Lessons learned
I am actually a terrible boyfriend, but that's not really what this post is about. Let's just back off from that for a minute.
Lately a few of my friends have been drawing lines in a sprawling argument that I'm sure has bred a lot of anxiety. See, one of my friends sees something that these other friends do and thinks that it's wholly irrational and he wants them to immediately rid themselves of this behavior.
Now, I'm not talking mental disorder irrational like they're seeing black helicopters and government agents following them, and they know about all of it through hidden messages in the letters in Penthouse. I'm talking the kind of irrationality where they believe in something that's outside of that box of rationality.
So, I'm a terrible boyfriend. Two years ago I was dating this girl, and she was pretty great in her own way, but I was wildly insecure all over the place. The kind of neurotic, nerdy, mess that would fuel a situation comedy starring Zak Braff only instead of having my secret hopes and dreams guarded by a horse with a sword on its head, I guarded them by being a dick.
Let’s put that discussion on hold again.
This friend has been thinking a lot about rationality and irrationality over the course of the past few months, as he has brought his life through a myriad of changes. It has sort of been like the opposite of a spiritual awakening, and in that sort of ecstatic reverie a lot of questions and contemplation came out with a kind of evangelist’s fervor.
In that fervor there was an important question that seems to have been left out of why people believe the things that they do. It was simply prima facie irrational.
I sympathize a lot with that perspective and that experience, because I am also an atheist.
So here I was with this woman that made me nervous, and what I did was to question that rationality for no other reason than it was there. Rather than stepping back and thinking about why belief was so important to her, and why she had come to believe the things that she did and what it meant for her, I attacked.
It would be grossly reductionist to say that was the only problem, but it’s simply the most relevant. Now I know that my friend isn’t insecure about this, but I feel as if there’s that same lack of looking at priorities and thinking about what’s important. It’s unfair to everyone involved just to boil everything down to this point, but when you have friends that have known one another for years with such a fundamental disconnect between them, there has to be a step missing.
It’s a thin line to try and straddle, but I think that the important thing is not what your friends believe but why they are your friend.
And now you know, the rest of the story.
Lately a few of my friends have been drawing lines in a sprawling argument that I'm sure has bred a lot of anxiety. See, one of my friends sees something that these other friends do and thinks that it's wholly irrational and he wants them to immediately rid themselves of this behavior.
Now, I'm not talking mental disorder irrational like they're seeing black helicopters and government agents following them, and they know about all of it through hidden messages in the letters in Penthouse. I'm talking the kind of irrationality where they believe in something that's outside of that box of rationality.
So, I'm a terrible boyfriend. Two years ago I was dating this girl, and she was pretty great in her own way, but I was wildly insecure all over the place. The kind of neurotic, nerdy, mess that would fuel a situation comedy starring Zak Braff only instead of having my secret hopes and dreams guarded by a horse with a sword on its head, I guarded them by being a dick.
Let’s put that discussion on hold again.
This friend has been thinking a lot about rationality and irrationality over the course of the past few months, as he has brought his life through a myriad of changes. It has sort of been like the opposite of a spiritual awakening, and in that sort of ecstatic reverie a lot of questions and contemplation came out with a kind of evangelist’s fervor.
In that fervor there was an important question that seems to have been left out of why people believe the things that they do. It was simply prima facie irrational.
I sympathize a lot with that perspective and that experience, because I am also an atheist.
So here I was with this woman that made me nervous, and what I did was to question that rationality for no other reason than it was there. Rather than stepping back and thinking about why belief was so important to her, and why she had come to believe the things that she did and what it meant for her, I attacked.
It would be grossly reductionist to say that was the only problem, but it’s simply the most relevant. Now I know that my friend isn’t insecure about this, but I feel as if there’s that same lack of looking at priorities and thinking about what’s important. It’s unfair to everyone involved just to boil everything down to this point, but when you have friends that have known one another for years with such a fundamental disconnect between them, there has to be a step missing.
It’s a thin line to try and straddle, but I think that the important thing is not what your friends believe but why they are your friend.
And now you know, the rest of the story.