Show & Tell vs. Hide & Seek

as the Northern Hemisphere emerges from winter here’s a re-post from the snows of 20 Jan 22

Within the context of school, Show & Tell makes some sense. Children get to know one another as they share what fascinates them. They bring in something to Show their classmates, or a topic to Tell them about. But little did I realize, until now as I experience a reverse culture shock in my return to the country that initially made me, that this seemingly innocuous aspect of U.S. grade-school learning embedded a very real way of being in the world. It’s a way of socializing the next generation to ‘how we do things 'around here’.

It’s a way of being, I see more clearly now, that I struggled with from the start. Afterall, what is advertizing if not a fancy means of showing and telling? And I have all ways found advertizing simultaneously deeply offensive and anthropologically intriguing. TV came late into my life (I have never personally owned one), and as a partially deaf, only child trained to meditate, chant and do yoga from age 5, most of my time was spent in seeming-silence. I say seeming-silence because even though I lost 25% hearing in my right ear and 10% in my left from extensive ear-nose-throat infections as a young child, I am actually acutely sensitive to sound. Maybe that hearing loss was an unconscious protective mechanism in a world that didn't yet recognize the need for ASD individuals to wear ear-defenders (as they call them in France).

Right now it’s winter in Eastern Oregon’s knee-deep snow, which both blankets and amplifies sound. It is an auditory haven for me. However, hearing other people chew or the high-pitched buzz of electronics still aggravates me. So you can imagine how a high-paced ad (and over my lifetime ads have increased their pitch and pace exponentially) would overwhelm such sensitivity.

Just as it would any wild creature. Animals have their own form of advertizing, but it is reserved for finding a suitable mate with which to procreate. It's not a never-ending barrage of wild flashing feathers, mating dances, and spectral-coloured display. Maybe because our own cycles are so skewed and disconnected from anything resembling cyclical we are actually in perpetual mating mode, perpetual display, perpetual Show & Tell. Or maybe it's also a cultural thing.

So many times I have run away, as being the only option for my own sanity. Not as a judgment of who or what I was running from, but as protection of myself and my innate need for stillness and seeming-silence. Again, I say seeming-silence because even these snow-laden lands I'm in now have sound.

Even stillness has sound. When you're trained to listen closely enough, even thoughts that we hope are secret and won't betray us, have sound.

Running itself helped because everything was in motion and there's a steadiness to the sounds within me--the mechanics of limbs propelling me forward, the modulation of breath based on the terrain, and the troubling thoughts that require too much energy to entertain are, eventually, left behind. Until I stop. And I had to stop. My own body wouldn't let me keep running. Which is what eventually led me to a deeper relationship with the yoga practices I'd been dabbling in since early childhood. Which inevitably led to a deeper relationship with mySelf.

Which leads me to another childhood game, Hide & Seek, and perhaps a more universal one than Show & Tell. One person is the Seeker and waits, eyes closed, while the others hide. Then the Seeker seeks them out. It's generally a quiet game as those hiding don't want to give themselves away. Everyone’s senses are on high alert. Those in hiding remain as still and as quiet as possible while the Seeker expands her perception to take in any movement or sound that might betray the location of a Hider.

As a child I was more inclined to make up a game like "spin the globe" or "choreograph a dance" or "create a radio station" or "dress-up like superheroes and run through the woods" than I was to play a board game or cards. Or even Hide & Seek. I did not move in packs as many young women do. I was wary of them. Instead I had a few close friends and any confusion or betrayal by them was devastating to me. Eventually I pulled inwards even more and while I attempted to relate to most everyone, I did not enjoy socialization the way others seemed to. I even considered leaving high school a year early for university, since I could, but why I stayed is another post for another time…

Anyone who knows me to any great extent knows that I detest being told what to do. Being told things, without someone first asking, is offensive to me. Just as radio talk shows and advertizing are deeply offensive to me. If I wanted to know, I would have asked. I’m a capable Seeker. It's presumptive to assume that what you are foisting upon me is not only something I need to know, but in fact something I don't already know. And you would have known that, had you bothered to inquire first. Ads do not inquire first. They assume you’re ignorant

Hide & Seek was a group game that didn't send me running. Although in my running out more widely into the world by traveling and living overseas for 20+ years, perhaps I migrated towards those cultures and places that more closely resemble Hide & Seek than they do Show & Tell.

India was not a place I enjoyed. It taught me my edges of sanity, my boundaries, but I certainly did not enjoy the near-constant onslaught to my senses. Anyone who has spent any amount of time there will attest to the wider range of sensory overwhelm that Mumbai inflicts on one, than, say, the desert of the U.S. Southwest. I had thought my years in NYC were a struggle with sensory overload, but after 2 years living in Mumbai, NYC became a piece of cake. So of course it’s all relative.

It is little wonder that the place I've lived the longest is quite small and their national bird is a shy nocturnal, nearly blind one (New Zealand/Aotearoa). Or that the one place I've traveled to, and actually felt a longing to move to, has a tiny population of 3 people/square km (Iceland).

As awareness of atypical minds grows, perhaps there will be more sensory consideration given. Just as Susan Cain's book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, gave humans (who seem to need scientific data to better understand) proof of how introverts don't do well in open office plans. And perhaps shows like Atypical and Astrid and the film of Temple Grandin will give neurotypicals steeped in sensory overload insight into the difference between Show & Tell and Hide & Seek.

I don't want to feel I am forever battling a tide of Showers and Tellers who insist on barraging me with their colourful feathers and loud squawkings. I appreciate when people play hide and seek with me. When I sense that an-other is actually listening, I am more likely to show and tell, but not until then. And you might very well wonder how this blog is not me showing and telling. Well it is! It's my way of it. The difference between this and advertizing or the general culture I'm re-encountering here in the US of showing and telling without first inquiring, is that I'm not in your face. You don't have to continue reading.

It's up to you whether you want to seek out what I'm hiding.

Here’s the trailer for a short film available on waterbear that I so resonate with (pun intended).

"Will we or will we not fall back in love with planet Earth?"

Comments on original post:

Lisa A year ago

Love this Melissa, so delighted to read your sharings over here in Aotearoa. Sending you warmest of wishes, Lisa xx

Melissa Billington A year ago

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and comment Lisa! Enjoy the summer there while I embrace the winter here :), Mox

Grunta A year ago

''BOO'' said the Taniwha, from deep inside her cliff face, I see you. Hide here with me when it is time................
Morena Mox, I enjoyed and appreciated reading your thoughts/feelings this morning. Arohanui dear friend x

Melissa BillingtonA year ago

Aw, lovely to read your thoughts--from one hermit to another :)