Despite all of my railings against the Twelve Stoners, despite my not wanting to visit their meetings because of the proselytizing that goes on, the self abuse one must witness in the name of God, and the temptation to consume nicotine with this heavily smoking crowd, I would be at such a meeting if there were one at this hour. Despite their deficiencies for me generally, these meetings are useful if you are actually having to deal with a drunk, which I have had to do today. It is inconvenient to say the least.
A few days ago, when dealing with that Blackguard, I phoned a colleague with whom I never discuss anything except work, and that very little. There is no bad blood between us. We are merely dissimilar and busy, and we understand each other so well on work related issues that long conversations are not normally necessary. So I phoned this colleague, with apologies for the invasion of hir tranquility and time, and ze said: Don’t worry about it. I am having similar problems and your perspective is helpful to me. And it is worth the time. I mean, you are worth it.
“You are worth it.” That was one of the key sentences that rescued me from the Blackguard. The other was from my hairdresser, who said, you don’t deserve to be treated that way. I mean, nobody does. But especially not you. That amazed me as well because I had not realized until my hairdresser said this that the issue was not that I just had mismanaged something and allowed an untoward conversation to take place at me, but that I had been mistreated.
This morning my appearing and disappearing half sister, who had not responded to my messages over the past six months saying I would soon be in her area and would like to visit, and upon whom I had given up (although I had kept her abreast of my travel plans), has written to say that I “kan ikke være bekendt at brænde [hende] af” [am a jerk to be blowing her off] and I am consumed with guilt. I am the eldest, I was more diligent at school, I got along better with her mother than she did, and now I am “blowing her off” and so many things in her life are my fault again.
This gave me an insight about that Blackguard, namely, that being kind in the moment is not necessarily kind (something I tend to realize too late) — an insight not original to me, which I would go and see those Twelve Stoners to listen to them say if they were available now.
It already being afternoon, I instead phoned one of you. From this conversation I learned that my appearing and disappearing half sister had managed to remove from me within the space of one second the idea that I might have any rights in any matter, or that I might have any sort of professional or other obligations which come before her. To see that this is the idea that she, and so many, are able to remove from me so quickly, was most illuminating.
It seems that everyone else is trying to learn that they are not first. They are not the only person in the world, they are not the most important person in the world, they should see that there are other people who must be taken into consideration. I do not know how they missed this message or why it is so hard for them to understand. It is practically the only message I have ever understood. It is the message Reeducation did not believe I had heard well enough. I understand it so well that I barely exist to myself many days. I cannot afford to hear it again.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Idea thieves! Like pickpockets, they stroll by you whistling innocently, and in a second remove what is yours and the sense of what is yours.
You are learning to check with trustworthy third parties after you’ve been messed with; you can be proud of learning.
Ay, gracias Kathmandu. The thing is that I’ve been knowing (or so I claim). However: this whole blog is about having checked with a non trustworthy third party and not realized it until it was too late. So c’est vrai. *Actually* trustworthy third parties. So it’s not a complete waste (I often feel I am repeating things so many times, I wonder if I will ever learn in practice what in theory I once knew).
My experience (with learning to handle situations difficult for me) was that it took learning the theory, and then analyzing situations in fiction to see how the theory might apply, and then getting to the point where I could analyze situations in my own past, and then getting to where I could realize (after the encounter was over) what I should have done, and then becoming able to apply theory during an encounter. So it’s a many-stepped process. I’m saying you have reason to need so many iterations; there’s nothing wrong with you, it’s just that there is a large gap between knowing and having developed the reflexes to act at that instant.
Yes — well the friend I called said it was a question of retraining reflexes, which is true. What is so ironic and confusing to me is that I had just gotten that point, somewhat tenuously, but had gotten there, so went to Reeducation to refine my techniques. It was in Reeducation I was taught that these were wrong and the original ones were the ones I should “admit” I had, or that would be the “genuine” or the “feeling” ones to have.
So I have to get back to where I was in that pre Reeducation, therein lies the difficulty. It’s good to hear I’m making progress…
It sounds like the stage you’re at now is being able to recover within hours after an encounter.
Yes — it seems so — although for me the trick is to realize an encounter is that. I knew it in this case of my half sister but I don’t always. Gracias Kathmandu!
It seems that everyone else is trying to learn that they are not first. They are not the only person in the world, they are not the most important person in the world, they should see that there are other people who must be taken into consideration. I do not know how they missed this message or why it is so hard for them to understand. It is practically the only message I have ever understood.
