The Visibility of Man

The title of this post is a combined reference to two very different works of fiction: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Chuck Klosterman's The Visible Man.  The former I read decades ago and remember only vaguely as the eye-opening story (at least for a white girl from the suburbs) of being black, and therefore metaphorically invisible, in racist mid-century America.  The latter I read about a month ago and remember somewhat less vaguely as the story of a rogue government scientist who absconds with top-secret cloaking technology that allows him to be literally invisible for long periods of time. 

Whereas Ellison's book means to spotlight larger societal values and norms (and dysfunctions) that can cause the lives of an entire population to go unseen, unrecognized and unacknowledged, Klosterman's book inverts the spyglass and looks inward to the private spaces each of us inhabits when we are alone.  Through a series of bizarre events that are recounted in a psychologist's office in Austin, Texas, Klosterman explores the idea of what a person might observe if he or she had the ability to peer into our private moments; to watch and observe people in their own homes and apartments, completely unnoticed.

The idea of invisibility and what you could do with it is a big one.  Once you load this thought into your brain and then launch it with the bizarrely compelling tales that Klosterman provides, it is nearly impossible not to hit the flashing, red "TURBO" button that your imagination has illuminated off to the side of the story and blast off into your own universe of "what if."  I mean, for some of us, this idea could take up hours, days, even weeks of time that is meant to be spent reading legal briefs or making dinner or sleeping.

In an election year, the temptation to drop-in on some of our notable presidential candidates, for example, would be irresistible.  One could imagine going to Rick Perry's campaign headquarters, say, and watching the staff watching him during a debate -- the head-slapping, strings of expletives and eye-rolling would have to be of rarely seen proportions, right?  Or to see his handlers readying him backstage, checking to be sure his shoes are tied and that his bus number is pinned inside his jacket.  Or what about hanging out with Michelle and Marcus Bachmann?  Her denial seems pretty firmly anchored from what I can tell, but you never know.  Maybe they pray away the gay together every night on bended knee in flannel jammies next to their respective twin beds.

And presidential politics is just the beginning.  I mean, a person with the power of invisibility could go to Twins' games for free, figure out which house in Palm Desert is Jerry Weintraub's without provoking a swarm of golf cart driving private security staff buzzing up the driveway, and really mess with Tim Tebow.  Such a person could also totally hangout backstage or even on stage at First Ave as much as they wanted.  He, or she, could see how Jeff Tweedy writes a song or Joan Didion writes a book or how Tina Fey writes a T.V. show. 

After a few weeks of pondering the possibilities, though, it seemed like eventually it wouldn't be all that much fun to just be an observer.  You could go to the Twins games, but you couldn't order a beer or yell at the ump for calling a ball a strike.  Plus, invading the privacy of others isn't really anything I've ever aspired to.  As much as it would be interesting to see and observe what is behind a few individual curtains for a short period of time, the real intrigue, I think, is the reality that there are such curtains.  That we all have some sort of barrier between our public and private selves.  For some it would appear to be a gauzy film of the sheerest variety with no desire to really conceal anything at all (e.g., Snooki), and for others it might be the thickest, darkest brocade behind which lies a version of the Berlin Wall complete with armed guards and fiercely gnashing canines ready to be released at the slightest fingering of the velvet (e.g., J.D. Salinger from 1965-2010).

Regardless of the nature and design of your particular curtain, I am fairly confident that, to some degree, we are all different when we are by ourselves.  That when alone and unobserved, some of us are crotch-scratching, nose-picking, gas-releasing, Hoarder's-watching freaks.  That we still experience some amount of personal invisibility in that we cannot really be ourselves except in solitude.  Or, stated differently, we cannot be some part of ourselves when we are with each other.

We have certainly come a long way from the world Ellison showed us in bridging the gap between private reality and public acceptability.  In large parts of this country, or at least the major metropolitan areas, one can be minority and/or female and/or LGBT and still find many types of gainful employment while sitting in any seat on the bus that takes you there.  But the hippie in me that wants to buy the world a Coke and keep it company was thinking that for as much progress as we have made in advancing the boundaries of tolerance and acceptance and visibility, there is still progress to be made even here in one of the freest of societies. 

So, with this idea of tolerance and acceptance in my head, I trotted off to yoga one recent evening.  A little bit of namaste can go a long way towards expanding my own capacity for patience and tolerance, I've found, at least when it comes to my own family, so what better place to go and contemplate personal visibility and invisibility.

I set up my mat in my usual spot, arranged the small towels the gym provides for mopping up sweat just so next to my water bottle, and stretched and readied myself for The Practice. Now, while I enjoy yoga a lot and attend yoga classes regularly, I feel compelled to explain that I do not really speak yoga or go all-in for some of the attendant aspects of yoga, like the business with the third eye and the various chakras.  I'm not dissing them, I'm just saying that I enjoy a good yoga class mostly for the exceptional physical and mental discipline it instills, not to mention the sweat and muscles it produces.  I like it and do my best to learn from it, but I have not adopted it wholesale as a personal philosophy or lifestyle.  In other words, I do not consider myself a yoga Nazi, but you may need to be the judge of that.

As I am waiting for class to begin I can't help but notice that a huge dude has set himself up near me.  He was huge in the sense of huge.  Just built on a different scale than most of us.  Thicker, taller, wider, huger.   A really thick-cut piece of bacon.  So fine, whatever.  I have nothing against dudes in yoga.  Not even fantastically huge dudes.  In fact, the yoga classes at my gym are often 30-40% men.  The workout is legit and the word is getting out.  Plus, the hot part has you sweating your face off.  It is not for sissies.

After noting his hugeness, I was all zen and acceptance.  "Good for you, huge dude," I thought to myself.  Because I like to think I know what it is like to be off type.  To show-up for something and not be in the physical form, or of the gender, that others might have been expecting.  So, "good for you, huge dude."

But then I noticed the unusually loud breathing and the tendency towards grunting when stretching.  Surely this would cease once class began.  It didn't.  In fact, as the class gained heat and momentum the grunting was audible across the room.  Even those of us who do our best to heed the instructor's urging to engage in ujjayi pranayama breathing (also know as "oceanic breath" or sometimes as Darth Vader breathing) could hear the sporadic grunting over the rolling waves of breath.  But still, I tried to quiet myself and remember, "good for you, huge dude."

Then, at some point in the middle of class, I became aware of some very bad air that seemed to have been leaked.  As no warning sound preceded the release, I cannot identify the perpetrator as either Huge Dude or Not Huge Dude.  But it was at that moment that I realized my desire to make room in public for other people's private selves had reached a very precipitous edge.

"People," I thought to myself, "this is not your own private yoga class!  You need to clench and hold that sh*t in.  That is what the sphincter is for and I will not be having bad air in my yoga class.  No matter how at peace you are with your body, I am not at peace with those aspects of your body."

I left class that day with a less idealized notion of what the world might be like if we were all as comfortable on the other side of our private curtains as we are behind them.  And it did not smell good.

So what I'm saying is, I fully respect and support your right to be a visible and recognized member of society no matter your race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation or love of the New York Yankees (though that last one is particularly difficult to abide).  I respect your right to scratch yourself and watch bad television in the privacy of your own home.  But when you show-up for yoga, just please rein it back in a little. 

Namaste.