Bad mood. Cranky? Upset? Frustrated? Not sure. Still, I've got that helium balloon that lives underneath my diaphragm pushing it all up, saying "and why does it matter anyway?" Suppose it's a kind of denial -- don't take your troubles too seriously. Troubled. There, that's a better word. Like the water knows that it will smooth again.
Troubled is a nice word for this place, because I don't think that any of the problems here are really much my own. It's the people around me whose souls are frayed, who are upset and venting. Rolls off my skin, but eventually it can't not begin to get in -- biology reacts. Hm. Just writing it makes my forehead smooth again, the air in my lungs feel cooler.
Seems like a theme that's come up more than once lately: what troubles are truly my own? Back in highschool my parents divorced, my brother's leg came out of its socket, a closemate was battered by their father, acquaintances died. What of any of this is mine? I've criticised the world in the past (not people, but rather the nature of life) for thinking that a death is only felt by the family and one-degree-of-separation friends. Of course when my classmate shot himself I was traumatized, even if I'd never known him closely. Hell, are the troubles that are directly my own even my own? Like if I'm clinically depressed, is that really "me" if there's still a me who can look at the experience from a place of disengagement?
It hardly seems fair to say that troubles are your own only if you're not self-aware, if you are so absorbed that you forget yourself. ...Where other people's troubles are concerned, maybe the question is one of investment. How invested am I in my brother's accident, even though it's not the body that I live in? ...Though even that seems iffy. There are parts of me that feel invested, and others that feel detached.
Which brings us to something that apparently distinguishes me from a lot of other folk: my sense that the self is a fragmented, many faceted thing. I think of my being as having many personas. It would be like multiple personality disorder (now "dissociative identity disorder" in the DSM-IV) except that my facets are all on speaking terms with each other, and haven't crystalized into distinct, long-lasting voices.
I think of integration as an ideal; but it's not something that you can just leap to. You can't just say, "OK, now I'm going to feel only one thing, will all my being." There are lots of conflicting voices, and it's a process of sitting and writing in your journal for four hours, or having a six hour conversation, or a poetic ephiphany, to see how everything fits together in a perfect whole. Finding your way through the tangled wood, to an inner place of certainty and will -- it's precious. And fleeting. Ambivalence and complexity are the rule.
What a difference it makes to be able to hold a conversation where "complexity" is the ground rule. It is a whole different operating system, trying to interact with people whose value is "authenticity" -- for whom self-consciousness is viewed as deceit. ...I'm not talking about this as clearly as I could; but hey, that would be an essay. Right?
There's a way in which living in my own head (Planet Sven) is like being a shepherd. Most of the time the flock all moves in one direction; but sometimes you do have to go off and rescue a sheep that's wandered. Isn't this the way it should be? That we should be sensitive enough to our own insides, that we can pick up on a multitude of reactions, possible interpretations of what's going on around us? It'd just be nice (I think) if everyone had this same idea, so when I sat in conversation it would more often be like two people sitting on a hill pointing at the different sheep -- rather than a debate, each point intended as the killing bullet.
...Dunno where that came from; maybe I'm just making things up now, having fun with pushing words around. But it is true that I don't like arguing where "winning" is the intended outcome. As soon as that becomes the goal of the game, then people don't care about subtlety. If my point doesn't eviscerate yours, then you don't care that I said it. And even if I -did- make an astonishingly good point, you may simply have your heels so dug in that you wouldn't surrender anyway.
Which is part of why I'm in favor of surrendering. If I can say "you're right", then maybe you'll be so pleased with yourself that you'll feel big enough to listen to my details during the negotiation of terms. Trouble is that people get mad at me for not putting up a better fight. I guess they feel I'm playing in bad faith if my heart's not in it.
And hey, look at me employ the very principle I was just talking about, I think they're right to an extent. There's a way in which I blame myself for not sticking up for my own side vociferously enough. For one thing, it puts a burden on them to be the one determining the direction of our relationship. If I always roll over and show belly, I'm essentially saying "you drive". But arguing can so often make me feel dumb. They make a good point, and I just feel stupid -- why keep trying?
What is it that makes people feel invested in their arguments? The easiest answer that comes to mind for me is a sense of desperation born out of having few resources. This is me looking at the psychology of money again: I could buy my way out of most forms of trouble; which leads to feeling like not much can touch me; which translates into residues of emotional teflon accruing. [There's a money topic for later: how I maybe don't value a lot of what I have because money imbues me with the sense that things are replacable.]
Other explanations for why people feel invested in their arguments... A desire to be seen as right. On the one the hand, as part of a personal mythology about one's own significance in the life of the world. On the other hand, because of a vulnerability to the opinions of others, thus needing to fiercely defend one's reputation. Oh, and I'm sure that there are several other possible explanations, but I grow tired of this train of thought. I don't particularly blame folks for being fiercely defensive, or aggressive about their opinions -- so what could I get from sussing out their "true" motivations?
