Walter Mitty is a boring guy who works his job at Life Magazine, developing photos. His life is so boring, that his imagination is vivid and wild. He imagines rescuing dogs from burning buildings, getting into epic street battles with his boss, and, of course, imagines himself the brave explorer with a Spanish accent, who woos the woman he has a crush on, in the office, with his roughness and his very own poetry falcon. Trailer
This is obviously not Walter Mitty's life, and yet, it is. These are the things he wished he had, the things he wished he was. In every one of his imaginations, we are shown a glimpse of Walter's goals, dreams, and the things he hopes for, the things he values.
What it must be like, to have such a secret life! (Not the kind where you have a second house in Montana, with a second family that your first family knows nothing about...) But a secret life! A secret world inside of your head! But... I wonder if we actually don't.
Though I've never imagined myself a mountaineer with a poetry falcon, I've done my fair share of imagining. I've rescued kids from terrible situations in epic fashion. I've befriended bikers, worked as a secret service agent, even had super powers. But I'm not even sure that the only secret lives we can live are the ones we live in our own imaginations, or in Montana.
I think most people have secrets about themselves, different sides of themselves, that others aren't aware of, because you don't necessarily show them.
My first year of college, a friend of mine from high school was going through a crisis, and was talking to me - she wasn't sure what she should do about some such situation or other. It was obvious to me that what she needed was God's help. I told her, simply, that God would answer her prayers, if she asked Him what she should do, and I bore my testimony of prayer, and of God's love. Her reply has stuck with me. "I didn't realize you were so spiritual." We'd been friends for years, literally, but it was a side of me she hadn't had opportunity to see before.
The other night, working a graveyard shift, my BFF and boss, Karen, was staying late. She invited me into her office to watch a hilarious video - we watched it on repeat five or six times, laughing till there were tears. My co-worker, that I've worked with every other weekend for the last seven months or so, wandered into the office to see what all the laughing was about, and remarked, "This is a side of you I've never seen before, Grace."
If you know me, you know I'm spiritual, you know I love to laugh. But all my coworker knew of Grace was that she was the quiet one, who sat in her chair struggling to keep her eyes open, wrote Sunday School lessons, or late night blog posts. The graveyard Grace rarely laughs. She's pretty serious. She's super tired. So he didn't know the laughing me.
What do we not know about people, from the faces they portray where we see them most? To assume that people are only what you see of them is akin to a baby's understanding of object permanence - other people only exist when you can see them.
This struck home to me, the other day, when Nathan and I were driving up to Salt Lake, to sign our new apartment lease. My husband used the word "ethos."
He had to define it for me! I had no clue what he was talking about! Ethos? Apparently it's an Aristotle argumentative appeal to authority, or credibility of the author. And Nathan threw it out there, in our discussion, like he was using the word "strawberries." He just knew what it meant, and assumed I did too. Ethos!
Pondering on Ethos and my husband, I wondered how many people really know what Nathan's like. My husband can be quiet around people he doesn't know well, and so I wondered! How many people know that my husband is just as opinionated as I am, catches logical fallacies as fast as any master of debate, and wants to be a writer? How many people know that he was a genius at robotics in high school, and has done his fair share of studying architecture and design? How many people see his non-confrontational, often quiet demeanor, and make assumptions about him? How many people hear he's a CNA, and they stop right there. (There's nothing wrong with being a CNA, either. Heaven forbid. It just means that he likes to help people, too, in addition to being a smarty-pants!)
How many people hear I'm a social worker, and make assumptions about what THAT means? Maybe they assume I'm an extrovert, or that I live to kidnap people's babies. I wonder how many people hear I'm a Mormon, and assume I'm going to be judgmental, or ignorant about the world and the different people in it. Maybe I'm digging a hole for myself, but I have to believe that people are more than any word you may use to define them. I have to believe that people are more than any given moment or belief.
If your cashier is slow, one day, and it irritates you, do you just see them as a slow person, or do you recognize that this person actually exists outside of this cash register, and outside of this Wal-Mart? Do you know anything about this person, how their day is going? Do you know what they are going home to, what that looks like?
Perhaps I wonder about Secret Lives today because I'm starting a new job tomorrow, and I wonder what face they will see. Will I be Grace, the social worker, who is quite serious, painfully shy, terrified of the new job, or will I be Grace, the social worker, who loves people, who loves to laugh, who does her job, but does it with a smile on her face? I don't know. I don't know who I'll be tomorrow, how I'll feel, or which "life" I'll slip into. But I want to make tomorrow's life an honest one. After all, the life they see tomorrow may very well be the one they assume is ALL of me. First impressions stick.
But maybe they shouldn't, so much. People are a wide assortment of feelings, experiences, thoughts, and beliefs. If they made a movie about your "secret life," what would we learn about you? What would you learn about me?
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