(no subject)
The Ame/Puppy thing
I've been thinking about what to do about this for several days now.
Overall, it's left a very... unsettled feeling in my stomach.
This is not a post about your opinion, or my opinion, or how they may or may not clash.
And it is not about how you handle our clashing opinions.
It's about how I handle you handling it.
I get... angry, sometimes. Certain things annoy me extensively. My wife says 'I am harsh' and this is not untrue, though I see it more as 'I am not very empathic'. Syncing with other people's feelings is not a priority or a desire for me. I do want to understand them, and I love to... feel things. Good things and bad things. I don't see anything wrong with crying. But those are things I want stories and life to do to me, not... the people around me. They can have their emotions, I want to have mine alone.
Anyway, none-the-less, one of my emotions alone is to be annoyed by certain actions, by certain ways of presenting one self, by certain actions and ways of presenting oneself when directed toward my close friends. Yet, I will always side with my opinion, whether it be two or more close friends clashing in this manner, or a close friend clashing with a stranger who I happen to agree with more. I greatly admire people who will back up their friends no matter if their opinion is different, and while I will... myself, back up a friend, I will not say something I do not believe, and I will not act as if I agree with something I do not.
This tendency of placing my opinion above others and judging people primarily on how they present their opinion and secondly on what their opinion is, means that when posts like this go up, with a great deal of opinions (which I feel are) badly expressed, or unnecessarily expressed, or selfishly expressed, I end up wanting to punch a lot of people in the face.
Up until the "I want to punch people in the face" part, I'm okay with all of this.
I... believe greatly in self. People say 'life is what you make of it' but often seem to mean it in a hopeful, or wishy-washy 'well you still need to allow for the breaks in life' kind of way. I don't. I believe that no matter your situation, you are in control of how you feel. This ability, to maintain how you want to FEEL about any given point in life, is a trait I greatly admire, and you can see it to almost absurdly amazing levels in the types of fictional characters who would still smile about being stabbed in the gut.
In the light of that possibility, it seems silly I would not be able to smile in the face of people who I admire doing things which I do not admire.
I would say to others, ideally. "If you don't want to be hurt, why are you allowing yourself to be hurt?" But while I think this is fully within each person's ability, it is not my place to demand anyone live according to how I perceive is possible or best.
It's taken me a bit of time to stand back from my ire, but the real question is "If I don't want to be upset, why am I allowing myself to be upset?"
The simple answer is because... well. I was upset. And I wanted to talk about why I was upset, and make people understand that I disagreed with them, and why, and what exactly they were doing 'wrong' and how the consequences of their 'wrong' actions negatively affected those around them, in an incredibly ironic circle of what I see as both cause and effect as well as hypocrisy.
But I withheld that, because there was no way I could enter into it without also joining the circle, and also being a hypocrite. And really, to some extent, I've already been one even with that paragraph. I accept that, but consider it relevant to explaining my thoughts on how I handle other people handling their clashing opinions.
Anyway. I withheld that, for many reasons, I think it was the correct decision, but it didn't make me feel better, and the desire to just say my opinion on other people's opinions and point out their 'wrongness' did not go away, and it has been bothering me.
I want to be... someone who is always happy.
I don't need to be someone who is always good. I am not seeking perfection. I would like to be someone who is kind more often than not, but I don't feel the need to emulate Christ. I want to be someone who experiences many aspects of life, and reflects on them and enjoys them and stores away that information. I would like to be a more appreciative friend, a less judgmental person, faster to forgive and less prone to keeping calculations of debt in my mind. I would also like to not be upset by people's opinions expressed in a way I don't agree with, or in general, less likely to be bothered by upsets on the internet.
I spent a while thinking about the feeling I had over the whole post, and what I really, really wanted. And determined I didn't really want to yell at anyone, and I didn't want to be right and for them to be wrong, and that I was not really upset by any of the opinions so much as how they were expressed. And that... in the end, what I wanted most was not to say my opinion, or be agreed with or disagreed with, or discuss anything, but just to not feel badly over all of it, to be someone who won't feel badly over all of it.
The conclusion I came to, to help me with that, was to write this post.
