TWO MORE DAYS UNTIL I DO ONE OF THE MOST PHYSICALLY DEMANDING THINGS YET *SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*
In other introspective bs:
I’d be lying if I said I was a perfectly content person. I’m not, cause I’ve got shit to do, goals to reach, and live in a big city where social friction gets in yo’ face, just for say . . . .riding a subway. I’m hungry, despite all my nutritious food, and I’m ok with that. But the life is good, and I appreciate that.
I’ve also noticed since getting to steward some big assets how pride and sharing can work out. You could make generalizations such as prideful people sharing, people with egos sharing, turns into entitlement. Prideful people may be super defensive, which leads to escalations of friction rather than direct discussion and fair exchange. Etc. But that friction and how it plays out, and a new belief about a certain Way of responding to it playing out congealed in my head a couple days ago, and the more I think about it, the more and more I believe it.
So for starters regarding me, hell yeah I’ve got some pride and ego. (I’d like to believe I act on gifts enough to deserve some, and you can’t stop me.) I’m even not perfect (but I am the best) and like purty much everyone, had to figure out some tough decisions and calls – you do the best you can, and the smartest you can figure – that’s all people ask – on top of LEARNING, and constantly improving. That’s the stuff that really oughta create a long term relationship.
But I’ve noticed something: in this life, where people grow apart – natural occurance, doesn’t have to be the most dramatic thing in the world – every day I start to see more and more why a lot of super smart people I’ve identified as super smart end up being reclusive (although, I’m not there quite yet, and prefer that) falling outs WILL happen with people who are strong, sensitive, and have certain kinds of drives. That combination = either you turn into a people pleaser most of your life, or you find yourself with a higher amount of social friction to sort through. If yer weird, feel strongly about certain things, and sensitive – well heck, you’re bound to have a disagreement. Socially, I enjoy attracting more than one sorts of person, cause I’m attracted to a motley crew sort – and as life happens, again, disagreements, bound to happen. I’ve even had big tiffs with some of my closest friends, and ya know, we usually re-knit.
But here’s a 2015 twist I’m noticing – because certain things I’m more sensitive too, and in this case I think it’s my head trying to save time:
There’s a specific kind of arrogance that’s a deal breaker in many relationships, and it makes the arrogant person more miserable in the end. (Disclaimer: this IS NOT about any specific person or incident, I just think too much, and this’s a generalization I think is good to stick with.) It’s a type of of psychological arrogance – a certain conceit in thinking you KNOW something you’re actually only speculating about. I like the phrase “When you have judged something you have stopped thinking” and a willingness to judge so easily, so stubbornly, even if you’re “cool” about it – I think it costs the arrogant person almost as much as the people who try to be nice to them and garner their respect.
It’s not something everyone does.
Psychological training = a lot of people think it IS a sort of trained arrogance – the balls to psychoanalyze someone and tell them because they wanna put their lips around a cigar that they have phallic issues of some kind. FALSE. The real art of psychology is making a hard science out of something that’s really fucking hard to measure (based on soft observations.) It’s important, cause it’s easy to think you know when you’re really inducing – and the key here is the second to proceed to follow a line trailing from one mis-step, everything in your model is wrong. Even neuroscience, is so fucking painstaking and slow because there’s so much interconnectedness and possibility between every transmission that it’s hard to KNOW an impulse and how something works. (Yeah, every time you comprehend “THATS DOPAMINE – you’re receiving a gross simplification.) A healthy respect for that – to the point before it mystifies human behavior – is super wise.
Cause to my mind, the biggest skill in psychological training is knowing when you don’t know. This isn’t to mystify, because I believe you can come into a deep understanding with almost any person and how they tick by actually connecting with them! However, the PATIENCE and skill to observe when it really matters and get to know them – heck, this’s how people get to predict some people better than they know themselves. This goes beyond looking for your conclusion, but finding cold curiosity in the person (more than how the person extends to you – the more subjective, and the more stake you have a person, honestly the harder this’ll be to do.) But it’s totally possible. I’d like to believe I’m a good read of people, and it’s not because I’m assuming, or think I’m smarter than I really am. I usually just watch until intuition identifies a pattern, and then I start to verify. I guess that’s my method.
But here’s something you don’t get to do, and I think this has marked the difference between when I connect with a person again after a disagreement, and when I keep ’em at arms bay cause I feel that maintaining and continuing their respect comes at too large a cost of self: when they tell you how you think.
Really, trifling people – the ones who are miserable – ever notice how few times they actually got to know someone before forming a strong opinion of ’em? I think more often than not, that’s what happens. And in my lil obsession of the narc. personality type this mid-year, a common theme presented itself: LOW EMPATHY.
