Wooden
I was once asked to define the term “woodenheadedness.” Is it even a word? I thought. Wooden head. Gosh, that could mean so many things. I looked down at my desk and tapped it gently. Knock on wood, I thought. For good luck, right? I never understood that. What would that do? Wood seemed more like a road block to me. Like something blocking the truth.
Like a way to say I don’t see you.
Woodenheadedness… If my head were made of wood…Would I be able to process life and thoughts and actions properly?
I think I would not be able to see that there is anything past my nose. It is just me. It is just what’s in front of me when I look in the mirror. There are no problems bigger than mine. No sadness worth more than mine. No troubles more troubling than mine.
I wouldn’t want to acknowledge that people around me can suffer as much as me, let alone more than me. I’d be like a big block of wood – porous to the fact that nothing is so big it won’t fade away. In my world. In my branch of the world. In my small wooden little world. My small little wooden head. My problems are huge.
Woodenheadedness seems to me to be the ability to be stubborn. To be negatively willful. To be set in your ways despite the best intention of others. The mighty oak that’s so sturdy it ain’t changing for anyone.
Woodenheadedness seems like a bad thing to me.
If I can’t see past my own nose… What would the world be like?
It would be me callously walking past the homeless woman on the street, not even acknowledging her existence. Not feeling a hint of sadness or guilt or shame at my prosperity – not realizing the fortunes and blessings I have in being able to be with a home as opposed to without – but to have a block of wood for the center of my head not allowing me to feel an ounce of compassion.
It would be me thinking “WHY ME?” when I have to suffer the consequences of any mistakes I have made. When I spent too much money and my credit card bills are sky high, when I didn’t take care of my health and now have to make tough life decisions, when I didn’t give it my all at work and got passed up for a promotion. I would be channeling my inner wood by bemoaning my ills when poor countries are joyously thanking that they’ve survived calamities and tragedies far greater than mine.
The woodenheaded would be the person who says to the depressed person “I can’t deal with your problems” and walks away from a friend when they need that friend the most. The woodenheaded says “I am better than you and cannot approve of your lifestyle” to the person who has trusted them with their truths and feels justified in their supposed morals. The woodenheaded says “I am saved and you are not.” The wooden headed is not a friend. Wood cannot survive fire. Wood rots when faced with mold. Wood cannot handle extreme conditions of all kinds.
The woodenheaded has no room for soul in their head. No room for anything but a big block of self. They cannot see past that damned wooden nose.
That is what I think when I wonder about the word woodenheadedness. The propensity to deny that the world we live in is greater than one’s own tiny little branch of a mind on the giant universal tree. Such a big, hard word to say, and it just about breaks your heart, doesn’t it?
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