i just busted LJ's comment box with this comment, so i'm posting it here instead because...well, i think i already just said the "because" part at the beginning of the sentence. CAFFEINE ROCKS!
"well first of all, i appreciate the compliments, but i should warn you against casting me as a soothsayer. i've spent a fair amount of my life trying to cultivate a mental attitude that's all about learning and less about validating, and i think maybe that makes me sort of smart about some things, but ultimately what works for me may not work for anyone else.
i guess what i wanted to say this time primarily is that i've found that learning about life so that you can control it just doesn't work. i think this is a general human consensus at least of a subconscious level because while you see a lot of "take control of your life" rhetoric in commercials and in culture, pretty much all major religions and belief systems (atheism, nihilism, etc. included) are all about submitting to something or relinquishing the illusion of control to something bigger than you. i think people realize that that's the truth; ultimately, if nothing else, we all die, and that alone is a pretty big strike against the idea that we control our destinies. but at the same time, especially in our culture there's the "grab the bull by the horns" sort of idea that convinces people that maybe, just maybe, if you become smart enough, handsome enough, rich enough, etc. you can control what happens to you and maybe even to other people. it's an attractive idea, but then one day you find yourself at somebody's funeral and you're sad (which of course you should be) but maybe you also feel a little cheated, like this wasn't supposed to happen because you were in control of your life. i dunno if that makes sense at all. sorry if it doesn't.
i'm not saying it works for everyone, but for me, at least, learning about how life "works" isn't about being able to control the outcomes, it's about being able to handle what those outcomes are without going crazy. i've been crazy and i didn't like it. i don't necessarily want to go back. and for me the best way to avoid that is to admit how small i am and appreciate the big things that happen to me regardless of that fact, whether they're bad big things or good big things. even bad big things contain the opportunity to learn something.
i guess i'm saying that being in control doesn't necessarily equate to wisdom, and the fact that you're even concerned about these sorts of things (which is more than i can say about a lot of people) speaks pretty highly of your own wisdom :)
i'm intrigued by your idea of "Relating to People 101", but I'm wondering if the reason such things aren't taught in a socially normalized way is also because there's really no clear-cut answers in that category, either. all those other things you mention (except perhaps maybe squid or vampires, or The Vampire Squid From Hell) have at least a culturally accepted "right" answer, and that's why we're taught about them in a culturally normalized way. relating to people one-on-one doesn't have that sort of support, and so it really is something that you have to feel your way through depending on who you are and who the person you're trying to relate to is. i think maybe giving people "answers" to those questions would turn everybody into robots.
i mean, we could definitely talk more about relationships in a non-institutionalized way, but we ARE a culture built on the myth of individualism, where everybody that "belongs" to you ultimately is just there to prove how successful and important your own life is. i don't know that there would be a lot of excitement in a massive effort to contradict that opinion. i mean, i agree with you, but i think we're in the minority as far as that goes.
also, i did grow up with a pretty straightforward, black-and-white idea of how at least romantic relationships were supposed to work. and it pretty thoroughly screwed up my first 2, and my third to a lesser degree. so i don't know if i want to go fishing in that pond again anytime soon anyway.
i enjoyed the ryan adams reference, by the way.
also, girls are hot. this is unfortunate because it makes you do stupid things. or not do anything because you are afraid of doing said stupid things. i'm not sure what the answer is to this. i'm not sure that anyone is qualified to teach other people what that answer is in a way that implies that the answer they're hearing is the answer that's right for them. pretty much everyone who is actually really, really smart is that way because they've done lots of really, really stupid things and learned by doing them. i think the folly of our cultural belief system is that it implies that you can get lucky and do everything right and somehow that puts you on top of the world. well, when your luck runs out and you don't know how to deal with it...
i think that applies to women, too. i mean in the sense of having relationships with them. you've got to make some mistakes in order to learn what's right for you. for some women, putting up with these mistakes of yours (and you putting up with theirs) will be acceptable because they (and/or you) are awesome and worth the trouble. sometimes it just won't be that way. but that's how you learn, methinks. it's difficult because in this particular arena, your fucking-up-while-learning is effecting someone else too, and not just you. but that's life. treating them as perfect, beautiful humans that it's your job to please and impress is actually just as bad as sexually objectifying them in a lot of ways. for you and for them. girls are people too. now that's something i wish someone had taught me when i was 14 :)
anyway, i hope i'm not coming off as preachy. when i talk about my personal thoughts for more than a paragraph, my rhetoric tends to get really declarative. i'm not trying to say i'm right, i'm just trying to say i'm right for me, right now, right here. beyond that i make no guarantees :) but maybe it'll at least give you some new angles to ponder.
holla."
Okay.
ReplyDeleteI don't want Relational 101 to be something that purports strict answers, either. It's like you say, no one told you at 14 that "girls are just people too". Exactly. That's not an answer, per se, but it would have been damn helpful to know. I'm not suggesting that this kind of learning can be institutionalized to any great degree, but what gets me is the attitude that somehow you're just supposed to "get" stuff like this. Well, ya... you did... it screwed up your life and someone else's life first, though.
