Four Reasons We Are Mean to the People We Love
There’s a phenomenon to proximity.
Every time my family would drive down I-75 from our home in Toledo we would pass a perfectly boxed building encompassed in glass that stuck out of the countryside like a boomer at an EDM concert. Eventually, we came to anticipate the moment and would beat my father to his inevitable reflection: “Yes, dad. We know you tiled that building.” I’m guessing everyone has a grown-up in their life who constantly wants you to look at something they made from the nostalgic past. My father was a talented floor layer and we were often subjected to his many feats.
However, I also came to see a phenomenon from his professional ramblings. We may have been in the most mundane of places, but he would take time to inspect the tile job. My amateur eyes would just see tile. My father, however, would begin pointing out flaws: An imperfect grout gap, a degree of tilt in alignment, or even a tile with a millimeter of bulge from an uneven base.
I didn’t know it then, but I was being exposed to the reality that proximity reveals inequities.
Flaws and imperfection are always there — but you must have the experience to be able to see them. Distance and unfamiliarity often keep us from seeing the inequities, but the grass is never greener on the other side…