That’s right – some of the most manipulating, conniving, selfish people – more often than not, they have a really stupid way of getting to know they people who’ll eventually wanna play the v-card. Just as an example, a lot of people who come off a spin with someone who approaches a narcisistic personality type – they also come away so pissed at themselves cause hindsight’s a bitch, and they realize they weren’t dealing with someone who actually got others. They were dealing with a person who had a strong opinion of others as people putty. And many narcs are surprised at how they come off, or how they actually affect others, or how others respond. Narcs by and large are NOT masterminds of human behaviors, as much as people who seek to control it and aggrandize their self in the process. And it’s really interesting when people project, cause, heck, maybe they can’t see farther than their own motivations for good reason.
And what I really get to, is my belief that there’s just a HUGE difference in identifying a behavior, or an emerging pattern, or a response, vs identifying how a person thinks and is and telling it to them. That last part – I’d say it’s a fair rule to just not do that unless you’re hellbent on disrespecting the person, cause it’s a lil more than disrespectful. And this’s the belief congealing part that I’m starting to actually swallow – telling someone what they care about, how they think, how they don’t think, in my experience that’s it’s turning out to be shown most often in people who had shitty childhoods. Sup with that? Seriously, if your parents smile a lot and are genuinely happy and get along with others, you’re probably more tolerant of speculating on behaviors and figuring out what’s ACTUALLY going on rather than focusing on how it pertains to you and why you might wanna manufacture that person’s reasoning. It’s an asshole generalization, but one that seems to apply – maybe it’s “my parent lost patience, made a judgement, and depicted how it’s acceptable to explosively react on this premise for they had the power, and as I grow up, I too shall exercise my own powa.” I don’t know (see what I just did there? I’m speculating, I’m exploring possible connections, yes I might be a lil asshole in looking for proof to validate this hypothesis, but it’s a hell of a lot better than trying to be smarter and outwitting people by assuming I know them better than they know or present themselves.”)
So I mean, I like assuming different styles have different merits. And I like figuring out what makes people tick – it’s more than a genuine hobby! But what I especially don’t like, are people who act on statements that maybe oughta begin with “I feel like . . . ” and turn it into “YOU . . . ” That’s more self-respecting than respectful. Accusations on the inner workings of a person’s psychology, I could use words like asshole, or toxic (although more often than not toxic = a really whiny buzzword, honestly) to describe the effect you may have – especially when you’re being shrewd (Nathaniel Hawthorne – the shrewd lad, great fucking allegory on the issues of shrewdness)
I mean if you’re right even 70% of the time, it’s terrible to arrogantly overlook the 30%, or the way that people change because you wanna feel like you have a smart deep understanding of that which you analyze. While it’s sexy to penetrate another’s soul – while the other sex LOVES it when you can look into their inner workings and see the ideal and spit it back to them – I’d say, sometimes it’s smart to take a step back and recognize that you don’t have omniscient observational power, but that you DO have great intuitive power, and that you have to balance these two extremes by having patience. I feel like most people will find that this extra bit of patience will salvage more than a few frictionfilled interactions when said friction occurs. Again, being/growing into adults, it’s likely not everyone is going to cherish and respect and appreciate all the hard decisions you SHOULD HAVE TO MAKE in life. Growing apart is totally, normal! But doing so respectfully, involves the self respect enough to recognize when you’re speculating and analyzing what’s presented as part of an aspect, not acting like you’re a trailmaster in someone else’s noggin.
These days, I figure this’s how my greatest friends and relationships (and current great one) can involve such assertive, strong personalities, over long times, without actual clash and snapped twigs – that extra bit of patience and curiosity, the identification of virtue, the patience to tolerate that people aren’t perfect and that learning will happen in a quest towards greater perfection, and that some people need to learn or adapt their weird ways to the world – all of this, huge boons. It’ll make you so easy to get along with, and less pissed off when interacting with people who to you, aren’t your ideal.
Anyway, curiosity about things worth being curios about (cause I don’t believe in giving every asshat all your time and brainpower, some people do suck)
+combined with the patience to have a thorough explanation
+and solid intuition with self awareness
All this combines into a person who’s hella cool ❤
You know . . . .or you can be a judgemental fuck and have a bunch of shallow relationships, or be a miserable arrogant recluse.
THE POWER IS YOURS!
Yeah, I kinda like life. A lot. Even in nyc.
2 more days 2 more days 2 more days 2 more days
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZcmTl_1ER8]
Eric is the Best 