Posts in category "Thoughts"

My Congeniality Is Not Benevolence

I’ll always try to give every­one a fair chance when I first meet them. I assume the “gener­ic”, kind per­son­al­i­ty, which is pri­mar­i­ly used to make the per­son com­fort­able and open, enough to feel them out.

Unfortunately, some peo­ple mis­take this as friend­li­ness, when I real­ly could­n’t give a shit about them. All I’m try­ing to do is find out more about their per­son­al­i­ties and their lives because that’s what I’m always inter­est­ed in. It’s usu­al­ly the peo­ple who are social­ly dis­ad­van­taged who mis­in­ter­pret this, and believe that I’m inter­est­ed in friend­ship.

Usually when I sense some­thing I don’t like about some­one (which hap­pens more often than not) I’ll dis­tance myself from them and turn cold. This gen­er­al­ly means I have no fur­ther inter­est in asso­ci­at­ing with them. I’ll nev­er ini­ti­ate con­ver­sa­tion with them, nev­er state my opin­ion around them, nev­er show emo­tion to them. Most can sense this and step back, pos­si­bly sub­con­scious­ly, and eas­i­ly because most haven’t invest­ed any­thing in the rela­tion­ship.

However, some­times some­one won’t get the idea and cling to the ini­tial mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion. In these cas­es, I’m left with some­one who thinks I’m his or her friend. They’ll open up, tell me things, put their trust in me, when I don’t care (when I sense some­thing I dis­like, I lose all inter­est).

I’ve always won­dered if it’s just me being an ass­hole by wear­ing a kind per­son­al­i­ty sim­ply to sat­is­fy my curios­i­ty, or whether it’s the fault of oth­ers for mis­in­ter­pret­ing my expres­sions and actions. In the past I’ve always blamed myself and felt bad when some­one finds out that I’m not their friend, but I’m begin­ning to blame oth­ers. I’ve run into a few social­ly retard­ed peo­ple who just don’t under­stand any­thing about the dynam­ic set of social rules sur­round­ing them. I know now in some cas­es that it’s not my fault.

But this fact does­n’t alle­vi­ate the sit­u­a­tions.

Mind Muffler

It always inter­ests me to learn how some peo­ple are changed so sud­den­ly in their lives. An inci­dent, whether it’s retire­ment, grad­u­a­tion, death, or any­thing of such a mag­ni­tude, cause some to have new rev­e­la­tions or epipha­nies. The fact that it takes some­thing as dras­tic as these sit­u­a­tions to affect some peo­ple seems seems a lit­tle odd to me.

Do these peo­ple not think at all in their dai­ly lives? Do they go through one day to the next with­out look­ing at the big pic­ture, with­out see­ing some sort of per­spec­tive?

I think I’m gen­er­al­ly unaf­fect­ed by such extreme events because of the fact that I try to find mean­ing in almost every­thing I expe­ri­ence (risk­ing pre­ten­sion). It ends up being that some­thing like the loss of a favorite shirt can affect me as much as fail­ing an entire uni­ver­si­ty course. I feel as if I learn enough about myself from both events. As a result of this, I some­times change on a day to day basis, although it’s gen­er­al­ly on a minis­cule lev­el and takes a while before it all builds up into any­thing notice­able.

Of course, this also means that very lit­tle ends up sur­pris­ing me. I’m rarely shocked by any­thing, and often feel like my emo­tions have been lev­eled off, per­haps numb or sim­ply accus­tomed to change. I don’t get dras­ti­cal­ly affect­ed any­more, and in turn, can think and act clear­ly accord­ing to my set of log­ic. The only thing that ends up over­com­ing my cere­bral­i­ty is hate.

And love.

No Wonder, Iago

Sometimes, some­one does some­thing…in char­ac­ter…and this sin­gle act can change my view of them. It’s as if this one thing is the last piece in the puz­zle, and once this hap­pens I fig­ure some­one out com­plete­ly. It’s sad that peo­ple can be so com­pli­cat­ed, and then sud­den­ly so one-dimen­sion­al. I’m not some sort of social genius by any means, but it sur­pris­es me how many times I end up feel­ing as if I know some­one through and through. It’s almost like being able to under­stand the mind of a child.

I think part of the rea­son is because of how many dif­fer­ent peo­ple I’ve been. I see parts of myself in these peo­ple, as so many types of per­son­al­i­ties I’ve had before. Once this hap­pens, a sort of con­nec­tion in my mind is made, and it’s almost as if I under­stand every­thing about them; their motives, their log­ic, their actions. Generally this means that I dis­like the per­son, since I dis­like so many of my past ideas and mind­sets.

