Gender Jumper (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
genderjumper) wrote2024-07-27 01:08 pm
genderjumper) wrote2024-07-27 01:08 pm
Entry tags:
The Lifeguard Analogy
I've found myself revisiting one of my earliest quirky, reflexive metaphors several times of late, and flamingsword asked me to explain it. I think I have, at times, called it "The Lifesaver Metaphor", which is more poetic but technically incorrect twice over.
TWO LIFEGUARDS
Two Lifeguards found each other early in life. They had both helped so many people in their brief lives that they saw in one another a shared drive to help others and quickly build a loving relationship out of it. While it wasn't perfect, it often felt too good to be true. "How can another person see me so well?" they each thought.
In celebration of their love, they went on a cruise, but late the first night they both felt overboard. No one on the ship knew they were gone, and since they were the ones who checked on everyone else, who knew how long it would take for someone to notice?
They looked at each other. There was nothing else to see.
Surely my lover will save me, each thought.
They looked at each other. There was nothing else to see.
Almost at the same moment, they spoke:
"We must swim to shore," said one lifeguard. "There are islands all around us, surely we can find land and get help."
"We must stay where we are," said the other lifeguard. "Someone will notice eventually and they will come find us."
They looked at each other. There was nothing else to see.
Surely my lover will save me, each thought.
They looked at each other. There was nothing else to see.
Did they fight? Did they repeat themselves? Did they hurt one another trying to prove something to themselves? Almost certainly.
They looked at each other. There was nothing else to see.
Their thoughts remained in sync: Surely my lover will save me... My lover will save me... My lover can save me...
They looked at each other. There was nothing else to see.
My lover can't save me...
Their parting barely qualified as a goodbye or a break-up, for by this time each was entirely focused on self-preservation.
They didn't look at each other. There was nothing else to say.
One lifeguard swam away. The other lifeguard stayed in place.
And with a little effort, both plans worked: each lifeguard was rescued exactly as hoped. Once they knew the other person was safe, they did not reconnect.
Their lives diverged rapidly.
The lifeguard who swam away continued to find power in action. The lifeguard who stayed continued to find power in staying still. They each helped so many people yet protected themselves a little more than before.
With each passing year, the other lifeguard and the falling overboard and the rescue would take up a smaller space in their memories.
They stopped looking for one another. There was nothing else to see.
flamingsword asked me to explain it. I think I have, at times, called it "The Lifesaver Metaphor", which is more poetic but technically incorrect twice over.TWO LIFEGUARDS
Two Lifeguards found each other early in life. They had both helped so many people in their brief lives that they saw in one another a shared drive to help others and quickly build a loving relationship out of it. While it wasn't perfect, it often felt too good to be true. "How can another person see me so well?" they each thought.
In celebration of their love, they went on a cruise, but late the first night they both felt overboard. No one on the ship knew they were gone, and since they were the ones who checked on everyone else, who knew how long it would take for someone to notice?
They looked at each other. There was nothing else to see.
Surely my lover will save me, each thought.
They looked at each other. There was nothing else to see.
Almost at the same moment, they spoke:
"We must swim to shore," said one lifeguard. "There are islands all around us, surely we can find land and get help."
"We must stay where we are," said the other lifeguard. "Someone will notice eventually and they will come find us."
They looked at each other. There was nothing else to see.
Surely my lover will save me, each thought.
They looked at each other. There was nothing else to see.
Did they fight? Did they repeat themselves? Did they hurt one another trying to prove something to themselves? Almost certainly.
They looked at each other. There was nothing else to see.
Their thoughts remained in sync: Surely my lover will save me... My lover will save me... My lover can save me...
They looked at each other. There was nothing else to see.
My lover can't save me...
Their parting barely qualified as a goodbye or a break-up, for by this time each was entirely focused on self-preservation.
They didn't look at each other. There was nothing else to say.
One lifeguard swam away. The other lifeguard stayed in place.
And with a little effort, both plans worked: each lifeguard was rescued exactly as hoped. Once they knew the other person was safe, they did not reconnect.
Their lives diverged rapidly.
The lifeguard who swam away continued to find power in action. The lifeguard who stayed continued to find power in staying still. They each helped so many people yet protected themselves a little more than before.
With each passing year, the other lifeguard and the falling overboard and the rescue would take up a smaller space in their memories.
They stopped looking for one another. There was nothing else to see.
no subject
[hugs]
no subject
If you are putting all your eggs in one basket by only having one plan or savior, that is a problem. I think maybe loving someone ‘til you let them be all that you can see is another problem, which feeds into the first but is separate from it. And having the expectation that your lover can save you because they are in the habit of saving others - to the point that you don’t forgive them and go no contact afterwards - is a third problem.
Without those NRE-type problems, I think this particular situation would fail to occur. It would just be a story of having a conflict and resolving it differently. The relationship might be damaged, but it would not be an insurmountable obstacle.
no subject
I don't think of it as an analogy about putting too much faith in one solution, because in a panic it is very hard to be creative. But if others felt that way I could try to find a way to restructure it? IDK, I just remembered that "allegory" is the word I needed for the title...
Your second point is absolutely supposed to be in the story; this story first came to me from my first adult relationship when I was 19 and I was absolutely foolish in this way. However, the fact that it came back around in my late 30s (for a relationship lasting over a decade, and possibly others) led me to believe it's not so much worldly naïvété as interpersonal naïvété: to feel like you know someone so completely yet find that something fundamental is different only in a crisis.
I'm not sure I can disentangle your third point from the intentions of one and two: of course it's foolish to assume someone will save you without communicating, of course loving someone so much for that trait that you fail to work together is also foolish; but I don't think the distant aftermath is about forgiveness ultimately -- it's just about having to make your way in a world where a person you believed in -- and who believed in you -- feels like a total stranger. You don't get mad, you don't get to mourn, you just wallow in doubt and emptiness and take one step further apart every day.
no subject
Also, I can't really assume that other people will, or even can, save me, no matter how well I think I know them. The world is built on disorder and happenstance and chaos. I used to make promises to do things at certain times for certain people, but half the time circumstances made a liar out of me. I try to avoid even the language of promises now, bc they imply a certainty about the world that I have to constantly remind myself is fake - that the feeling of certainty itself is intended only to calm the monkey mind and doesn't reflect reality.
I can't really hold other people responsible for living the twin questions of, "What is certain?," and "What is the self?" As Heinlein said, some questions are a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. Even the shape of the question is an illusion. That's not on me or anyone else, it's just a thing about the world (or as I understand it and I could be completely wrong.)