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Memoirs: The Longest Ignored

Earth | Bound Alien
May 12, 2017
8 min read

I was pondering the human phenomenon of ignoring. We ignore a LOT. We, incidentally do not ignore (and actually fixate on) the things which are unworthy of attention. But I think it is very telling what we do ignore.

We ignore our feelings.

We ignore our intuition.

We ignore our hearts.

We ignore our enemies.

We ignore our health.

We ignore our faith.

We ignore our freedom.

We ignore our love.

We ignore our passion.

We ignore our creativity.

We ignore our worth.

And we ignore ourselves.

Ignoring the things which could bring us the most fully lived life seems counterintuitive? Ah, but they are also the things which could scare us, make us "fail," cause us pain, make us feel "rejected" as a human. I think a full anything includes it all, not just what we perceive as positive, or negative, because it includes the shift to seeing what was once a bad negative into what now looks like a beautiful positive-and the realization that nothing is actually even definable or judicable as one or the other, it all just is.

What if we stopped ignoring? Not by doing the opposite-- diving into drama and wallowing in it (ohhhh my enemy has smote me, ohhhh the evilness and horror of it allllll!!!)...but by observing, honestly just documenting it all? By stepping back and paying attention, without judgment? Ah those darn human incomprehensible feelings do hinder this...they send our limbic system a message, "GET BACK! THIS HURTS!" But the limbic system is soooo 10,000 years ago! What if we thank the limbic system for its message and keep feeling? Keep observing? Keep not ignoring?

Dangerous! Crazy!

I can tell who is the most important in my life, now that my family is gone from the earth, by who I have ignored the longest.

The short term ignores are usually out of hassle. You know, someone was mean, someone was late, someone didn't use their turn signal. It's too much of a hassle to deal with all these little offenses so we freak out about them for a minute, then we just ignore them. But, did you know if you add all these ignores up, and put them end to end, they'd go around the earth 1,497 times? It's true!

Some advisable ignores are:

Attraction (if it's not handy to like that person at that point)

Lust (a book said don't do this, so you can just ignore it if it happens)

Interest (if you are interested, but don't have time, ignore it)

Curiosity (this kills kittens...avoid it at all costs)

Passion (it's not cool to get too excited about stuff, so, stop that)

Family (ask anyone, family's always there, no need to bother paying attention to them right this second)

Friends (shit. we get busy. get over it.)

Caring (this is a lot more trouble than it's worth...try to ignore this if possible)

Annoying People (if you ignore them, they'll go away)

Assholes (ain't nobody got time fo dat?!)

Attention (what? SQUIRREL!)

Strengths (most people make money through others' weaknesses, so let's focus on those most, mmmmkaayyyyyy??)

Life ("life? don't talk to me about life." Marvin the Robot, conceived by a human)

Marvin. He reminds me of the Point of View Gun in the Hitchhiker's Guide Movie:

The Point-of-View gun conveniently does precisely what its name suggests. That is, if you point it at someone and pull the trigger, they instantly see things from your point of view. It was designed by Deep Thought, but commissioned by a consortium of intergalactic angry housewives, who after countless arguments with their husbands were sick to the teeth of ending those arguments with the phrase "You just don't get it, do you?"

We ignore others' points of view a lot, too.

And, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy [inside the actual book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] has this to say on the subject of love: "Avoid, if at all possible."

Anyways, my point is, we mainly try to avoid things that...I don't know what things honestly, I just know that it appears we try to avoid all the things which may in some way cause things to go differently than we are currently planning on them going, look differently than we are currently used to them looking, or which may in some way potentially cause imminent discomfort or pain. I think humans equivocate change with pain. I could be wrong.

And we end up avoiding a really lot of things. A LOT a lot. I, personally, am an expert ignorer of several things. My best ignoring comes when faced with rejection. Not actual rejection...I've never experienced that because I have never let myself stop ignoring something (okay, okay, someone) which/who might reject me. If I ignore my feelings, my thoughts, my values, my truth, my love, my interest, my passion, especially for someone in particular, then they cannot possibly reject me! It's so brilliant, isn't it? Thank you, thank you.

And the more nosy and pushy the feeling becomes (you know the feelings I am talking about), the more I ignore it...I can go on forever like this! In my human brain, it looks a lot like this:

It works like this:

I think, "Wow, did I not ever notice how beautiful this person really is? Known her 4 years or so. Huh? She's so smart. You'd think I'd have noticed that?"

I forget to remember this.

About a year later I think, "She is truly beautiful. Look at her hair? Her hands? That smile!"

I then set about ignoring her hair, her hands, and especially her smile. One by One.

Every time I see her, of course, I have to re-ignore each. But that's okay. It's a gift of mine.

I then work.

