Last weekend Holly and I talked about the unfortunate tendency to see things in your own life or in other’s lives (like Indy’s) as a “phase.” The problem with this is the implication that we’re all on a path towards some kind of ideal “self.” And if there is an ideal “you” out there in the future, well, that implies there’s a nice underlying dissatisfaction with current “you.”
In that way, it’s a bit like an “original sin” mindset, except I think we tend to replace “Jesus” with “Self Improvement” as our modern saving grace. No after-life, just a future-life as someone in an idealized personal state. Personally, I like to envision myself balanced like a trapeze artist at the top of Maslow’s ladder.
Anyway, the Indy/Motherly implications for me are this: If I were to tell people he’s going through a “phase” right now of being (fill in the blank), I am communicating several things:
--My hope (or acknowledgement) that his behavior and current self is temporary.
--My dislike of this behavior I feel is “phase” related.
--My expectation that he will some day move through phrases I comprehend (and he does not) to arrive at a realm of personhood or behavior that is final and expected.
This is all very socially acceptable when a child is two, but when do parents stop feeling this way? When is a person a “person” – 13? 16? 24? I mean, isn’t it insulting right now to speak of Indy this way? I wouldn’t take kindly to my mother letting me know I was in my “young motherhood” phase right now.
So, this came up more specifically because Holly and I were discussing religious feelings from our youth in this manner, and we stopped ourselves to break down why that conversation had problems – listing out our assumptions and generalizations about other people’s experiences, noting the “phase” language and its disrespect, and then just generally wondering when our culture of constant improvement would ease up in our lives and language.
Sorry this was so long. I’m experiencing a rambling phase, and my ideal future self will always post in scannable bits.
In that way, it’s a bit like an “original sin” mindset, except I think we tend to replace “Jesus” with “Self Improvement” as our modern saving grace. No after-life, just a future-life as someone in an idealized personal state. Personally, I like to envision myself balanced like a trapeze artist at the top of Maslow’s ladder.
Anyway, the Indy/Motherly implications for me are this: If I were to tell people he’s going through a “phase” right now of being (fill in the blank), I am communicating several things:
--My hope (or acknowledgement) that his behavior and current self is temporary.
--My dislike of this behavior I feel is “phase” related.
--My expectation that he will some day move through phrases I comprehend (and he does not) to arrive at a realm of personhood or behavior that is final and expected.
This is all very socially acceptable when a child is two, but when do parents stop feeling this way? When is a person a “person” – 13? 16? 24? I mean, isn’t it insulting right now to speak of Indy this way? I wouldn’t take kindly to my mother letting me know I was in my “young motherhood” phase right now.
So, this came up more specifically because Holly and I were discussing religious feelings from our youth in this manner, and we stopped ourselves to break down why that conversation had problems – listing out our assumptions and generalizations about other people’s experiences, noting the “phase” language and its disrespect, and then just generally wondering when our culture of constant improvement would ease up in our lives and language.
Sorry this was so long. I’m experiencing a rambling phase, and my ideal future self will always post in scannable bits.
3 Comments:
this is really interesting to me, b/c i think i hear the phase-language very differently from the way you & holls are saying. to me, the phrase "it's a phase" is comfortable because it means i (or someone else) isn't bound to the character-trait, interest, behavior, etc., not because there's something wrong with it that should be gotten rid of.
if it turns out that the thing sticks around, because it's good for you and it works for you, then it ceases to be a phase and becomes a quality of who or what you are. i think of phases as freeing--they're things you try on or try out or experience, and because they're phases you're free to experience them without worrying about the implications of being that way (whatever way) forever. if they stay, you can do implications then, but in the moment of recognizing the phase it's nothing more than the observation of a current pattern, one you can decide later whether to keep or change.
like, i know in the midst of all of this house-moving and life-rearranging in the wake of lynette's death and its upheaval & impact on everybody's life, i'm going through a phase of being so attentive to other ppl's needs and feelings and worries that i'm completely losing track of myself for days at a time. if i did that forever, it could be a problem. but aspects of it could be really beneficial to me/others. in the moment, i think the phase is appropriate to where i'm at, & because i'm calling it a phase i'm free to just be that right now--i can worry later about how to fold which parts into my lasting character.
the long-windedness is not a phase, though; i've always had that tendency. ;)
Fabulous commentary Tyra! So "phase" doesn't imply the linear movement for you? That interesting. I really like your interpretation -- like a behavioral mask that can come on and off. Or maybe that's a bad metaphor, with a mask being kind of solid and strap-on-ish. I'm terrible with metaphors, but you are clearly a scholar and writer. Thanks for your wisdom!
I am going to choose to see it your way and break free of my linear mindset. Then I can also free up my language and tell you my son decided not to make his last phase and pattern of clingy tearfulness permanent. :) Whew.
can't resist to jump in! I like Tyra's interpretation, of course, because I'm all about trying stuff on and seeing if it fits. But I guess I still think of the cultural use of "phase" in a pejorative sense, often in the way that one passes through something, hoping to remain unharmed.
As for learning new ways of being in the world, I am a big fan of what I have named the "Green Sweater Phenomena," which goes like this:
Friend wears a green sweater and you think, "She looks good in that sweater, even though I wouldn't have thought so. I wonder what I would look like in such a sweater." So you try it on to see how it works, curious and grateful that your friend brought you into a wardrobe choice that you would not have normally considered.
I believe that the stuff of this world that we are afraid of are best met in circumstances like these. We get to see them up close and consider them from new angles, trying them on without having to buy or risk the department store dressing room.
As a religion scholar, this has a *lot* to do with how I think modern faith works. Ask me another day about this if you are interested in trying on a green sweater.
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