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The stories we tell
Sep. 5th, 2005 09:51 am Sometimes I just feel moved to say a few words
about how strange and fucked up humans are. I mean really, deeply,
twisted. This isn't always a bad thing and I'm not even talking about
how people do things that are against the common and even personal
'good'. I'm talking about how we manage to screw up our very own lives
because of how we think.
One of the neat traits that humans have is the ability to project their thoughts into the heads of others. It's an extension of our ability to tell stories about the things we see and experience. But this is where, if we aren't supremely careful, it all goes horribly wrong. And even should we be the most cautious, there's still a big chance that we'll screw it up.
What we do is this; inside our own heads we create scenarios, these can be as simple as 'I wonder what Tim would like for dinner? Hmmm.... I bet he'd like sushi!' and we run off to make or buy sushi for Tim. Tim comes home and is confronted by cold fish on a plate and is a bit less than pleased. He thinks, 'wow.... must've gone through a bit of trouble to make this for me... wish it were steak though, guess I'd better pretend to like it then or I'll be in a world of trouble.'
But I have to ask, why do we do this? Why do we pretend that we can know what is really in the mind of another person? There's only limited evidence of psychic powers and even then they 'read' what is foremost in the mind. What the other person is projecting. So we seem to base our lives and interactions on guesses. We take some of these to ridiculous lengths.
This leads to the other part of this phenomenon; that we seem to deal very poorly with the 'truth' when it runs counter to the story we've created. Why don't we ask? Or, why don't we take that further and speak our minds? Isn't it true that only we know what we are really thinking?
As long as we are toying with radical thought, why are we afraid to hear the truth from others? I'll offer a fine example from my own life. In retail we (stores and employees) screw things up. Rather than calling the customer or speaking to them honestly, we stall and make excuses. Rather we should say, 'I'm sorry, there's been a fuck up. I will work to make it right but I am going to need time to do that.'
The answer is fear. We tell those insidious little stories to ourselves and we expect trouble, we expect to be chastised, so we work to avoid the confrontation and lies are the result. More stories, more lies, more derangeds responses. Sometimes I think that politics is the pentultimate outcome of these traits. Where countries begin to tell lies to themselves and others. *shakes head*
I was talking last night to both Ian and Josh. With Ian, I realized that he was trying to please everyone and only succeeding in making himself miserable. He has several people who would like to be in a relationship with him, myself included, I think. All of us live a considerable distance from him. The closest of us is about ninety minutes away. Most of us are closer to a thousand miles and more. Makes things hard, especially if reality is considered.
I've told him that I won't consider anything beyond friendship without spending time with him in person. Reasonable, right? How, I ask, can you fall in Love with an electronic dream? By telling ourselves stories about the other person and what the 'future' will hold. I don't want stories, I want reality.
Now Ian is faced with some choices to make. Who to meet and how to conduct his relationships. He's considering visiting one of us in Colorado this fall, one that lives close he has already met, and then there is me. I'm willing to go and meet him as long as he wants me to. Our first try at it fell apart because of the way that Ian was being pulled by conflicting 'stories' that he was telling himself. It left him an emotional wreck and feeling like he wanted to just drop out of sight.
Then there's Josh. If I try to fit him into this 'story' of how I see humanity, I'd have to say that he has grown accustomed to folks not caring how he reacts. His own personal story has been sidelined. He is used to people not thinking about him and not listening when he states his desires. That, to me, doesn't work either. No one should be so totally marginalized. He was telling me that he can't even get respect from teens that he meets on-line. *sighs*
So, what to do? This is my proposal. Learn to ask and better yet, to listen. We have one mouth to speak with but we have two ears with which to listen. Understand that no matter how good we imagine that we know how another will react, it is still just a guess. To base actions on guessing is a bit nuts. It's easier to ask. I've said for a long time that I will answer any question honestly asked of me. The other side of that is of course, don't ask any question that you aren't ready to hear the answer to. Seems reasonable to me.
All in all, I think we go through this life telling ourselves too many stories. We try to make our experiences fit into a familiar formula and we 'trim' the bits that are inconvenient. We do it personally, we do it socially, we do it politically, we even do it religiously. >.< Folks! It just doesn't work! It can't. There are a limited number of basic stories and not every experience fits. Let me leave you with a very good example. The stories that the bible tells us. This is a document that has been venerated for eighteen hundred years. It's a compilation of documents that are thousands of years older than that.
Homosexuality, a topic near to my heart, is a prime example. Most theories, which, in the end are just formally stated stories, say that very rarely is it a learned action. That most people fall in a range that allows for enjoyment of same sex activity. The homosexual and the heterosexual could be thought of as opposite poles of that spectrum. But that entire spectrum is shaped by experience and the stories that we learn. The story of the bible is said to be anti-gay. Our current interpretation of it is certainly. But then we go one step further and take this article of faith. This document of God and decide that it needs to be applied unilaterally. It's no longer a matter of belief and consent. It has become a tool to force compliance with a certain viewpoint IN A SOCIETY THAT IS PLEDGED TO FREEDOMS!
So, the next time that you, or anyone, presumes to know what someone else is thinking, or what would be best for someone else; stop. Ask yourself, can I really know? Then take a minute and ask that person, that group, that society, that nation. Just ask. And when the answer is given, respect that answer. If the other person gives an untruthful answer, for whatever reason, realize that the outcome is not your fault. You CAN NOT force someone else to tell you the truth and without that truth it is they who are responsible for the consequences. Get it? We are not responsible for the lies told to us if they lead us to make incorrect decisions.