I'm not shitting too many bricks that have "socially normal" on stamped on them, so you can know that my ass doesn't care to pass much of that sass. Social normalization is just a useful tool for getting along with people around you, but not necessarily any good at helping you become what you might ought to become. Education isn't about providing answers, it's about getting you in touch with the data, getting you to see whats' out there, and hopefully you'll learn a bit about how things work.
That's what gets me. Nobody is even really bothering to talk about *how* relating *works*. And that's a useful thing. If you can figure that out with a car, a guitar, or a girl, you'll interact with them better. People aren't into that. I can learn "what girls like", "what guys like", etc., but that's pretty meaningless over the long haul. And damn likely to get me in trouble. If I rely on "girls like flowers", my relationships with girls are going to suck, but I might not understand why. And it might take me a damn long time before I get it. And what happens along the way.
When I think about all the problems that you see society trying to deal with (AIDS, teen pregnancy, abuse, racism, apathy, etc.), I think about what's the base answer. And I think this is one of them. Teach people how things work. That way, when Janey is down because her family doesn't love her, she might have another idea in her head than "maybe johnny will love me if I sleep with him." Give people some clues. People aren't born knowing much. We value teaching them how to work math problems, but we don't value teaching them how to relate. And while their may not be Answers, there are answers. Every mathematician approaches their math problems differently, but they can do so effectively because they've learned something about how to think mathematically. It would make sense to offer that kind of opportunity in the places it matter most. Anyway... i'm going in circles now.
I'm not casting you as a soothsayer. I'm reflecting back to you what I see... someone who's learned something. I'm impressed because I don't see it alot, and when I do see it in people, it usually surprises me. So I like to comment on that. I've become consistently impressed at the various wisdoms of people. You find it in some interesting places, often not where you would expect to see it. This may just highlight how judgmental I can be and how much I lack real humility. But it's worth commenting on, whatever the reason.
I've begun to wonder why it is that I find myself seemingly on the low end of the learning curve. I admit that might be a really unobjective judgment of myself, but I feel that way. One thing I've wondered is how much my focus on trying to deal with one or two critical things in my life over the past five years or so has kept me from being able to see some of the broader things I might have otherwise been learning about.
That's the side of it that I put forth to try to make myself feel better. Honestly, it makes me feel pretty awful about myself to have to consider that maybe I've been, and keep, missing the boat.
I've never been someone who focuses too much on learning. At one time, I focues on listening. And gaining wisdom. And trying to understand as much as possible. See the base of the universe. I've spent a few years now just trying to survive. But never in my thinking have I been huge on "how does this world work and what does that mean for me?" Because I'm bright, and because it caused me some social trouble (or at least, that's what i blamed it on), I decided that learning was meaningless. It doesn't make you special. So I left it behind in a lot of ways. I still have that feeling with me. A kind of nausea toward learning. I've never really satisfied myself with the good side of learning and how it fits into life. That admittance alone makes me feel pretty lame, so I don't spend much time thinking about it. So I suppose that if I could come to terms with learning, I could probably do a lot of it. I certainly have the skill. I've just never really had the will, because I've never really seen the right drive, the right motivation.
As for women being hot, your statements are what I'm talking about. Did anyone ever say to you, "Ben, you should know that you're going to find yourself surprisingly attracted to girls and you may find that it makes you want to do some stupid things. Be advised, and when it happens, understand this is normal and can be dealt with." did anyone even open that conversation up to you? I mean, I think most guys commisserate about that to some degree, but where is the sense of, "this is a reality and it can and should be dealt with." And who is telling the girls similar things? Merely giving people a hatrack upon which to hang some of these unknowns would be helpful, so that everyone isn't left to their own devices on figuring out whether this is a problem, what kind of problem it might be, what might arise from it, what the fallout might be, situations in which this might be good or bad, blah, blah, blah.
I'm beginning to think that adults think that kids take about as much time to figure things out as adults do. Which just doesn't make any sense. How could anyone with that little experience possibly synthesis an understanding that was even remotely parallel to reality!?
No one can be taught everything, in fact, it wouldn't necessarily even be good. But we can do better.
Interestingly, this is one of the reasons I'm slowly becoming not-much-of-a-fan of TV. It gives you zero experience points. You think it does, but it doesn't. You think you've learned something, but because you haven't physically interacted with anything, except your eyeballs, you haven't gained any experience. And experiences help you to build a network of analogies. And analogies carry much more information in them than statements.
That's not a very thorough assessment, but there is something there.
Cheers,
mike
thanks for the feedback. i was going to jump on and respond, but i just saw a crazy-heavy movie and sort of want to ruminate about that a bit before i go to bed. rest assured, i will have more incisive commentary soon; perhaps from a hotel bed in salem, OR.
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