Welcome to March!
While we're settling into it, let's move on from last month's lessons in boundaries and do a bit of wordsmithing this month.
Anyone who knows me and my work knows that I love the backstory of a person, a situation, even a word. The backstory can explain so much about what's happening in the moment and how it came to be. When we're willing to consider the evolution—the unfolding of a process—and let's face it, life is a process—navigating that moment can be so much easier and
a lot less daunting.
So in keeping with that, let's look at the word 'aloof '. We've all known someone aloof who's thought to be distant, removed, standoffish and even haughty. Yet when we delve into the etymology of the word, it began as a nautical term: to sail into the wind to avoid hazards on sea and land.
That's quite a choice and ability—moving into resistance to counter what might be a difficulty of some kind. In that light, the aloof person then becomes much less distant and instead might actually have a sense of something in the distance that we're not be aware of.
A bit of a leap? Perhaps. And yet—what if it isn't? What is that 'aloof ' person catches something in the offing? something that we can't begin to understand—yet?
What is your relationship to someone who's "Aloof" (2:50)?