Next week: social and personal responsibility. Can we handle 'THE TRUTH'?
*Hugs everyone*
One of the neat traits that humans have is the ability to project their thoughts into the heads of others. It's an extension of our ability to tell stories about the things we see and experience. But this is where, if we aren't supremely careful, it all goes horribly wrong. And even should we be the most cautious, there's still a big chance that we'll screw it up.
What we do is this; inside our own heads we create scenarios, these can be as simple as 'I wonder what Tim would like for dinner? Hmmm.... I bet he'd like sushi!' and we run off to make or buy sushi for Tim. Tim comes home and is confronted by cold fish on a plate and is a bit less than pleased. He thinks, 'wow.... must've gone through a bit of trouble to make this for me... wish it were steak though, guess I'd better pretend to like it then or I'll be in a world of trouble.'
But I have to ask, why do we do this? Why do we pretend that we can know what is really in the mind of another person? There's only limited evidence of psychic powers and even then they 'read' what is foremost in the mind. What the other person is projecting. So we seem to base our lives and interactions on guesses. We take some of these to ridiculous lengths.
This leads to the other part of this phenomenon; that we seem to deal very poorly with the 'truth' when it runs counter to the story we've created. Why don't we ask? Or, why don't we take that further and speak our minds? Isn't it true that only we know what we are really thinking?
As long as we are toying with radical thought, why are we afraid to hear the truth from others? I'll offer a fine example from my own life. In retail we (stores and employees) screw things up. Rather than calling the customer or speaking to them honestly, we stall and make excuses. Rather we should say, 'I'm sorry, there's been a fuck up. I will work to make it right but I am going to need time to do that.'
The answer is fear. We tell those insidious little stories to ourselves and we expect trouble, we expect to be chastised, so we work to avoid the confrontation and lies are the result. More stories, more lies, more derangeds responses. Sometimes I think that politics is the pentultimate outcome of these traits. Where countries begin to tell lies to themselves and others. *shakes head*
I was talking last night to both Ian and Josh. With Ian, I realized that he was trying to please everyone and only succeeding in making himself miserable. He has several people who would like to be in a relationship with him, myself included, I think. All of us live a considerable distance from him. The closest of us is about ninety minutes away. Most of us are closer to a thousand miles and more. Makes things hard, especially if reality is considered.
I've told him that I won't consider anything beyond friendship without spending time with him in person. Reasonable, right? How, I ask, can you fall in Love with an electronic dream? By telling ourselves stories about the other person and what the 'future' will hold. I don't want stories, I want reality.
Now Ian is faced with some choices to make. Who to meet and how to conduct his relationships. He's considering visiting one of us in Colorado this fall, one that lives close he has already met, and then there is me. I'm willing to go and meet him as long as he wants me to. Our first try at it fell apart because of the way that Ian was being pulled by conflicting 'stories' that he was telling himself. It left him an emotional wreck and feeling like he wanted to just drop out of sight.
Then there's Josh. If I try to fit him into this 'story' of how I see humanity, I'd have to say that he has grown accustomed to folks not caring how he reacts. His own personal story has been sidelined. He is used to people not thinking about him and not listening when he states his desires. That, to me, doesn't work either. No one should be so totally marginalized. He was telling me that he can't even get respect from teens that he meets on-line. *sighs*
So, what to do? This is my proposal. Learn to ask and better yet, to listen. We have one mouth to speak with but we have two ears with which to listen. Understand that no matter how good we imagine that we know how another will react, it is still just a guess. To base actions on guessing is a bit nuts. It's easier to ask. I've said for a long time that I will answer any question honestly asked of me. The other side of that is of course, don't ask any question that you aren't ready to hear the answer to. Seems reasonable to me.
All in all, I think we go through this life telling ourselves too many stories. We try to make our experiences fit into a familiar formula and we 'trim' the bits that are inconvenient. We do it personally, we do it socially, we do it politically, we even do it religiously. >.< Folks! It just doesn't work! It can't. There are a limited number of basic stories and not every experience fits. Let me leave you with a very good example. The stories that the bible tells us. This is a document that has been venerated for eighteen hundred years. It's a compilation of documents that are thousands of years older than that.
Homosexuality, a topic near to my heart, is a prime example. Most theories, which, in the end are just formally stated stories, say that very rarely is it a learned action. That most people fall in a range that allows for enjoyment of same sex activity. The homosexual and the heterosexual could be thought of as opposite poles of that spectrum. But that entire spectrum is shaped by experience and the stories that we learn. The story of the bible is said to be anti-gay. Our current interpretation of it is certainly. But then we go one step further and take this article of faith. This document of God and decide that it needs to be applied unilaterally. It's no longer a matter of belief and consent. It has become a tool to force compliance with a certain viewpoint IN A SOCIETY THAT IS PLEDGED TO FREEDOMS!
So, the next time that you, or anyone, presumes to know what someone else is thinking, or what would be best for someone else; stop. Ask yourself, can I really know? Then take a minute and ask that person, that group, that society, that nation. Just ask. And when the answer is given, respect that answer. If the other person gives an untruthful answer, for whatever reason, realize that the outcome is not your fault. You CAN NOT force someone else to tell you the truth and without that truth it is they who are responsible for the consequences. Get it? We are not responsible for the lies told to us if they lead us to make incorrect decisions.
Next week: social and personal responsibility. Can we handle 'THE TRUTH'?
*Hugs everyone*