I always won­der what it takes for some­one to change so dras­ti­cal­ly to me. With what sin­gle moment do I begin to under­stand some­one? I know that not every­one can be fig­ured out, only those who are relat­ed to what I used to be (which is only a tiny frac­tion of the peo­ple I meet). And yet, fair­ly often, some­one I know will end up being pre­dictable, bor­ing, and frus­trat­ing.

These are the peo­ple I usu­al­ly feel most com­fort­able around, since I know how to talk to them, their humour, what they want to hear, even how they want oth­er peo­ple to act. They’re also the peo­ple I gen­er­al­ly want to hang around the least. They remind me of how igno­rant a per­son I used to be, and offer no inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion (because I usu­al­ly already know every­thing they have say).

There are many more peo­ple I can’t fig­ure out, both ones I like and dis­like. I don’t pro­fess to be smart enough to under­stand any­one, and I cer­tain­ly don’t think that being able to do this makes me a more intel­li­gent per­son. It’s just odd to sud­den­ly come to such under­stand­ings some­times. I instant­ly lose respect for the per­son, and wish I had­n’t got­ten to this point.

In these cas­es it’s prob­a­bly bet­ter to be igno­rant.

The One Who Can Turn You Off Food

Pat is a very easy going guy. It’s rare for him to be angry or annoyed with some­one, as aggra­vat­ing as they can be. He has his four basic rules of get­ting along with peo­ple, which are a part of his per­son­al­i­ty. To me, they per­fect­ly explain how I can’t walk ten min­utes with him on cam­pus with­out some­one walk­ing by and greet­ing him. He’s one of the most pop­u­lar, friend­ly, out­go­ing peo­ple I know.

So I was sur­prised to hear him tell me about some­one he met whom he could­n’t stand. After all, this is Patty, the guy who loves and is loved by every­one. I did­n’t believe him until he explained how this per­son stood for every­thing he was against. Pat holds respect for oth­ers as one of the most impor­tant things in life, and this per­son had none.

It was odd to think that Pat has a nat­ur­al “ene­my”, some­one who con­tra­dicts him in almost every way, until I real­ized that I have one as well. I’ve met a per­son who is every­thing I try not to be. He’s obnox­ious, untrust­wor­thy, crude, over­bear­ing, pussy-whipped, jeal­ous, and closed-mind­ed. He has a decent set of man­ners, is gen­er­al­ly friend­ly to most peo­ple, and does have a rea­son­able intel­li­gence as far as I can tell, but none of this can real­ly make up for what he’s like.

I can feel myself being slight­ly, uncon­trol­lably biased against him, which I can’t stand in myself. One of Pat’s rules is that every­one should be giv­en a fair chance, and even though I feel like I’ve giv­en more than enough time for this per­son to change my opin­ion, I’m nev­er sure if it’s enough. I hate being biased.

I gen­er­al­ly can’t stand most peo­ple, but that’s my fault because of my intol­er­ance. This per­son, how­ev­er, is one of the only peo­ple I don’t blame myself for. Perhaps I dis­like him so much because he reminds me a lot of what I used to be. Of course, Aaron thinks that this is a good thing, a reminder of how far I’ve been able to come as a per­son.

Sometimes that’s just hard to see.

Ah Mui

I had no idea what I was going to name this entry until I saw Shaolin Soccer again.

I’ve dis­cussed weak­ness in the past, and how it is frus­trat­ing to be a “weak per­son”. Now I real­ize that I’ve con­fused weak­ness with accep­tance, that accep­tance is not a sign of weak­ness but of strength.

It’s not easy to accept some­thing that is imposed. Sometimes it is all that can be done and one must allow a cer­tain dis­com­fort involved to be present. Sometimes accept­ing is the best solu­tion, even though one may not like it. However, it’s easy to be a weak per­son. It’s easy to give in, easy to let things go. The dif­fer­ence lies in how much of our­selves we give up and how much we’re will­ing to give up, and being able to dis­tin­guish the two becomes a task based on expe­ri­ence and the peo­ple involved.

I believe that I’ve been both weak and accept­ing in the past. Both are still pos­si­ble, although I think that I’m more accept­ing now due to an increase in con­fi­dence.

Being able to dis­tin­guish the two in myself has become ever hard­er.