In the past few weeks I've told about 50 people - mostly friends but also some acquaitances I bumped into on the street - about my fateful decision to leave Israel, hopefully not forever, in order to undertake some personal mission somewhere in the Diaspora. Once an academic, always an academic. I've identified the following six types of reactions so far:
- Apathy
- Judgmentalism
- Advice
- Superstition
- Diplomacy
- Empathy
These seem to reflect the levels - or to use a more neutral term, states - of consciousness of those who reacted. They are listed in the ascending order of the levels of consciousness. There is a huge, fundamental, gap between the first five and the sixth. They seem to come from the ego and the soul respectively. Of the 50 people I shared this decision with less than ten reacted empathically. Now let me elaborate upon each of these six types.
Those who reacted apathetically simply heard my decision and walked out saying little or nothing with no sign of emotion. I didn't take this reaction personally as they may be apathetic to most other people.
Judgmentalism in this specific contexts manifests itself as focusing on some grave "error" I made in their opinion and blaming me for it. Actually, those who reacted this way have repeatedly blamed me in the same manner. Fortunately, none of my friends reacted this way. Only a couple of acquaintances I bumped into on the street started blaming me again.
Giving advice when it's not requested is a very widespread reaction that is not restricted to this specific context. Those who give advice almost instinctively have only good intentions, which complicates the matter. In many cases those who can't help giving advice have never been in the same or similar situation, so their experience is very limited. They neither know nor care that I've already tried all the pieces of advice they gave and none of them worked.
Superstition means to try to encourage me by saying that everything will be alright. This is based on a naive and false idea about about life. Their superstition is based on the assumption that if we pray with all out heart, we'll get everything that our ego wants. But it's clear to anyone with enough life experiences that we don't always get what our ego wants, which is often to our ultimate benefit.
Diplomats are those who say seemingly nice words, but they take no action. For example, they say, "I'm sorry that you are leaving. Let's meet and talk before you leave." Do these people contact me? Never! I can alreasy identify diplomats quite easily.
Those who reacted empathically listened to what I had to tell them without interrupting me. They show true care though they may speak much less. After leaving academic, where rationality dominates, I've become highly intuitive. When I meet new people or even those I already know but haven't seem for a long time, I can immediately sense their spiritual vibe.
I've also identified a few common denominators among those reacted in one of the first five ways. I didn't disclose any details of my mission on purpose so that they might not start labeling me. Naturally, their first question with no exception was where I'm going. I wish I were wrong, but I'm quite convinced now after examining a sufficiently large sample of people that they have some instinctive urge to know about this mission of mine, including, first and foremost, its destination, to start labeling.
At the end of our short conversation all of them, again with no exception, wished me "success" on an autopilot. After receiving the same wishes several times I couldn't stand any more, and even asked some of them to wish me growth rather than "success". I also explained some of them who I prefer not be wished "success". This is because the biggest life challenge is said to keep "succeeding" because this way we'll never be able to learn humbleness. Besides, I'm quite sure that what most of them mean by "success" is to achieve what the ego wants.