know. Our culture, particularly blogging communities, draw their life from nose-pokers. I realize that were it not for the pokers, most of us would just have to sit at our desks and get work done. Well, have no fear: I am not going away, and I am NOT turning into a coward, unwilling to speak his own peculiar brand of truth to power, or unwilling to comment on a heretofore overlooked phenomenon. I'm not going to become a humorless, passionless dullard. I'm not giving up blogging for knitting any time soon (even though knitting is very cool right now), I'm just going to work harder to recognize those moments when my intervention, my advocacy, my creativity, or my criticism may be useful. Otherwise, I'm going to shut up. Don't want to be no Cyrano.


I owe thanks to my wife and our friend Sarah for working out some of these thoughts with me. If you are ever in Portland, Oregon, you need to go to Sarah's chocolate shop.