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Dichotomy
I am an unapologetic asshole. I state this upfront and have to admit no small amount of surprise when people realise I am serious.
I have one personality in life. It's my corporate personality, my family personality, my teaching personality, and my hobby personality. I am the same asshole all the time, 24/7/365 and twice as much so on leap years, just for effect. When my children misbehaved their punishment came as no surprise because I had told them what would happen. They may not have liked it but it was a constant.
And I have discovered something. Because I am the same asshole all the time, people with whom I deal directly are comfortable with my personality because they know what to expect. They know I will speak my mind and throw out ideas and accept feedback and criticism and offer feedback and criticism and work until an issue is solved or a job complete. I am a constant.
And the way my brain is wired I intellectually know that not everyone is like this but emotionally I am still surprised at the variances of personality. As I have gotten older I have been able to deal with this to a greater degree for the most part but I still have a weakness and that is when people have one standard for others and a separate one for themselves because normally these standards are diametrically opposed.
They demand respect while offering hate, they demand forgiveness while pursuing grudges, they demand tolerance while offering persecution. But this is not what surprises me most. What surprises me most is to watch these people interact with society. I am constantly amazed at the lengths people go to explain the actions to re-draw the boundaries, to redefine the reality so as to make this person still fit whatever current definition of "nice" they need.
This is the part of social interaction I do not and will never understand. In my mind 1+1=2. It does not =2 when I like it and <>2 when someone I do not like likes it and then back to 2 when someone I like likes it. But this is the type of behaviour I see and I know I will never understand the motivation.
No, I guess that is not true. I understand the motivation, the desire to gather folks you like and array yourselves against any imagined enemy. I guess the motivation I do not understand is the need to do so. The need to define an enemy in order to feel complete.
I suspect the root of it is insecurity. Then again, I suspect insecurity is the root of a lot of ills. People who are comfortable with their insecurities are less likely to behave in such a mob-like fashion. Those who are not comfortable with their insecurities appear to me to be ripe for the mobs.
But the dangerous thing about mobs is that they only need a subtle push to change direction. Once they get addicted to the power of brute force they look for excuses to use it more often, with the best stated intentions, of course.
But the dichotomy between their stated position and their actions is so wide as to be unbridgeable.
I write these blog posts for myself. I do not post a poem a day because I view poetry as worthy of reflection and like to take time in the creation of it. Blog posts are prose on subjects I have considered for a varying amount of time and when I feel the thought is complete, I write. No matter that I post these in my personal space, not matter that I do not solicit attention, no matter that I explicitly state that these blogs are not about any single person, some fucking moron will still decide I am attacking them.
When they do, look at the dichotomy between their stated position and their actions. If you can, look at it without bias. Perhaps then you may see why I find attacks leveraged against my blog writing to be so amusing.
Or not. Perhaps I am just an asshole and you will sheeplely join in the attacks until it is your turn. Not to worry, I'll be there when you are moronically singled out because I'm not good at grudges.
And if you find these blogs to be of absolutely no value, fucking ignore them for God's sake, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Too harsh?
Hell, I told you I was an asshole.
I have one personality in life. It's my corporate personality, my family personality, my teaching personality, and my hobby personality. I am the same asshole all the time, 24/7/365 and twice as much so on leap years, just for effect. When my children misbehaved their punishment came as no surprise because I had told them what would happen. They may not have liked it but it was a constant.
And I have discovered something. Because I am the same asshole all the time, people with whom I deal directly are comfortable with my personality because they know what to expect. They know I will speak my mind and throw out ideas and accept feedback and criticism and offer feedback and criticism and work until an issue is solved or a job complete. I am a constant.
And the way my brain is wired I intellectually know that not everyone is like this but emotionally I am still surprised at the variances of personality. As I have gotten older I have been able to deal with this to a greater degree for the most part but I still have a weakness and that is when people have one standard for others and a separate one for themselves because normally these standards are diametrically opposed.
They demand respect while offering hate, they demand forgiveness while pursuing grudges, they demand tolerance while offering persecution. But this is not what surprises me most. What surprises me most is to watch these people interact with society. I am constantly amazed at the lengths people go to explain the actions to re-draw the boundaries, to redefine the reality so as to make this person still fit whatever current definition of "nice" they need.
This is the part of social interaction I do not and will never understand. In my mind 1+1=2. It does not =2 when I like it and <>2 when someone I do not like likes it and then back to 2 when someone I like likes it. But this is the type of behaviour I see and I know I will never understand the motivation.
No, I guess that is not true. I understand the motivation, the desire to gather folks you like and array yourselves against any imagined enemy. I guess the motivation I do not understand is the need to do so. The need to define an enemy in order to feel complete.
I suspect the root of it is insecurity. Then again, I suspect insecurity is the root of a lot of ills. People who are comfortable with their insecurities are less likely to behave in such a mob-like fashion. Those who are not comfortable with their insecurities appear to me to be ripe for the mobs.
But the dangerous thing about mobs is that they only need a subtle push to change direction. Once they get addicted to the power of brute force they look for excuses to use it more often, with the best stated intentions, of course.
But the dichotomy between their stated position and their actions is so wide as to be unbridgeable.
I write these blog posts for myself. I do not post a poem a day because I view poetry as worthy of reflection and like to take time in the creation of it. Blog posts are prose on subjects I have considered for a varying amount of time and when I feel the thought is complete, I write. No matter that I post these in my personal space, not matter that I do not solicit attention, no matter that I explicitly state that these blogs are not about any single person, some fucking moron will still decide I am attacking them.
When they do, look at the dichotomy between their stated position and their actions. If you can, look at it without bias. Perhaps then you may see why I find attacks leveraged against my blog writing to be so amusing.
Or not. Perhaps I am just an asshole and you will sheeplely join in the attacks until it is your turn. Not to worry, I'll be there when you are moronically singled out because I'm not good at grudges.
And if you find these blogs to be of absolutely no value, fucking ignore them for God's sake, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Too harsh?
Hell, I told you I was an asshole.