I work really hard at something really important for a really long time.

Like a job, or a project, or a hobby.

I learned guitar, wrote a book, and took over a company all from simply ignoring!

How productive of me!

And then she calls to say how neat that thing is that I worked so hard on.

So I think, "Wow, she's smart and beautiful and supportive?! How bout that?"

Then I ignore that.

This time, I worked really really hard at a relationship where while Dad was in hospice, this person was there about once a week to talk to or support me.

I ignored that. I figured it was better than nothing.

After the funeral, my "partner" didn't stay with me that night, or the next, or the next.

That felt shitty.

I ignored that.

I stayed with that person for two more years.

After one of those years went by, I was swimming at someone's house.

It was the only truly just happy day that whole year.

And somewhere in the middle of that day, I had the most overwhelming, not at all manageable urge to NOT ignore her AT ALL IN ANY WAY.

I definitely ignored that. On so many levels!

Then a year or so later, after the breakup ends were all tied up, I awoke in the morning, sweating, dreaming, .

I would have ignored that if it had been a nightmare, since those are yucky (prime ignoring material, if you ask me!)

but it was not a nightmare.

It was the most real and amazing dream I've ever had

I decided not to ignore it for a day or so, since it was just a dream, and I was officially single!

THEN I ignored it.

And I kept ignoring it.

And I did a really good job!

And then one day, she looked into my eyes.

It wasn't any particular type of look that I could discern, it was just that she did, and she did it for a long time.

And I looked down to ignore it.

But that one...that so far has been my most challenging ignore.

I am succeeding in my ignor-ance, and meanwhile I am accidentally realizing something.

I've ignored this, hard core, for almost 5 years. Minor ignoring for 10. That's some kind of record.

I am no superhero though...I just did what any logical human would do!

I kept ignoring.

And then, one day, I stopped. And I paid attention. Whoa. It ran deep.

The longest ignored proves the most valuable.

This isn't the only time this happens. It happens in our careers, in our health, in our dreams, in our families...

The problem is, we fear loss more than we believe in our ability to have what we really want. I have ignored so much to avoid losing it--even when "it" is not even CLOSE to what I want.

Even if we stop ignoring for a bit, there's one more thing that has to happen to experience it on any deeper level than ignoring. Why? Well, we have to level with ourselves about what we want, and ALL of what we want. We might see that this situation, or this person, is not in our best interest. Plus, we'd have to be outwardly open and honest in order to stop ignoring. And you know why we won't be? Well, because we are too scared, but also because we risk our perceptions being different than reality. All that trouble to stop ignoring something or someone and then finding they aren't interested or it isn't half of what we deserve, want, or need? Um, no thank you, ignoring works for me, and I'm using it.

I wonder if next time I notice I am spending a lot of energy ignoring my inner sense of something, for say, over a month on one single thing, I might just say to myself, Self, what do you see here? Then be honest about what I see (beneficial? nice? fun? incomplete? inconsistent? happy? yucky?). Then I wonder if I might say, first to myself, then to any party involved: I have these senses? They are different for me. Here are some thoughts I've had while observing them. Here are some other feelings that came up, too. They are very different? Interesting! Do you have any along these lines? What do you think? I'd like to connect on them. I apologize if this is a bit surprising, and by all means, take your time to ponder and/or pretend this never happened. (if ONLY I could be so concise!)

Or:

Do you like me? Check yes or no!

Ah isn't that scary??? Wouldn't you be just petrified to say this to someone you'd known a few months? Me too. So I am totally not doing this.

If I did this, I'd wonder...When is it pushing my not ignoring on someone who wants to ignore? How do I know? Ah, well, if I do not want to ignore, I have to stop. Then I have to take the consequences if anyone else would like to keep doing it. I can't judge it because ignoring really did help me through a lot of tough times!

This is the true question. When my open authentic observation bumps right up against another's choice to not see, will I be sad for stopping my ignoring? I DO know I cannot get them to see. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. So I guess I just go on noticing and being and occasionally stopping and speaking the end of my ignoring about something. Then, someday someone will say, "hey! me too!" and I can not ignore them for a while, and see how I like that. Of course I will never hear "me too" out of anything I ignore, will I? So maybe just being aware, ending the ignore sooner, and throwing whatever thoughts I have out there, would let me live my life more, and spend less time wasting it on ignoring.

UPDATE JULY 2017!!!

It's NOT WORDS you use to stop ignoring (to be authentic). It's energy. Long story...I'll explain later.

Do you think this is a good idea? Check yes or no!

What have you ignored that could have been meaningful? What have you ignored that if you hadn't, you would have not suffered as much? What would you like to ignore in the future? What would you like to not ignore? Do you choose it? Do you own it? And so it is!