Becoming the "Jello" Man

We seem to love "just right" stories that present us groups of three.

In the Three Little Pigs, houses are made of straw, sticks, and brick and the brick house is "just right." In Goldilocks and the Bears, there is hot porridge, cold porridge, and "just right" porridge. Hell, there's even the saying "third times the charm," though I hope that's not entirely true because I'm on my second to fourth time with a couple things in life.

I'm here to introduce another story of three, only there are no bears and no wolves on their way to knock down your home or interrupt your stolen meal. The villain of this story of three is... well, that's for you to decide.

The Stone Man

The Stone Man is made of stone. He was told this was the way to be. You see, stone is tough. Stone is hard. Nothing can break through stone. Run at the Stone Man and you will bounce right off; he cannot be moved.

But enemies are not the only thing to bounce off the Stone Man. Throw love, innovation, a request for dialogue, or expansion at the Stone Man. Those bounce off, too.

He lets NOTHING in. But he's strong, why would he need new ideas? Why would he need love? Why would he need innovation? This is the way things have always been done. We have always been stone.

He is stone, his parents were stone before him. Being stone has worked for generations, why would we change?

The Tissue Paper Man

The Tissue Paper Man floats in the wind. He goes with the flow. New ideas? Paint them onto him. Let them seep through his fibers and be internalized. They are who he is now. Love? Let it be watercolor. Any color, any person, saturate him with your thoughts and ideals.

The Tissue Paper Man is the son of the Stone Man. He saw for years how everything bounced off his father, so he decided he would absorb it all. Every feeling, every ideology, every facet of human existence is to become part of his being, his essence, his identity.

And in his effort to become everything the Stone Man wasn't, he oversaturated himself. There was not an idea that he wouldn't accept. Not a splattering of paint or splashing of water color he would not allow to drip down his chest in the name of acceptance.

Soon, he was doused in ideas head to toe.

The only spaces that remained on his canvas were small, limited. When people approached with new paint he pointed to an inch by inch blank spot hidden amongst water-logged folds and said, "put it here, I don't even need to see what color it is."

He took it at face value, until colors clashed and beautiful works of art previously painted were ruined with the random insertions of designs that didn't make sense. When there was no space left, he was left a sopping mess of pulp, an odd shade of lifeless grey as the colors bled together.

The Jello Man

The Jello Man was once a Stone Man, or maybe he was once a Tissue Paper Man. It doesn't really matter, he's a Jello Man now.

He admired the strength of the Stone Man, but felt his stubbornness and aggression left little room for new ways of thinking. He admired the Tissue Paper Man, too, but watched his attention and stability lessen as more and more ideas dotted his delicate canvas.

Surely, there must be a third way.

Of course there is, there is always a third way.

The Jello Man does not internalize every idea thrown his way like the Tissue Paper Man, but he does absorb some. He allows them to permeate his outer layer and find a resting place inside his jiggly core. There, they rest in suspension, more or less seen, but otherwise unmoving and without much change to his shape.

The Jello Man does not reject every idea that is thrown his way like the Stone Man, but he does reject some. They are not bruised and battered from beating against his rigid stone skin. They instead bounce off gently, quietly, almost as if to say, "that's interesting, but not for me, thank you."

He allows ideas, love, and innovation to bounce off him, live in him, or gently pass through him, always retaining his shape, always with respect to the other Jello Men who might have chosen to absorb or bounce off different things than he did.

The Villain

Who is the villain here?

Is it divided and polarizing politics? Is it generational? Is it the rapid decline of reading comprehension causing us to become overly reactive on social media because we are losing the ability to distinguish nuance and objectivity?

Who is it? Who is there to blame?

There is no one the blame, and the villain is all of it. And the villain is you.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." And yet, for some reason, with think our darkness is more justified. We think our hate is fair and, therefore, acceptable to wield as a weapon.

You're wrong.

Nothing has been accomplished and nothing will continue to be accomplished if we continue to choose Tissue Paper or Stone. We cannot absorb and validate every idea that comes our way, nor can we invalidate change simply because of the way things have always been done.

Anger and entitlement is the death of dialogue, and no one is right.

I always say there are three side to every argument (there it is again, three): yours, mine, and the objective truth.

Aim to find the objective truth.

Aim to become the Jello Man.