So I am sitting in a smoke room when a man comes in. A good guy, actually just ate lunch with him a little prior to this event. My laptop is out and I am getting prepared to go home, makin’ contacts, makin’ connections with people in my hometown. He sits down, let’s say, Tom, sits in a plain chair one of five that adorn the plain yellowed walls of the smoke room.

His head launches into his hands. Smoke whispers up from a burning cig held loosely in between two fingers. He grips his hair. Slowly, his eyes scan the room and looks at me and he speaks,

“I GOT FIRED.”

So all my intimacy with him is instantly flown out the door and I think to myself, “Oh man! This is a real good guy! How can I help him?”

It didn’t take long till I realized I could not help him. That anything I said was for naught. Nothing could really help him out other than saying he was not fired or, “Hey here’s a million go buy a yacht kid.” Or something along those lines.

I got to thinking. How do you help anyone emotionally? You can sit there and listen but then what? Is that all after all those self-help books and tips on sociology, psychology, is that all we can offer?

Hope

But what is it? How do we supply it? We can say things will be fine. But really? Who buys that? Horrible things happen all the time and never turn out fine. So then how do we cope? Can we even give someone that ability by other than sitting down with them and listening to their weeping?

I Believe In the Self Torment of Public Exposure

Personally, I don’t believe there is much we can do other than sit. We can watch them cry, fret, and mourn over the job they were fired, over the loved one they lost, over the item now destroyed that they had once adored. It is in this, where they cry out their yelping sound, that they heal the most. Just knowing someone was there to witness the wretchedness, to see the misery in their souls lurking deep, I believe that heals.

Which one would you prefer?

Weeping in a closet alone breaking hangars and with none to calm. Or in a smoking room with head in hands with someone there, listening though without the ability to make useful response. Yes they’re silent, but more important, yes they are there.

That’s my own personal thoughts on it. I’ve never had a friend who could help me through depression or bouts of misery before. The closest thing has always been the open ear and the silent mouth.

And so, through the self-torment of public exposure, can we cope. Is there are other ways?

Let me know!

-Greg