self-critique
'He is not sensitive towards other people and rarely puts himself in their place, except to get to know them for his own purposes. He is no respecter of rights unless he respects the person whose rights they are, which is not very often. ... he is accustomed, instinctively and without vanity, to regard himself as the instrument of a not unimportant purpose, which he intended to discover in good time... a man somehow forced to live against himself, though outwardly he appeared to be indulging his inclinations without constraint...'- robert musil
I recently saw this passage, reading the man without qualities, and was disturbed by the resemblance- its so true to me, and how i instrumentalize people. i have the habit of, while abstractedly thinking of human beings and devaluing many of those around me. i'vevalmost gotten used to my elitist tendency; and its strange, how does one acclimatize to such a favored gender, racial, sexual, etc identity- and a great ambitiousness- without being hurtful to others? i indulge myself in feelings of loneliness but periodically i am jolted into realizing, that almost without knowing it i've hurt someone or made them feel less. i think objectively, whatever my thoughts are, that in my words and sexual behavior (and almost even thoughts now- after the hunter thing my animosity to feminism in practice almost balances out my animosity to misogynism) I'm quite in keeping with the identity myself and my south african, german, american southern ancestors are known for- aggression, spite, domination. the part of me that used to be a teenager who liked nietzsche almost embraces this- certainly, whatever i wanted to be at 17, i've more than surpassed.
Another thing, that i spoke to courtney awhile ago about; my attitude towards relationships (which i somehow defensively protect my "mistaken" one night stand behavior with) is impossibly hypocritical. I expect far more than i have to give; as a result, not only the lkives of others are poisoned but my own too; i have to resort to increasingly mentally 'dangerous' possibilites to take women seriously; first, i confined myself to women i thought too pretty for me, then to older women, now i'm pursuing this new woman and the fact that she;'s 26 and working on a masters is super attractive to me. well, fine, but that is not a longterm strategy, i'll have to grapple with this at some point; someday, i'll be 26 and probably have a masters myself, what then? i need to find a way to remake my personality, erasing (genuinely, and not only with empty intentions) the parts of me that make musil's quotation true for me, especially the instrumentalization of others. theres more i may write later on a different keyboard.
I recently saw this passage, reading the man without qualities, and was disturbed by the resemblance- its so true to me, and how i instrumentalize people. i have the habit of, while abstractedly thinking of human beings and devaluing many of those around me. i'vevalmost gotten used to my elitist tendency; and its strange, how does one acclimatize to such a favored gender, racial, sexual, etc identity- and a great ambitiousness- without being hurtful to others? i indulge myself in feelings of loneliness but periodically i am jolted into realizing, that almost without knowing it i've hurt someone or made them feel less. i think objectively, whatever my thoughts are, that in my words and sexual behavior (and almost even thoughts now- after the hunter thing my animosity to feminism in practice almost balances out my animosity to misogynism) I'm quite in keeping with the identity myself and my south african, german, american southern ancestors are known for- aggression, spite, domination. the part of me that used to be a teenager who liked nietzsche almost embraces this- certainly, whatever i wanted to be at 17, i've more than surpassed.
Another thing, that i spoke to courtney awhile ago about; my attitude towards relationships (which i somehow defensively protect my "mistaken" one night stand behavior with) is impossibly hypocritical. I expect far more than i have to give; as a result, not only the lkives of others are poisoned but my own too; i have to resort to increasingly mentally 'dangerous' possibilites to take women seriously; first, i confined myself to women i thought too pretty for me, then to older women, now i'm pursuing this new woman and the fact that she;'s 26 and working on a masters is super attractive to me. well, fine, but that is not a longterm strategy, i'll have to grapple with this at some point; someday, i'll be 26 and probably have a masters myself, what then? i need to find a way to remake my personality, erasing (genuinely, and not only with empty intentions) the parts of me that make musil's quotation true for me, especially the instrumentalization of others. theres more i may write later on a different keyboard.