Undefending the Defended

Sunday 4 August 2013

Postscript pre-post:  Eek!  I have just come back and read this again today and hmm, I am being awfully judgmental, aren't I?  Along with swearing a lot.  I must say, I wrote this in response to somebody who really presses my buttons.  And it's obvious that I have some stuff to deal with, and that I can be mean.  I was tempted to delete this.  But I'm not going to.  I struggle enough with owning my stuff sometimes.  To delete something that comes from that ugly space just in case you don't love me anymore after reading it?  - no, not the way I'm trying to play it.

But I do understand if you think I'm a cow here.  I think so, too.  The real question is why does that person push my buttons so (inferiority) and what can I do about it? (lots of things - the quest to let go of things that no longer serve continues).


~ ~ ~
It works well enough that many of us keep coming back to it, boosting our flagging self-esteem by noting behaviour or reading things others write that confirm how fucking awesome our own views are, and how totally *stupid* or *illogical* or *weak* or *childish* or [insert whatever your pet abhorrence is here] theirs are.

It makes you feel better in the same way that eating a couple of Tim Tams for lunch will keep the hunger at bay.  It gives you a sugar boost to keep reminding yourself how ridiculous other people are, how much bullshit they surround themselves with.  In comparison to you, of course.  You are proud of how little you are taken in, of your ability to stand back and accept nothing of what sucks other people in and makes them look weak.  Because you're strong, and nobody will ever make YOU look like a fool.

Etc.  Etc.  Etc.  Blah blah blah.

But you still, in the end, hate yourself and your small life just as much as you did before.  But hating everybody else is a comfort, and is much easier than the hard work required to ownyourownshit.

Whereas there's other people out there who have sorted out some of their shit.  Those people breathe a sort of freedom out ahead of them, and it wafts in behind them.  Whenever I come across them they both make me feel more comfortable, while making the bits of me I like least - my fearfulness, my defensiveness - dwindle, and bringing to the forefront those things that I love the most - my creativity, my openness, my willingness to learn.  They've dealt with a lot of the things that have made them smaller, angrier, more fearful.  They've dealt with some of their stuff, and so they inspire you that you can deal with yours too.  They are far more able to put themselves aside than the many who are so fragile in their beings living in this complex age that they have to puff themselves up like fish to get away from the feeling and the worry that they are in fact pieces of shit.  And in their defensiveness make themselves look smaller.  Whereas the others, who are able to make themselves smaller, appear bigger.

They're the people I admire, when I think of how much we need to change if we are going to stay alive on this planet.  They're the people who inspire me because they know better stories, and when I think of the breadth of humanity - its patheticness at one end, and its soaring beauty at the other, which we do not see anywhere near enough of and which we all possess - and remind myself of the sort of person I wish to be, it's those people I keep in mind. The ones who don't need to boost themselves up at others expense, because they don't need to boost themselves up at all.  That's real freedom. 


#yesihavemyperiod

Justine Musk has been talking recently about the same sort of thing from another angle here.



Pic by Andreas Trepte (creative commons share alike/attribution)

6 comments

  1. Oh my. For fear of writing a tome, I won't even begin to comment - it'll take over!

    Great post.
    I read it. I loved it.
    And... I hear ya - I'm usually like that just before my period ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha :) Thanks, you Ms Vicki.

      What shits me the most I think is that the people who most need to stop doing this feel justified. They see things that are evils in the world, and they think that sledgehammering their way in is what's going to change people. As if throwing bites of information at people is what changes them. That has never been what fucking changes people.

      I seem to still have my period. I feel a bit angry :)

      Delete
  2. Hey Sue, anger is a valid and just emotion - and you're channeling it the right way... by writing!

    So much good literature and music - hell, art in general - comes from a place of anger, fear, sadness. The originator gets the blood stirring and speaks to people on many levels.

    I love to read your views. They are honest and resonate with me and come from a good place - your conscience and strong sense of value and justice.
    Keep it up, it's all good. And, hopefully, cathartic for you too :)

    Hooray for hormones, I say! Without them, life would be dull indeed!!
    We're human, not robots.

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    Replies
    1. Eh, well, you know what I wish I'd stop doing? I wish I'd stop writing things online in my anger (which is fuelled by my insecurity) and then delete them. That doesn't feel like very good channelling.

      I agree that we'e human, not robots, but today I would like to be a robot, thank you :)

      Delete
  3. I've tentatively tip-toed back over here and noticed your post-script.

    I feel the same, often. I can get angry with the world and insecure about even things I shouldn't - so I'm told... firmly.
    But, I can't help who I am, and after fifty years, I doubt too much is going to change :)

    Only want to say that I hear you and, I accept x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Vicki. It's hard to not feel insecure, when we live in such an insecure world that pits us against each other. So thanks for making me feel a teensy bit safer :)

      Delete

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