Descendants of Survivors

We are the descendants of ancestral human survivors. We can all agree with this statement (which I may have lifted, but don't remember the source) regardless of our confidence in the evidence of scientists or our faith in the dogma of theologians.

The conscious thought that we exist (at least until we no longer exist) is the raw material with which we establish ourselves as thinking, feeling, behaving organisms on a planet whose origin is unknown and its future unsettled. The only certainty is our past and maybe our present (except that as I typed the word "present," it, too, became part of my past.)

However, at no other time does the past assume such importance in our consciousness as when we acknowledge the passing of someone we love. This week, I attended a funeral service. During the meal following the funeral (there's always a meal because it take so much energy to survive the present...or was it the past?), my relatives (LOTS of cousins) and I talked about our past...mostly the silly things like the near-drownings as children, the joys of humiliating each other, and more somber events like remembrances of actual loss.

So much of the socialization of my cousins and myself (being shaped, poked, and cattle-prodded into adulthood) was a shared process and the process was influenced by so many of the same people. Yet the twenty or so people sitting around the table looked to me to be so different from one another (other than the baggy eyes, a persistent, pervasive family trait) and, in some ways, looked to be strangers to me. For all the talking, what do we really know about each other and what secrets will we carry with us until the time of our own passing and (bed, bath,) and beyond?

A few months ago, I tagged along with my mother to a writer's group that she has been attending for the last five months. During this same time, I was trying to start a local writer's group and was completely unaware of her group and writing activities. Isn't it ironic that two closely genetically related people, both interested in communication, both living in the same small town failed to communicate this information to each other before?

One of the most tumultuous relationships I was in was with a man who was a manager of human resource managers. At the time, I was working as a psychologist. In other words, we both worked in fields whose essential feature was communication. However, our relationship was stormy because our problem was a failure in communication. (Go figure.)

Back to the past, what exactly do we really know about our ancestral human survivors (cave dwellers or more recent twigs on the family tree)? Perhaps they survived because they wore masks, kept secrets, realized that the present moment (no matter how joyful or sorrowful) passes as quickly as it came, and because they didn't spend a lot of time dwelling on their awareness (unknown to other animals) of (bed,bath, and) beyond. The cave dwellers buried the dead, had a meal, and made a few markings on a wall...as I've just done...and hoped that their descendants treasure the past, enjoy the moment (now in the past), and try to not screw up the future any worse than they did.

To not communicate causes inconvenience at the least and failed relationships at the worst (though some of them ought to fail), but sometimes its better not to know too much. Knowing too much about each other and (bed, bath) beyond takes all the thrill out of survival.

There is an old saying that the shoemaker's children has no shoes. I think this saying may be applicable to communication, but I'm not sure how to say it. The End (but not yet bed, bath, and beyond.)