Of Circuses and Monkeys

I like to collect sayings from other cultures. They're often amusing, and they can say something telling about the place they came from. There's something you say in Finnish to a misbehaving child, for instance: "you'll either do it, or cry and do it." I wonder how well that would go over with a Child and Family Services busybody here in Canada.
The French expression that translates "to go nowhere" is "to pedal in the sauerkraut".  (???) Likewise, a pretentious person "farts higher than his ass"--Serbs like that "rip clouds with their noses". And a Russian a man talking nonsense is "hanging noodles from his ears".

There are two Scandinavian sayings that really should catch on here: "all talk and no hockey" (Swedish) and "there is no bad weather, only bad clothes (Danish)."

 In Farsi, for some reason, "popcorn" is "elephant farts". (Buttery?) Norwegian: "taste is like the butt. It's divided." German: "not all asses have four legs". The grossly inefficient in Finland "climb up the tree ass-first". That would describe me to a T.

These idioms are  so much fun, especially the bawdy ones. French, again: to urinate is to "make the monster cry"--you might have to do that after "sodomizing fleas", which means nit-picking.  In Australia, an idiot could "fall into a barrel of tits and come out sucking his thumb".  I have no idea how this came to pass, but if you "have noodles framing your asshole", in French that means you're lucky. Seriously. What is that I don't even.

The expressions for a menstruating woman are priceless...the Danes say "the communists are in the brothel" and Frenchmen say "the English are in town". I have to wonder if this is because the British have such a habit of calling each other "bloody cunt"...  (Sorry, sorry.)

Maybe not so fun:  The German way to say "shit just got real" is "then Poland is open!"--students of history may get a wee chill out of that. Or here's one--in Greek, "the Gypsy village is on fire!" means "who gives a shit?" Nice. In Somalia, if somebody tells you he's going to "make you comfortable", you had better run, because he's about to knock you unconscious.

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The saying I can't get away from lately, though, is originally Polish and can now be found all over the internet:

In other words--leave people to their own dramas, they're not your problem.

This is one lesson I'm really, really struggling with. I mean, I wrestle with this one at least twice a day, pretty much every day. There's a fine, fine line I try to straddle between caring too little and caring too much. If you've ever sat on a fine, fine line that's stretched taut, you've noticed how deeply it can cut.

It's not so much fixing the problem--though as a man I have that inclination to stifle every time a problem is presented to me. That's not usually what people want when they come to me, hurting--which is good, because I'm not very well-suited to the 'fixer' role I keep wanting to play. I'm much better at support--the listening ear, the shoulder to cry on. I've found that people usually come to me with a solution to their hurt already in mind, and just bounce it off my belly flab. Hey, it works. And it makes a really cool sproing! noise.

My problem is I can get a little too emotionally invested. I tend to think that friendship gives certain privileges, among them free tickets to the circus. And love carries with it certain obligations, such as the need to shovel monkey shit every once in a while. Which I will do, gladly...if asked.

Much of the time I feel like I just can't do enough--again, I don't mean fixing the problem, although that can enter into it. I mean emotional support. I want to leap through the intertubes and give a hug--a comforting hug, sustaining, strength-giving. Hugs do that, you know. If you're one of those sad people who are touch-averse, I'm sorry to say you are missing out on at least half of what it means to be human.
I want to say just the right thing, the thing that maybe doesn't solve the problem, but that makes it bearable. And above all I want people to know that I'm here for them (with one exception). Two reasons for that, one altruistic and one anything but. I love to love, quite simply, and if I can't cuddle you, I can at least cuddle your problem. I'll keep saying it and saying it: shared pain is lessened and shared joy is increased.
The selfish and stupid reason involves one of the biggest monkeys in my circus: the need to be needed.

Seriously, that's one big-ass monkey in my life. Not long into this blog's existence, I wrote about the alpha of my monkey menagerie, a silverback gorilla named IGNORANCE. (I also mentioned little Slanty the macaque: he's still around, too). The matriarch of my monkey clan, though, has got to be NEEDEE.

Here's the thought process: if I'm not needed, then it goes without saying I'm not wanted. And if I'm not wanted, why am I even alive.

And that's why I write this stuff out. So I can say to myself in Hindi that I'm the son of a ripped condom.

There are two separate emotional traps there and like a hapless idiot, I fall right into both of them. One, not being needed does not mean not being wanted. Two, not being wanted is no big deal. Parents are supposed to teach their children not to need, right? And dependance on another's words or actions for your own happiness is...dangerous. And not being wanted? I can't please everybody and it's a waste of time and energy trying.

That self-esteem deficit shows up in every destructive thought pattern I ever have. And I really should know better. For all the times I've told others that the key to a happy existence is to let go of need and expectation (and for all the times I've insisted my grip on both is tenuous at best)--the truth is I cling to need far, far too tightly--as if I'm on a tightrope over a circus ring, perchance. The hypocrisy has to stop.

That's my circus. Yours? We've all got 'em, don't we? Some of us just have little travelling mud shows and others have grand three-ring extravaganzas complete with ringmasters and men on flying trapezes. Those are the circuses I've excepted up there, the people I can't be there for are the people who have so much invested in their circus that they drag everyone they know into it--hey, you there! You're a lion tamer! And you two clowns? Can you do the Lupino Mirror?

Some people need drama in their lives, is all. Some people act as if they want emotional turmoil--as if life is just too boring without it. Those are the people I've cut right out, and not a minute too soon. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

As for the rest of you--I'll try to leave your circus alone, okay? But if I care about you, and you ever need help with the monkey shit...you know where I am.