20131217 – TUNING MY LIFE
Hello again! It has
been a long time! But I am picking up
the e-pen to try and blog again! Partly
because of a friend reminding me that I told her to do it! (Thanks Sindy) and
partly because this thought just hit me so hard. So, here goes. Grab you cup of coffee (With cream &
sugar of course) and sit back and enjoy the read!
Recently, my son moved in with my daughter’s family. And
with him came his guitar. My dad used to play guitar as well as my oldest
brother. And so, I know a little about guitars.
One simple bit that I know is how to tune a guitar. If you place your finger on the fifth fret
(from the tuning pins) on each string, except the fourth) you can tune each
consecutive string. The fourth string
you need to move to the fourth fret to tune the fifth string. But, once you
have the base E string tuned (the top string of the guitar) you can then tune
all the other strings. Well, sort of . .
. You see my son plays his guitar through his X-box and another friend’s
Playstation 3. And because of the
program encoded in the gaming consoles it leads you through the process of
tuning the guitar. Mind you, it doesn’t play a tone and expect you to tune the
string to the corresponding note, nor does it teach the technique I mention
above. Instead, it has you play the
string and, just like a digital tuner, it tells you whether the string is
sharp, flat, or on pitch. The problem is when you tune the guitar to the game
console, there is an error in the programming and it doesn’t tune
correctly. I know this because I sat
down and tune the guitar my way and then my son proceeded to re-tune it based
on the console because my tuning was reading sharp on all the notes -- except
the top note which I got from the console to begin with.
Now, I am sure that many of you are saying to yourselves,
“So what! You must be doing something wrong in the tuning.” But that is just it, the method of tuning
that I use is a tried and true method that has work for years. And it should work this time. That is why I say there has to be an error in
the programming. And the fact is, my
dad, who was also a piano technician, noted to me that digital tuners do not
tune correctly. If you are tuning to the
middle of the piano (middle of the scale around middle C) you will get a spot
on note. However, when you tune outside
of that range, the tuner allows error to creep in -- it goes flat as you tune
notes above the middle C range and it goes sharp below the middle C range – and
you end up with an out of tune instrument.
What does any of this have to do with my life and trying to
“tune my life?” Well, for a long time I
have always felt out of sorts with the world.
I remember when I was 4 years old. I was running through the house
playing superman with my brothers and sister.
And at some point I just stopped and came to a very strange realization
that I was different from my sister and my two brothers. I wasn’t like them. I know, that sounds like a very deep
self-actualization thought from a four-year old. But I remember it as plan as day. When I began to realize that I was gay in the
sixth grade, or rather when I had a word to apply to my feelings of attraction,
I figured that must have been the
difference that I felt. After all, my sister and my two brothers aren’t gay. At
least they have never admitted to anything. And, I will admit that as a gay man
I do think differently than most people, feel differently than most people, and
just don’t feel like I fit in with society and culture at large. Yes, there are those who are part of the LGBT
community that want to present the image that “we are just like everyone else
except that we love someone of the same gender.” Well, I think the difference goes deeper than
love, lust, or sex. But I digress. When
I was in high school, I didn’t fit in there and I thought it was because I
didn’t like sports, because I am gay, because I am a geek, a nerd, and a dork.
And all of those also had a part of that difference feeling, but, again, the
world just didn’t really fit and I couldn’t explain why!
When I announced my calling to go to Seminary, I really
began feeling the difference, or rather divide, because that is what it felt
like. I felt like I was standing on one
side of a great canyon and everyone else was on the other side and was working
very hard to ignore me. Talk about a self-esteem breaker that was definitely
one for the books! Nonetheless, I
plugged away at Seminary and received my Masters of Divinity. And shortly after graduation I was ordained
to Christian Ministry
So, now to bring in the analogy of tuning, the whole guitar
issue got me thinking last night. (How come all these great thoughts come at
night? LOL!) Is it possible that I am
just tuned to a different standard? Is
it possible that I AM DIFFERENT from everyone else in this world and that no
amount of rationalization or logic can deduce WHY except to say that I live by
a different tuning standard? My dad told
a story during some of his sermons about when he was in the Army during the
Korean Conflict. He had to tune the
piano in the military recreational area to a different standard every weekend
all because a musical group from a different nationality would play. The
American’s used the A-440 standard, (that means that the A above middle C
vibrates at 440 Hz) but other groups
would come in and demand the piano be tuned to A-442, or A-443, or even A-435. That is why, when people would say that they
had “perfect pitch” my dad would say, “really? According to what
standard?” Needless to say, that always
pissed them off. But all of this is a
great metaphor for living life. What if
some of us use a different standard than the rest of society? What if some of us use a stand so different
that the rest of the world just doesn’t seem to make any sense? What is the reason why I am different is
because the rest of the world is using a tuning system that just doesn’t make
sense to me?
One's musings should exceed one's understanding; else, what's a metaphor?
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteYour analogy seemed a little distracting at first, but by the end I was with you! Being with you, let me just say, I know how you feel brother. I'm not saying that to make you feel better. I know what this feels like day in and day out. I have to say that to make my point.
You know there were tribes that thought of homosexuals as a third gender. There were other ancient civs that thought they (we) were the ultimate gender/orientation (but yes they didn't call it orientation). And then in modern times, lots of gay people have stressed how in general we seem to be more balanced, more open-minded, more sensitive - "higher" altogether really. You could say that our open-mindedness comes due to a necessity to be open-minded to accept ourselves, but I think it starts before we even realize we need to do that, as children, as an essence we inherit. I always remember thinking more open-mindedly than people my age (and people older too). So maybe there is something in us of a different kind, from the beginning, from birth.
As to feeling different, I think this comes in levels. Like you say, not all gay people want us to appear "different." This feeling may be mostly political, but I think it goes deeper. I think some gay people are not inclined to be different in any way BUT sexuality. Some of us feel different for other, unknown reasons as well. That's what you're describing. You feel different for 1) being gay, AND 2) reasons x, y, z. It's the combination that is so alienating today. I really don't think every gay person is like this.
As to what x, y and z represent, who the hell knows. I'm as confused as you are. I could be wrong...maybe every "gay" person also has x, y and z, but a person's surroundings change this with time. It happens. But those of us who are intensely different, for reasons other than sexuality, seem to be unable to do anything to change it.
So I think you have been blessed twice. Once with being different by being gay, and again for reasons x, y and z - which might just be x (a single, unknown quality).
Maybe a good theory is to say that every "gay" person has more x than most (not all) straight people, but that how much x an individual has depends on genes or some other biological or divine presence.
But one final note to clarify, in the old days it did seem more like every gay person had a lot of x, but there were far less public variations of "gay" then there are today. Now that there are so many versions of gay and bisexual, and if the quality of x is inherent in the quality of the older "purer" gay, it stands to reason that many of these new versions might have less of x than the old gays seemed to.