Episode 37: People Are Like Onions

[00:00:00] In the movie Shrek, Shrek tries to explain to Donkey a little [00:00:30] about ogres. He says, Ogres are like onions. They have layers. People. I have a handful of really good friends in my life. One of them that comes to mind right now, I don't think the world really has any clue how dorky this guy really is. And except for the fact that I'm writing a podcast about this right now, the world would probably [00:01:00] never know that I regularly serenade this particular friend with made up songs when I'm talking to him.

Sometimes my songs are about little traits of his that I'm making fun of, or they may be a musical version of what I happen to be doing while I'm talking to him on the phone. I regularly sing to him about traffic, about things that annoy me at work, or even sometimes about my wants and aspirations. I don't really know [00:01:30] why I let loose to such a degree with this friend.

When we're talking, or when we're spending time together, our conversations have a way of becoming entirely serious, only a moment later become wildly immature and ridiculous. I'm sure many of you have that kind of friend who you can be talking to about pooping in one moment and the meaning of life in the next.

The spectrum of who we are is broad to begin with, and to top it all [00:02:00] off, we're perpetually learning and experiencing life, which makes that spectrum of who we are even broader, and maybe even changes us a little. I can remember a time when I got a group of maybe four or five guys to run around my backyard in a human train while chanting some stupid thing I made up.

Another time, three or four other guys went with me and lied down in the middle of the road while we enjoyed a deep conversation. If anyone were to [00:02:30] ever ask me why, I couldn't answer you. The level of stupid, goofy, and ridiculous things that I participated in Astounds even myself. Yet, I still do stupid stuff like this with some of those close friends I made years ago.

I don't think of myself as terribly goofy or wild, and I don't really think of my friends that way either, but clearly, we are, and that is a part of us. Some of these friends I have are people I never would [00:03:00] have imagined befriending, but life gave us an opportunity to get to know each other. In my personal life, I'm a little more openly goofy than most my friends, and admittedly, I instigated a lot of the dumb stuff my friends and I did.

But even still, I think most people would never even be able to imagine that this part of some of my friends even exists. The thing is, people are like onions. They have layers. Sometimes, I think we [00:03:30] don't even know ourselves how many layers we have, because with the right person, a part of you, that you didn't know existed.

It can begin to be seen. We may even find that one of those layers shows us that we can sometimes be ogres. Lately in my life, I've been trying to build up some new friendships. Most of my good friends live pretty far from me, and I don't really have any friends here where I live. The hardest thing about making friends, so far, I've been dealing with how easily I [00:04:00] make assumptions that I wouldn't get along with a given person.

I've had to start reminding myself that I actually have no clue about these people because I haven't made the effort to get to know these people and to see the different layers of who they are. I have to remind myself that many of my good friends are nothing like me, and I didn't expect to befriend a lot of them either.

My closest friends have proven, if anything, that I have no clue what lies beneath the surface, because we forget that [00:04:30] people are people. Who you are, and can be, is as much a process of being discovered by someone else as it is a process of discovering yourself. I have a brother in law that just loves college football.

I, on the other hand, struggle to appreciate spectator sports. Or maybe it's just that when I'm left to my own devices, I gravitate towards different interests. But this year I've been to more [00:05:00] college football games and watched more games on TV than I have in all of the last 10 years combined, and I liked it.

Every time I go to these games, I get so into it that I lose my voice. Being a football fan is not something I saw in my future, but spending time with my brother in law rubbed off. Football is awesome. It's probably never going to be one of my greatest passions, and I know that. But to my surprise, I have a place [00:05:30] inside of me that can really enjoy it.

Just as my brother in law brought out a part of me that I wasn't super familiar with, I bring out a part of people that they are not always expecting. There's a protective social fortress that I think we all build up around us. This fortress keeps us from letting ourselves be affected by just anyone.

It protects us by keeping us from immediately jumping onto someone else's bandwagon, only to find out later that that wagon is traveling [00:06:00] towards social suicide. It also protects us from falling prey to lies and falsehoods. As children, this wall barely exists, if at all. That's why almost anybody can walk into a room of toddlers and convince them to do just about anything, so long as you can keep their interest.

Whether it's pretending to have tea together, or getting them to mimic a kangaroo, they will run with it. I suspect that in a lot of ways, getting older [00:06:30] is the process of developing our fortress around us. And maybe this is why it's so hard for us to see the world with the same kind of magic that a little child can.

On the one hand, if we build up this defensive fortress. We're very unlikely to fall prey to social faux pas or to be hoodwinked by someone with bad intentions, but on the other hand, this fortress can keep us prisoner. One of the secrets of a good life seems to be our ability to open the gates to these mental [00:07:00] fortresses on occasion, and to let others in once in a while.