This is a peculiar posting anyway. I typically don't like the kind of vagueness and broad generalizations I'm making here... But today we're indulging, in the name of experimenting with different types of writing. Hm.
Troubled is a nice word for this place, because I don't think that any of the problems here are really much my own. It's the people around me whose souls are frayed, who are upset and venting. Rolls off my skin, but eventually it can't not begin to get in -- biology reacts. Hm. Just writing it makes my forehead smooth again, the air in my lungs feel cooler.
Seems like a theme that's come up more than once lately: what troubles are truly my own? Back in highschool my parents divorced, my brother's leg came out of its socket, a closemate was battered by their father, acquaintances died. What of any of this is mine? I've criticised the world in the past (not people, but rather the nature of life) for thinking that a death is only felt by the family and one-degree-of-separation friends. Of course when my classmate shot himself I was traumatized, even if I'd never known him closely. Hell, are the troubles that are directly my own even my own? Like if I'm clinically depressed, is that really "me" if there's still a me who can look at the experience from a place of disengagement?
It hardly seems fair to say that troubles are your own only if you're not self-aware, if you are so absorbed that you forget yourself. ...Where other people's troubles are concerned, maybe the question is one of investment. How invested am I in my brother's accident, even though it's not the body that I live in? ...Though even that seems iffy. There are parts of me that feel invested, and others that feel detached.
Which brings us to something that apparently distinguishes me from a lot of other folk: my sense that the self is a fragmented, many faceted thing. I think of my being as having many personas. It would be like multiple personality disorder (now "dissociative identity disorder" in the DSM-IV) except that my facets are all on speaking terms with each other, and haven't crystalized into distinct, long-lasting voices.
I think of integration as an ideal; but it's not something that you can just leap to. You can't just say, "OK, now I'm going to feel only one thing, will all my being." There are lots of conflicting voices, and it's a process of sitting and writing in your journal for four hours, or having a six hour conversation, or a poetic ephiphany, to see how everything fits together in a perfect whole. Finding your way through the tangled wood, to an inner place of certainty and will -- it's precious. And fleeting. Ambivalence and complexity are the rule.
What a difference it makes to be able to hold a conversation where "complexity" is the ground rule. It is a whole different operating system, trying to interact with people whose value is "authenticity" -- for whom self-consciousness is viewed as deceit. ...I'm not talking about this as clearly as I could; but hey, that would be an essay. Right?
There's a way in which living in my own head (Planet Sven) is like being a shepherd. Most of the time the flock all moves in one direction; but sometimes you do have to go off and rescue a sheep that's wandered. Isn't this the way it should be? That we should be sensitive enough to our own insides, that we can pick up on a multitude of reactions, possible interpretations of what's going on around us? It'd just be nice (I think) if everyone had this same idea, so when I sat in conversation it would more often be like two people sitting on a hill pointing at the different sheep -- rather than a debate, each point intended as the killing bullet.
...Dunno where that came from; maybe I'm just making things up now, having fun with pushing words around. But it is true that I don't like arguing where "winning" is the intended outcome. As soon as that becomes the goal of the game, then people don't care about subtlety. If my point doesn't eviscerate yours, then you don't care that I said it. And even if I -did- make an astonishingly good point, you may simply have your heels so dug in that you wouldn't surrender anyway.
Which is part of why I'm in favor of surrendering. If I can say "you're right", then maybe you'll be so pleased with yourself that you'll feel big enough to listen to my details during the negotiation of terms. Trouble is that people get mad at me for not putting up a better fight. I guess they feel I'm playing in bad faith if my heart's not in it.
And hey, look at me employ the very principle I was just talking about, I think they're right to an extent. There's a way in which I blame myself for not sticking up for my own side vociferously enough. For one thing, it puts a burden on them to be the one determining the direction of our relationship. If I always roll over and show belly, I'm essentially saying "you drive". But arguing can so often make me feel dumb. They make a good point, and I just feel stupid -- why keep trying?
What is it that makes people feel invested in their arguments? The easiest answer that comes to mind for me is a sense of desperation born out of having few resources. This is me looking at the psychology of money again: I could buy my way out of most forms of trouble; which leads to feeling like not much can touch me; which translates into residues of emotional teflon accruing. [There's a money topic for later: how I maybe don't value a lot of what I have because money imbues me with the sense that things are replacable.]
Other explanations for why people feel invested in their arguments... A desire to be seen as right. On the one the hand, as part of a personal mythology about one's own significance in the life of the world. On the other hand, because of a vulnerability to the opinions of others, thus needing to fiercely defend one's reputation. Oh, and I'm sure that there are several other possible explanations, but I grow tired of this train of thought. I don't particularly blame folks for being fiercely defensive, or aggressive about their opinions -- so what could I get from sussing out their "true" motivations?
This is a peculiar posting anyway. I typically don't like the kind of vagueness and broad generalizations I'm making here... But today we're indulging, in the name of experimenting with different types of writing. Hm.
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