its brutal nesting habits

[aquandrian]

People who have an external locus of control tend to assign responsibility for what happens in their lives to fate or luck; influences outside their governance. They'll say things like 'what will be, will be' or 'It's in the lap of the gods' and in many aspects of their life they'll abdicate responsibility altogether because they believe they're

Comments

[shaula82]

I was wondering if it was the same dude, as the name sounded familiar. You like his blog?

[aquandrian]

Yep! It's fascinating, I've never come across a guy who talks so openly about guy stuff and the way men think. Even if most of it shocks the living daylights out of me, I really like his brutal honesty.

And his fiction is absolutely brilliant. Honest to god, Ms Coraline. Fucking brilliant.

[shaula82]

Hmm. I disagree with him on many, many counts, and both him and (to a greater extent) female Sam irritate me. But then again I don't buy into "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" thing, y'know? Also, I don't have high expectations of a SMH blog, and a sure way of getting my blood pressure up is to read the comments that people leave for these two blogs. I wish stupid people would just form a colony already and get blasted into space together (sorry, haven't had my Nice Pills with my coffee today :D)

I'd give his fiction a spin though since you recommend it - is it available online?

[aquandrian]

Oh yeah, the female Sam is totally vapid. I only read her blog a couple of times and both times got so irritated because my priorities were so vastly different from hers even though we're both women.

I don't buy into "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" thing, y'know?Hmm. You know, now you've got me wondering whether I do. Cos at first blush, I'd say I don't. But then, I get so flabbergasted when I do run up against differences between the sexes that maybe I do wonder sometimes

[shellshear]

Interesting! Though both states can be pathological in extreme:

"I don't understand you; there must be something wrong with me."

"I don't understand you; there must be something wrong with you."

Here we see the internaliser as a chronic worrier. Did I offend that person? They seem to be frowning! What did I say? Think, dammit, think!

We also see the externaliser as thick-skinned, shrugging off failure and ploughing ahead anyway, because it's clearly *someone else's fault*.

I think the *most* important thing is to recognise your own tendency and compensate. It's all part of the great quest to get from subjective to objective reality!

[aquandrian]

Hmmm, interesting illustration ... cos I would put it the other way around ... the externaliser being so affected by other people fears everything they say and do. The internaliser doesn't give a crap because they're so self-involved.

Of course that may just be my own skewiff slant on it. And I totally see myself as the internaliser, btw. :p

I think the *most* important thing is to recognise your own tendency and compensate.
Totally! What scares me is the people I see with the external focus tend not to realise what it is they're doing and that's creepyifing to the nth degree.

Surely a purely objective reality is not the most desirable?! How do we take pleasure in the world, then? Perhaps objective for the negative and subjective for the positive?

Hmmmm ...

[shellshear]

The Myer-Briggs melarkey would probably separate out some of these tendencies as combinations of the internaliser/externaliser with perceptual/judgemental. The externaliser who is affected by other people is an EP, and the self-involved internaliser is an EJ. I guess.

Perhaps we mean different things when we talk about objective reality - I don't see anything incompatible with taking pleasure in the world!

[aquandrian]

I guess ... gah, I'm glad I dropped out of Psychology in the second semester. *lol*

Perhaps! That's very Zen actually, isn't it? Cool ...

[daisydumont]

what a great blog! i'm bookmarking it.

[aquandrian]

Er. I feel the need to warn you ... he can get quite confrontational and abrasive ... in the way that only Aussie males with a brain and a sense of humour can be. Consider yourself warned, okay?

[daisydumont]

no worries! i read a few of his posts and enjoyed them but didn't necessarily think he was right about things. entertaining and articulate, yes. that i like. :)

btw, last night i watched Bargaining pts. 1&2. giles left! aieee! i love spike all protective of dawn, and the buffybot was quite touching in the end.

[aquandrian]

Ah, excellent. Yes, I agree. Me too.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Yes, and Spike with the curls, oh god I love Spike with the curls! I know just what you mean about the poor Buffybot ... SMG played that so well. Poor Buffybot.

These first few episodes of Season Six have to be some of my favourites. And oh god Spike at the bottom of the stairs. Wah.

[rhiannonhero]

Hmm, I disagree with that conclusion. I feel like I have an internal locus of control, and yet I suffer from depressive episodes because of that internal locus of control. I think that I can control everything about my life, even the uncontrollable, and so when something goes wrong, I blame myself, hate myself, and send myself into a spiral of self-loathing and depression.

[aquandrian]

No no no, Rhi. I totally agree with you every step of the way. Cos after I posted that, I was thinking about it and yeah, I'm just like you in that respect. Internal locus therefore much self-flagellation and self-loathing when shit doesn't go my way.

Mind you, I think we cope better than the people I know who have that external locus of control. We may self-flagellate for a while but then eventually focus on what we can control and that helps to gain control of the entire situation. That's how I cope, anyway ... you too?

In Sam's defence though, I did notice as I was typing it up that he has all those qualifiers like "on the whole" and "I'd wager" which makes me think it's not quite as blanket a statement as it sounds. Naturally.