This kind of nails it for me as to why I’ve always felt myself to be an alien, and why I’ve almost always been taken aback when I start to rely upon others in a situation only to find they do not think as I do. Actually when I have referred pejoratively to “Westerners”, it is precisely this difference I am intent upon pinpointing.
Yes – and what I don’t like about these addict types is that they are me first, even moreso. I actually need to learn to put myself more first, but part of why it is hard to do is that I don’t want to put myself first in the way people do in this culture.
Most useful sentence I heard about alcoholics yesterday — they are very self centered and they do not care who they bring down with them.
And I think it’s also why ppl don’t have the skills or tenacity to understand what is going on with another person. It’s like the other person is a whole conceptual world apart from the person that is “I”. There’s no basic humanity in common — just a sense of absolute difference.
Or the other person isn’t really a person to them but a screen onto which they project themselves.
I give people more benefit of the doubt than I should but somehow I would rather have that error than the only I exist error.
The other person becomes more a screen for projection if they are different in some way or have special skilz. You will have to forgive me as I have become deliberately out of touch with some of the mechanics of these ppl, so I forget sometimes that — yes, I did have to retrain my reflexes, and so on. Actually the initial remedial change was just a change of attitude. Due to the pain of the situation they’d put me in, I suddenly realised that I’d paid off my debts to superego and to society for a long time to come (due to what they had extracted from me in suffering). So I decided I was free and could do or say anything I wanted to.
Also, when I mentioned to you about “kindness”, I was already referring to that in the Japanese sense. I have become extremely emotionally out of touch with Western culture and many of the ways that it corrupts language. “Kindness” just means a kind of cool, detached consideration.
Considering things all up, I think that it is always a mistake to try to get help from ppl who have become imbued with the “me first” ideology — because you will always be speaking at cross purposes with them. The results of such interactions can be quite insidious is you are someone like me with a strong philosophical disposition.
For instance, you might say something to such a person like: “X did such and such to me, and it was very hurtful — moreso that nobody stopped to pay attention and give any help.”
Person of Western Culture Y replies: “Well who are you anyway, and why do you matter? What makes you think you are so important?”
Person Myself thinks: “[Geesh. This really is a totally nihilistic culture. I matter because I am human and am part of society — at least I thought I was. I guess I have just been disabused of that notion. I’m not part of society after all. I must therefore fend for myself without society’s assistance…. But! I guess if I don’t matter because I’m not part of society, then society doesn’t matter either, because nobody matters, inasmuch as there is no consistent principle of humanity to assure than anybody matters. Unbelievable!] ”
Person Myself says: “I don’t know. Please tell me why I matter?”
Person of Western Culture Y replies: “You don’t matter any more than anybody else.”
Person Myself thinks: [So brutality is the order of the day? Everybody else is dirt, as well? I really can’t believe this culture and society. It is really extraordinarily bad.]
Person Myself says: “Oh.”
Person of Western Culture Y replies: You are not special.
Person Myself thinks: [“How special does anyone need to be to avoid being the victim of extreme emotional abuse? Or do people of this culture really LIKE being abused so much that they consider it to be normal? Wow! These people are really very low. They want to institute masochism as the norm, with maybe one sadist on the top of the pile. How low!”]
Person Myself says: “I see.”
A line that has been useful to me: “You’re not being kind to him/her/them. You’re being mean to yourself.”
A line that has been useful to me: “You’re not being kind to him/her/them. You’re being mean to yourself.”
The thing is that it shouldn’t have to be a dichotomy!
In fact, if we went purely on biology and instinct, it would not be so.
We have mirror cells. When we are kind to another, so long as we are not “othering them” in the process, we ARE also being kind to ourselves.
“So I decided I was free and could do or say anything I wanted to.”
Well, I can *think* anything I want to at work — that is already a big thing, because I tend to internalize so much … and say anything I want to elsewhere or in writings.
Kind to other/mean to self, it is true though in the case of people who are trying to steal your soul and you are contemplating “kindly” letting them.
Meanwhile I have realized why I feel guilt around the Blackguard — it is because his situation upon arriving here and his reaction resembles mine enough, and reminds me well enough of what it was like to arrive, and how I was treated. It’s not that I think I owe him as much as it is what he brings up.
There’s more to say but I’m tired.