Sometimes I like to visit your planet.
You know, walk the streets late at night. Wear the dark clothing & go through the motions so that I seem to fit in. Watch people living their lives. Responding to the moment - their way. Its akin to tourism or voyeurism. Sometimes its nice. That scene from The Shoes Of The Fisherman comes to mind.
I have only a passing desire to live another's life though. Not because there's something wrong with 'not being me,' or even something endlessly fascinating about being me.
Its because being someone else is preposterous. Its just not my job. Not my path. I have my own & by the way there's less wrong with that every day. Also, far to often my own battles & projects & needs though, demand I be elsewhere - its tiring.
Its good tired - fighting your own battles, standing up for your own thoughts. Nourishing in a way. I'm just saying that there's a lot to do.
So I was reading this article recently, talks about the ritual used in talking - often the meeting or the job interview & how we kid ourselves that knowing a pattern of behaviour means that you are smart.
http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_05_29_a_interview.html
It applies just as much I expect to dating & learning about the social world. Its a good article, but it has filled me with a very personal horror.
You see, I've been interested in what people say in the 60seconds or even 6seconds after they say hello for most of my life. Certainly long before I read Eric Berne's excellent book on the subject.
Some might say that many of my problems arise from the fact that I'm only interested in what is outside the ritual behaviour patterns.
Then again, aren't you? Why do we go on dates, interview applicants, present ourselves for interview - meet people. Is it to show we know the script & can stick to it here & now... or is it to demonstrate that as far as necessary we can be formal or scripted or 'safe' for the autopilot moments but that what is special and worthy about us is what happens when we stop doing that?
Are we all about being useful and safe for other people... or are we about what we have to offer & want in return.
Similar I grant you - but bigger. And different.
It is where people don't (think they) know how to behave that I believe you meet them. Its when they have to improvise, where they need to be more themselves, respond to the unexpected - not necessarily the unpleasant - that I believe you meet them. In fact, its the only interesting part of a person, yes?
You see, when people follow a ritual, a repetitive pattern, a code. I believe they are lying to me. Not directly & personally but in a way that we stopped needing to do most of the time decades if not centuries ago.
Perhaps its all that time I spent @ hippie college learning that 'boundaries were evil'. 'Boundaries are the shackles of other peoples expectations.'
Yet that's not how I imagine it. Natural Therapies college (or the wonderful women I met there) might have given me the courage of my convictions but this is a behaviour pattern we were definitely criticising & re-evaluating in my childhood.
If for example, a supervisor started criticising my performance @ a meeting in front of my peers I know exactly what I'd do. I'd come right back @ them. Not out of aggression or anger or embarrassment... but out of need. Its the only way it can work - the only path available that can work (as far as I know), because if someone's going to be direct (at last) with you, you have to find out if its coming from a crazy place. If it is, you have to make them accountable to the meeting & moment too. If it doesn't match your own internal reality state so & why. This is who I am, this is why I am, this is why I believe it. The ingredients for that particular soup are so many & so varied that someone who can't engage with that detail is not worthy to tear it down.
The Ancient Greeks settled this - authority must be commensurate with responsibility or we are on a short road to chaos. You gotta call them on their behaviour & submit their thought processes & motivations to scrutiny too.
If they are actually giving you the truth (in my experience - this is very rare), you gotta treat it like gold. Moments of looking good or bad in the refractive gaze of your peers are almost infinite. Moments of truth are rare. Sure... I might stay "Stop! This conversation needs to happen in private." ...but I would probably feel that I had let myself & the moment down if I did.
Sure its a little bit horrific but when you think about it, of the things that we don't chose for ourselves actually isn't - just a bit?
Diving into your shell is evidently not going to work.
I understand people who want to cover up when their boss is a bully. My point is that there is no future there anyway. For the race to survive, its probably essential that when the individual is taken down by one - that the individual does as much damage to the bully in the process.
Its been my experience that most non devout bullies learn to be better people from this approach and this process - quite quickly.
So, the last thing I want to do is follow proscribed behaviour patterns. Its been done already. All safety thus evoked is temporary and illusory. And the opportunities lost for a golden moment.
