"familiarity breeds contempt"

At first, they were delivered from authoritative heights to those less experienced. They summed up and explained and provided a 3x5 index card for a mind that had been shaken in some way. They offered control in a situation that had stepped beyond the boundaries of control....

The little, off-the-cuff sayings handed down from grandmothers and grandfathers and mothers and fathers and wise men and wise women ....

"A stitch in time saves nine."

"There's a top for every pot."

"Measure twice, cut once."

"Don't cry over spilt milk."

"God is great."

And a hundred others in a hundred other languages. Children heard them from adults who had likewise heard them as children ... sayings from on high ... not yet tested, but soothing in their brief summations. Authoritative because ... well, because they came from credited authorities. Their appropriate accuracies were there for all to see and made sense and were worth handing down to another generation -- small bits of certainty in a sometimes uncertain life.

The one that crossed my bow this morning was, "Familiarity breeds contempt." It may be a bit more intricate than spilled milk, but then, perhaps not: Having an imagined handle on life comes in all sorts of packaging. Pick your poison.

On the face of it, from a child's-eye point of view, "familiarity breeds contempt" suggests casting a wary eye on pedal-to-the-metal enthusiasms. Every up has a down. Employment, marriage, outdoor sports, love of God, stamp-collecting ... pick an enthusiasm, pick a subject that purely begs for intimacy or closeness or deeper understanding or a longing to embrace. Become deeply familiar, not as a matter of authority, but rather as a matter of experience ... deeper and deeper and deeper into familiarity ... until, ipso facto, the praise that once cloaked the scene turns some strange corner and suddenly what was ahhhhh becomes eeeeuuuuuw!

From delight to doldrum to despair: What ever happened to the bright aliveness of affection and attention and applause? Like the low-testosterone ads on television, there can be a desperate desire to recapture and reclaim a bright (and less familiar) past. But there is no escaping it: Familiarity may not breed contempt, exactly, but it's no where near as lively and fun as the point from which familiarity began its trek. This is the dark side of the moon and -- goddammit! -- it's no longer bright.

It is worth noting that the same progression that attends on the 'good' stuff, the 'yummy' stuff and the 'exciting' stuff likewise attends on the long-admired habits of sorrow and depression ... familiarity breeds contempt and the compelling nature of a blackened world can likewise run out of steam ... it just isn't that compelling any more. Familiarity -- the stuff that requires attention -- lets the air out of gloomy as well as glorious balloons. "I'm ugly" or "I'm dumb" or "I'm poor" or "I have no friends"  ... once it was as well-nourished and lively as a plump Labrador puppy, but now ... well, now what? How long can anyone pick that scab? And the answer is, possibly for a lifetime.

Running away is one possibility. Gimme those testosterone pills! Take me back to the bright lights of some well-remembered midway! The alternative is too grey and numbing and mediocre and unhappy. Take me back to the bright side of the moon!

But I think there is another possibility -- the possibility of becoming familiar with this new-found 'contempt,' this new-found darkness, this new-found inability where ability once held sway. The dark side of the moon is, after all, still the moon and that moon remains unaffected by light and dark.  "Unaffected" is not intellectual and it's not emotional ... it's just unaffected ... and whole and it's pretty kool, this moon that is bright as a penny or dark as a dungeon. Familiarity with the moon breeds ... familiarity with the moon.

The moon doesn't mind.

'Minding' is my business.

And I'm familiar with that.