Admiration: The Deep and Practiced Courtesy of Appreciating from a Distance - Consequence (Part IV)

An elder I know spoke of a conversation that he had had several decades ago—a conversation with a Hawaiian elder on the island of Molokai. He was told that everything we give attention to or physically touch becomes connected to us (and us to them) and a reciprocal way and that doesn’t obey modern notions of time or space. There’s more to say on this but, without his blessing, I won’t say more.

It might make one careful about what one chooses to touch or upon what one might choose to focus. It might ask one to cultivate a higher degree of impeccability.

"Head down. Throw corn."

The word admiration and respect both come from roots relating to 'looking' not 'touching' or 'taking'.

It doesn’t mean that touching doesn’t happen.

It doesn’t imply ‘never any contact’ or that all love between people must forever remain at a distance but it asks us to know what is appropriate in each moment. And it asks us, perhaps more than anything, to know how little we know about that.

Growing up in this modern culture of instant-gratification, objectification, self-centeredness and more has left us with very little understanding of how to relate to each other in ways that are fitting to the particular times and places we find ourselves in with the particular people we encounter.

Admiration isn’t trying to stop us from doing anything in particular. It’s trying to turn our focus from what we want to what is needed. From asking for everything to ‘what is being asked of me here, in this moment with these other ones?’

To admire another culture means to appreciate their beauty without feeling the need to appropriate the style for one's self. To let them have their beauty without needing to own a piece of it.

To admire another human means to see them as living and sovereign and that they may not want to be with us or with us in the way for which we'd hoped.

An elder I am coming to know often feeds corn to the deer near his land. They are wild and so, if he tries to approach them too directly or make a lot of eye contact, they become skittish and back off. Most of this feeding process he sums up as, "Head down. Throw corn." There is a willingness to feed that which he loves while still respecting the boundaries and needed distance between himself as a domesticated human and them as wild animals. He’s not trying to collapse the distance. The distance is also being fed.

And so to admire seems to be the practice or skill of allowing oneself to be struck by the beauty of this world and those in it, to be deeply attracted to it and yet still proceed with care, courtesy and with deep regard for the space between yourself and that which you admire. To admire is to allow oneself to feel drawn and yet adhere to certain limitations.

Admiration says, “I’m so happy that you are in this world. I know that you weren’t planted in this world for me. Just having seen you and knowing you’re out there is enough for me.”

They live over there in their village and we live over here in ours. Between them is a trail. Admiration keeps it a walking trail but the modern world convinces us to turn that trail into a road and that road into a superhighway. “Why waste time? You could get there faster!”

Admiration seems to be the way that we tend to and feed that third thing that lives in between us all that sustains us all.

The older ones might sit us down and say, “We here, in our village, are sustained by our land and the plants who grow on it and the animals who roam it. They, in their village have the same. These walking trails are a part of the web of sustenance. Our walking those trails encourages certain plants to grow near the edges that wouldn’t otherwise grow. Those trails are used by other animals too. The trails feed life. Those trails allow you to go slow enough that you can remember the stories of what happened for our people, and theirs, at various points and landmarks along the way. But if we build a road? Well… the trail is gone then, buried beneath it. And the road will have its consequences on this land and the land the stones and gravel are taken from. It’ll be much wider and require shoulders and that’ll mean cutting down a lot of trees and losing farm land. It’ll want to be flatter and that’ll mean cutting into those hills we love. It’ll mean less land for food to feed us all. And those roads will need to be repaired. And they will bring tourists. And encourage commerce. And leaving. And gentrification. A road would be faster to get to that one you love but it will also hasten the unravelling of the land base that sustains both our people.”

It seems to me that admiration can’t be left to two new lovers who have temporarily lost their minds in their love for each other. But it must be asked of everyone but them. To say it another way, to give the young love a chance, the community must play the role of chaperones and distance keepers, not to strangle the love but so that its chance at a future isn’t smothered by the short term, urgent infatuation.

So often, even the best intentioned of us, experience what Mary Oliver describes here:

I did think, let’s go about this slowly.

This is important. This should take

some really deep thought. We should take

small thoughtful steps.

But, bless us, we didn’t.

Heaven knows that’s been most of my romantic relationships and entanglements.

Too much.

Too fast.

Too soon.

The community could stop them from consuming each other like food or, worse, like fuel for the tinder lit machine of our self-gratification, and help them re-orient by harnessing the raw energy of their young love to the oxcart of feeding the community.

This can’t be expected of the young lovers. The community must insist upon it on their behalf.

I think of the Cree in the land where I’m from who engage in a four year courtship where those to be married never physically touch each other for four years.

Admiration means a certain amount of awe and wonder. As a child it’s easy to feel this way about life and about others but the adult learns to continue to be in awe without taking anything. Perhaps this is one of the central functions a culture can play in the maturation and initiation of its young people.

Judging by the state of the world, this is one of the central places that civilized humanity has failed its young and, in so doing, failed itself and the world.

Culture could help lovers stay in awe of each other, to keep the other mysterious to the other, to throw some elbows so that there is some room to breathe between the two so that their love has a chance to live.

Part I - The Moon

Part II - Etymology

Part III - Distance