I've been thinking about what to do about this for several days now.
Overall, it's left a very... unsettled feeling in my stomach.
This is not a post about your opinion, or my opinion, or how they may or may not clash.
And it is not about how you handle our clashing opinions.
It's about how I handle you handling it.
I get... angry, sometimes. Certain things annoy me extensively. My wife says 'I am harsh' and this is not untrue, though I see it more as 'I am not very empathic'. Syncing with other people's feelings is not a priority or a desire for me. I do want to understand them, and I love to... feel things. Good things and bad things. I don't see anything wrong with crying. But those are things I want stories and life to do to me, not... the people around me. They can have their emotions, I want to have mine alone.
Anyway, none-the-less, one of my emotions alone is to be annoyed by certain actions, by certain ways of presenting one self, by certain actions and ways of presenting oneself when directed toward my close friends. Yet, I will always side with my opinion, whether it be two or more close friends clashing in this manner, or a close friend clashing with a stranger who I happen to agree with more. I greatly admire people who will back up their friends no matter if their opinion is different, and while I will... myself, back up a friend, I will not say something I do not believe, and I will not act as if I agree with something I do not.
This tendency of placing my opinion above others and judging people primarily on how they present their opinion and secondly on what their opinion is, means that when posts like this go up, with a great deal of opinions (which I feel are) badly expressed, or unnecessarily expressed, or selfishly expressed, I end up wanting to punch a lot of people in the face.
Up until the "I want to punch people in the face" part, I'm okay with all of this.
I... believe greatly in self. People say 'life is what you make of it' but often seem to mean it in a hopeful, or wishy-washy 'well you still need to allow for the breaks in life' kind of way. I don't. I believe that no matter your situation, you are in control of how you feel. This ability, to maintain how you want to FEEL about any given point in life, is a trait I greatly admire, and you can see it to almost absurdly amazing levels in the types of fictional characters who would still smile about being stabbed in the gut.
In the light of that possibility, it seems silly I would not be able to smile in the face of people who I admire doing things which I do not admire.
I would say to others, ideally. "If you don't want to be hurt, why are you allowing yourself to be hurt?" But while I think this is fully within each person's ability, it is not my place to demand anyone live according to how I perceive is possible or best.
It's taken me a bit of time to stand back from my ire, but the real question is "If I don't want to be upset, why am I allowing myself to be upset?"
The simple answer is because... well. I was upset. And I wanted to talk about why I was upset, and make people understand that I disagreed with them, and why, and what exactly they were doing 'wrong' and how the consequences of their 'wrong' actions negatively affected those around them, in an incredibly ironic circle of what I see as both cause and effect as well as hypocrisy.
But I withheld that, because there was no way I could enter into it without also joining the circle, and also being a hypocrite. And really, to some extent, I've already been one even with that paragraph. I accept that, but consider it relevant to explaining my thoughts on how I handle other people handling their clashing opinions.
Anyway. I withheld that, for many reasons, I think it was the correct decision, but it didn't make me feel better, and the desire to just say my opinion on other people's opinions and point out their 'wrongness' did not go away, and it has been bothering me.
I want to be... someone who is always happy.
I don't need to be someone who is always good. I am not seeking perfection. I would like to be someone who is kind more often than not, but I don't feel the need to emulate Christ. I want to be someone who experiences many aspects of life, and reflects on them and enjoys them and stores away that information. I would like to be a more appreciative friend, a less judgmental person, faster to forgive and less prone to keeping calculations of debt in my mind. I would also like to not be upset by people's opinions expressed in a way I don't agree with, or in general, less likely to be bothered by upsets on the internet.
I spent a while thinking about the feeling I had over the whole post, and what I really, really wanted. And determined I didn't really want to yell at anyone, and I didn't want to be right and for them to be wrong, and that I was not really upset by any of the opinions so much as how they were expressed. And that... in the end, what I wanted most was not to say my opinion, or be agreed with or disagreed with, or discuss anything, but just to not feel badly over all of it, to be someone who won't feel badly over all of it.
The conclusion I came to, to help me with that, was to write this post.