But since everyone else also lives in their own mental fortress It's entirely possible that no one ever comes knocking at our gates. So maybe we need to go knocking on theirs. The reason I can get my closest friends to behave like clowns is because at some point I knocked on the gate of their fortress, or they knocked on the gate of mine, and we gave each other access to each [00:07:30] other's fortresses.

When you have the keys to another person's kingdom, you can get them to behave like toddlers. But even better, you can cut open that onion and see who they really are. I don't resent the fact that we've built these fortresses to protect ourselves. Just imagine how we could be destroyed by so many unscrupulous and selfish people if we passed out the keys to just anyone.

We live in strange times. I would argue that the social [00:08:00] norms of our times are so perpetually in flux it's hard to know how to behave in this world. Also, our modern devices have provided us with yet another wall to our fortress to help keep people out. We have so many things to entertain us now, which is great, but no matter how beautiful our palace is, it will never be very satisfying without others to enjoy it with us.

If you have hundreds of people that you call friends but none of them that [00:08:30] you can comfortably confide in or have met in person, you are essentially living an isolated life within your walled fortresses. You're barely experiencing life at all. Not all strangers are enemies. There was a time when making friends was not so hard because you likely all grew up together in the same village and knew each other when you were young and it was unlikely that you would ever be in a situation where you didn't know your neighbors.

But times are [00:09:00] different, and we need to adapt. To the brave go the spoils. Those that will forever reap the most reward are those that are willing to knock at the gates of another person's fortress. That other person may reject them, but sometimes we just need to knock again. People are like onions. And we may have to peel back a lot of layers, but I can say this, most people are probably worth the effort.

[00:09:30] Maybe we shouldn't write them off so quickly. When we show another person that we're interested in getting to know them, it's an act of bravery because we're opening the gates of our fortress and we're exposing ourselves for a moment as we stand outside their gates. They essentially are being given an opportunity to see that We're interested in them, and to judge us worthy of their attention or not.

I don't know a single person that can't recall ever having an experience of being rejected. [00:10:00] It only takes once for us to learn to start building that fortress. I can remember mine clearly. Well, at the very least the, It's the earliest one that I can remember. But when I was a third grader, I asked this girl in my class if she wanted to be my friend, with all of the naivete of a little third grade boy, and I never assumed the possibility that anyone would not want to be my friend.

Well, I don't remember [00:10:30] perfectly, but, but I remember that she more or less scoffed and said no. I remember the shock and the pain of feeling so thoroughly rejected for the first time. It only took once for me to put that wall up and to start building that fortress. That experience was not the worst rejection that I've ever had, and it certainly wasn't the last, but it was the first time I ever realized that there is risk in putting yourself out there.

Even so, the [00:11:00] risk is worth it. I've reached a point in my life where I think I'm willing to risk rejection because my walled fortress is a lonely place. It's great to have good friends, but if you only have very limited access to them, it's almost like you don't have them at all. So maybe what we ought to be doing is to risk exposing ourselves on occasion and to invite others to come and join their fortresses to ours.

I believe [00:11:30] there's a different kind of defense that we can develop that can make the walls of our fortress unnecessary. Instead of building taller walls, maybe we can make ourselves stronger. Maybe we can attempt to learn resilience to the negative views of others. Maybe that fortress can become irrelevant because we ourselves have become so strong that it just no longer matters if someone is shooting arrows of rejection or negativity at you.

[00:12:00] I think there's a kind of paradise we can attain here on earth when we tear down our walls. And now it's true that if we do that, everyone will see us for who we really are. They will see all of your flaws. But they will also see your strengths. In so doing, you open yourself up to be seen by so many more people.

That the ones who will like you for who you are, will now know for the first time [00:12:30] who you really are. And they'll come to you, and they will let you into their fortresses. And in a way, by tearing down your own walls. You'll be creating a community for yourself that is tailor fit for you, because as much as you repel some people, you will draw in others, and the others that you draw in will see who you are and will love it.

At that point, who cares if only one in a hundred likes who you are, because at least this way, they have a [00:13:00] chance to find you. Peeling back the layers of another person is more the act of giving them permission to show you those layers. We do this by showing them who we are so that they in turn will know if it's safe for them to show who they actually are.

One of the most beautiful things about people is that there's always more to learn about them. Human beings are the most mysterious, complicated, and beautiful [00:13:30] creatures I can ever imagine. We have inside us both angels and demons, comedians and philosophers, a child and an adult. People really are like onions, but they're vastly more interesting.