Bird & the Window, Part 2

Yesterday, the little reddish bird was back, banging against my window.

Why, little bird, why? Why do you continue to bang your sweet little head and body against my window? It defies reason that you keep making the same error of judgment, this same bird who amazes me as it flies through a tangle of tree branches to land on a branch. Man created our own version of air travel and helicopters, but we can't navigate the skies so well to land on a tree branch as brilliantly as a bird. When I see the bird smash into my window, I wonder how can a bird be so smart and so dumb at the same time.

The window defies the little bird's logical ideas. Something larger and literally unseen is at play here, that the bird cannot understand.

I think of all of the times I've dealt with Jack and his addiction. Dealing with someone with an addiction defies logic. I was like the little bird, flying into the window. "Maybe if I fly a little to the left, this time I'll make it through," the little bird might think, or "If I fly a little faster, maybe I'll get it." I would read books on communication (see: Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, which is a really good book) and try those techniques. I would talk to friends who would say "If you just told Jack exactly how you felt, he would get it. Say it just like you told me right now..." Like the little bird trying to get into my dining room, nothing I did worked. 

I think of the expression from Rene Descartes that I learned in 7th grade French class: 

Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point.*

or

The heart has reasons that reason will never know.

I have been struggling at work recently, flying into a pane of glass there, too, though not because of addiction. I have had conflict with people who are inconsistent and are regularly changing their minds about what I should do with my career now since my little department has been dissolved. I still have a job, but I feel like I have been orphaned, even though I still work on the same team and with the same people. My purpose now is different. Greater conflict is now arising because no one in the organization has taken on my old work/purpose because leadership deemed it unimportant several months ago. Now the gap is beginning to show, and people in other groups in the organization are seeing the impact. I get really frustrated when one week it is "Lauren this is what should happen," and the following week is the opposite.

I need to let go of logic. I need to realize greater things are at play that I don't understand, including people's thoughts, feelings and emotions. I need to realize that perhaps they are just as lost as I am, or they too are little birds flying into their own pane of glass.

* Like other romance languages, French assigns gender to common nouns. I am surprised that heart is masculine while reason is feminine.