Figs and Connections

First, I would like to congratulate Brian on his first fig. It stunned me a bit to realize that there are folks who have never tasted a fig – these little morsels have been magical, mysterious and enchanting to me for as long as I can remember. I even have a fig tree growing in my front yard that was started from a cutting, so I am told by the “Fig Man” from whom I bought it, that was taken off one of the fig trees that once grew in the court yard of the old Alvarado Hotel in down town Albuquerque. Why this odd little fruit has such a hold on me, I have no idea – the Fig Man says that some people are just vulnerable to them in some spiritual, dare I say metaphysical way.


This leads me to the presentation that popped up first on Deb’s TED offering. Thoughts about connection, worthiness and vulnerability shared by Brene Brown were familiar and provocative - especially the vulnerability aspect. I have spent a good long while trying to learn the how to moderate the committee in my head that always generates disabling cacophony when I feel inadequate. I know that this feeling is a culprit – an abettor of actual inadequacy but, geez, is it persuasive. A rhetorical analysis of that voice is clearly in order. But, the thing that really caught my attention in Brown’s remarks was the little nugget about how we try to make everything uncertain, certain, and in doing so limit connection. This intolerance for uncertainty – which seems to me the same as vulnerability – leads to the non-pragmatic attitude; to the quest for Truth; to a passion for conviction that shuts down questions, doubt and conversation. I have a theory that by the time we get to be about twelve or thirteen our tolerance for ineptitude has been exhausted. We are just sick of not knowing how, and begin to reject anything that we are not reasonably certain about. By the time we are in our twenties, that commitment has been thoroughly made and uncertainty has become ensconced as THE fundamental other in our lives.


Thinking about the Metaphysical Club members in this context makes them seem fairly heroic to me. They mightily challenged certitude and while vulnerability is not apparent in their writing, their lives suggest that they felt it keenly. Holmes never again spoke about the crucible of his awakening to the dangers of conviction after the Civil War ended. Peirce wrestled with mental instability and found no solid footing after he left Johns Hopkins and the Costal Survey. James suffered with depression and, Renaissance man or not, was known for indecisiveness. Not knowing, trying something new, risking awkwardness or discomfort or, God forbid, failure is the quintessence of vulnerability. Excruciatinly uncomfortable, it is something to get past as quickly as possible. But, as Brown suggests, we are hard wired for struggle. The pragmatic attitude uses vulnerability to build mental muscle and shuns the idea of doing battle with mental loins girded in Truth. Psychic strength can mimic physical strength, though, as it helps us find balance in this contingent world that pushes against our minds like gravity does our bodies. True, going about without Truth is messier, more uncomfortable and inconvenient, but it is evidently not without substantial rewards. Figs and connection, for two, offer delightful, nurturing respite along the way.