The fine art of self-preservation

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about self-preservation and the countless things we do to protect ourselves. From heartache, from illness, from getting so annoyed we might want to learn how to set people on fire with our eyes.

My personal strategy is an aggressive form of tuning out. If I’m feeling a little under the weather I’ll stock up on tissues or Tums and then tune it out for as long as I can. If I’m in a bad situation, I’ll loudly process my anger or annoyance and then tune the situation out until I’m back in it again. No sense in letting it linger.

I’m amazed at the ways people choose to protect themselves, and what they chose to protect themselves from.

Aging, for example, seems like a bizarre thing to spend so much time worrying about. And it’s created a quite literal form of self-preservation just a few steps shy of people napping in giant jars of formaldehyde.

Gossip is another interesting form of self-preservation. Telling other people’s stories to distract from our own, to allow us the opportunity to declare we are not like “that”, whatever the “that” may be.

Of course, there’s healthy living. Ah, the elusive healthy living. If eating right and exercising are the keys to longevity, then I’m sunk.

Lying is perhaps the one trick of the self-preservationist that bothers me the most. And that’s not to say that I haven’t ever done it myself, in my young, messy days. Now a lie seems like so much work. I happen to have a clear view of a woman who has told so many lies that she no longer has a truthful path available to her. So, daily, she spins more and more stories to cover for her original untruths, at times getting so tangled up she is literally unable to finishes sentences. The only option available to her now is retreat, escape, departure, an option she is wisely choosing.

In the meantime, how do I avoid searching online for “instructions set fire with eyes” during the times that I need to preserve my own self? What strategies will I adopt to ensure that I’m not splashed by someone else’s formaldehyde, or tangled in someone else’s web of gossip or fantasy?

Aggressive avoidance remains the key. Although I occasionally emerge from my hiding place to seek out escape routes and make small rackets, self-preservation sometimes means flying under the radar until I’m ready to jump.