The thing is, I like to think that the people in my life are real. I like to think that I've spoken to them & not their PR face.
... Have they really been interpreting my interest in them as some sort of social ritual?
Aarrrrrggghhhh!
I have only a passing desire to live another's life though. Not because there's something wrong with 'not being me,' or even something endlessly fascinating about being me.
Its because being someone else is preposterous. Its just not my job. Not my path. I have my own & by the way there's less wrong with that every day. Also, far to often my own battles & projects & needs though, demand I be elsewhere - its tiring.
Its good tired - fighting your own battles, standing up for your own thoughts. Nourishing in a way. I'm just saying that there's a lot to do.
So I was reading this article recently, talks about the ritual used in talking - often the meeting or the job interview & how we kid ourselves that knowing a pattern of behaviour means that you are smart.
http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_05_29_a_interview.html
It applies just as much I expect to dating & learning about the social world. Its a good article, but it has filled me with a very personal horror.
You see, I've been interested in what people say in the 60seconds or even 6seconds after they say hello for most of my life. Certainly long before I read Eric Berne's excellent book on the subject.
Some might say that many of my problems arise from the fact that I'm only interested in what is outside the ritual behaviour patterns.
Then again, aren't you? Why do we go on dates, interview applicants, present ourselves for interview - meet people. Is it to show we know the script & can stick to it here & now... or is it to demonstrate that as far as necessary we can be formal or scripted or 'safe' for the autopilot moments but that what is special and worthy about us is what happens when we stop doing that?
Are we all about being useful and safe for other people... or are we about what we have to offer & want in return.
Similar I grant you - but bigger. And different.
It is where people don't (think they) know how to behave that I believe you meet them. Its when they have to improvise, where they need to be more themselves, respond to the unexpected - not necessarily the unpleasant - that I believe you meet them. In fact, its the only interesting part of a person, yes?
You see, when people follow a ritual, a repetitive pattern, a code. I believe they are lying to me. Not directly & personally but in a way that we stopped needing to do most of the time decades if not centuries ago.
Perhaps its all that time I spent @ hippie college learning that 'boundaries were evil'. 'Boundaries are the shackles of other peoples expectations.'
Yet that's not how I imagine it. Natural Therapies college (or the wonderful women I met there) might have given me the courage of my convictions but this is a behaviour pattern we were definitely criticising & re-evaluating in my childhood.
If for example, a supervisor started criticising my performance @ a meeting in front of my peers I know exactly what I'd do. I'd come right back @ them. Not out of aggression or anger or embarrassment... but out of need. Its the only way it can work - the only path available that can work (as far as I know), because if someone's going to be direct (at last) with you, you have to find out if its coming from a crazy place. If it is, you have to make them accountable to the meeting & moment too. If it doesn't match your own internal reality state so & why. This is who I am, this is why I am, this is why I believe it. The ingredients for that particular soup are so many & so varied that someone who can't engage with that detail is not worthy to tear it down.
The Ancient Greeks settled this - authority must be commensurate with responsibility or we are on a short road to chaos. You gotta call them on their behaviour & submit their thought processes & motivations to scrutiny too.
If they are actually giving you the truth (in my experience - this is very rare), you gotta treat it like gold. Moments of looking good or bad in the refractive gaze of your peers are almost infinite. Moments of truth are rare. Sure... I might stay "Stop! This conversation needs to happen in private." ...but I would probably feel that I had let myself & the moment down if I did.
Sure its a little bit horrific but when you think about it, of the things that we don't chose for ourselves actually isn't - just a bit?
Diving into your shell is evidently not going to work.
I understand people who want to cover up when their boss is a bully. My point is that there is no future there anyway. For the race to survive, its probably essential that when the individual is taken down by one - that the individual does as much damage to the bully in the process.
Its been my experience that most non devout bullies learn to be better people from this approach and this process - quite quickly.
So, the last thing I want to do is follow proscribed behaviour patterns. Its been done already. All safety thus evoked is temporary and illusory. And the opportunities lost for a golden moment.
The thing is, I like to think that the people in my life are real. I like to think that I've spoken to them & not their PR face.
... Have they really been interpreting my interest in them as some sort of social ritual?
Aarrrrrggghhhh!