Goblin
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- Jan 21, 2014
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The quote is from a film about a different subject, but I feel that it applies to what I’m thinking (in a twisted, out-of-context kind of way).
Those of “us” who don’t naturally speak the social or emotional language do, in fact, have a right to live and everything that staying alive entails. We may be viewed as expendable or other, but that doesn't make us so. To survive, we have to fake what others do naturally or more easily in order to communicate ourselves and stay in the game.
Some of these things are benign; others not so much. A benign example is how I didn’t realize that I rarely smiled or laughed along when someone I was talking to was happy, enjoying a joke, etc, until it was time for college. The idea that there was something “off” about remaining stony-faced because I wasn’t personally experiencing something strong enough for it to be automatic just hadn’t occurred to me. Changing that was a matter of communicating intention in a way that others understand, and hasn’t been truly self-defeating or manipulative.
What if we take it beyond not becoming a target or communicating falsely, and aim for the top, though? Social dynamics, presentation, etc. Everything that will bite us in the ass for ignoring it, but that would require a lie that's about more than simply speaking the local language.
A friend was talking to me recently about displaying vulnerability and emotion to others in order to bond with them and foster closeness. This was after a group of mutual acquaintances grew suspicious and angry towards me because I shared so much less than they did, even though I talked to others about their problems (and thought I was sharing quite a bit, actually). If I were to do this, I still wouldn’t be normal. I wouldn't have become nicer. I wouldn't have become more considerate.
I would be performing an action that’s normally tender and uncontrived between friends simply because I don’t want to repel them, invite them to gang up on me, or give them the wrong impression through “being myself” and sticking to my natural personality and style of communication. Something benign is something that communicates what I'm trying to say in the first place in a way others understand, not a flat-out lie in order to achieve a specific result from others.
And look where benign-only gets me. Losing one of my few friends to the enjoyment of being part of a group (that happens to me incredibly hostile towards me). If I'd manipulated them into liking and accepting me regardless of my feelings towards them (I could have given useless or false shows of vulnerability, even, as long as they were believable), I could be there, too.
Despite the changes I’ve made to avoid being an ass, I’ve tried to not present a version of myself that doesn’t exist just to benefit from being more liked (well, from having a false me liked, anyway). I can’t imagine feeling good about presenting a persona that was created not just to survive, but to emotionally and socially exploit the world around me – but I think about it a lot lately.
I see numerous opportunities to benefit from false information, false displays, and other people's likes, dislikes, weaknesses, and desires. I may know nothing about more social topics than I can count on my two hands, but I can see that people advertise so much and so openly. Communication is pretty much firing off physical and verbal signals that make people think or feel certain things, and the only thing more vulnerable to exploitation than that is chatting up a hot girl online who's totally into you but never does voice or video call.
Problem is, how am I to be genuine and feel human warmth when my every interaction is the human version of the A B B Up Down A B B cheat codes on old video game consoles?
I could have so much more than I do now: the world I’ve never had access to because I was born me, and me means having learned most nonverbal communication, bonding differently, and being on a completely different wavelength. I wasn’t born this way for any particular reason – I didn’t commit a crime, murder someone, or steal from a gypsy – I just came into the world with these difficulties.
“Even though I'm no better than a beast, don't I have the right to live?”
I have a right to live. What about replacing what was taken from me before birth by exploiting the local language?
Those of “us” who don’t naturally speak the social or emotional language do, in fact, have a right to live and everything that staying alive entails. We may be viewed as expendable or other, but that doesn't make us so. To survive, we have to fake what others do naturally or more easily in order to communicate ourselves and stay in the game.
Some of these things are benign; others not so much. A benign example is how I didn’t realize that I rarely smiled or laughed along when someone I was talking to was happy, enjoying a joke, etc, until it was time for college. The idea that there was something “off” about remaining stony-faced because I wasn’t personally experiencing something strong enough for it to be automatic just hadn’t occurred to me. Changing that was a matter of communicating intention in a way that others understand, and hasn’t been truly self-defeating or manipulative.
What if we take it beyond not becoming a target or communicating falsely, and aim for the top, though? Social dynamics, presentation, etc. Everything that will bite us in the ass for ignoring it, but that would require a lie that's about more than simply speaking the local language.
A friend was talking to me recently about displaying vulnerability and emotion to others in order to bond with them and foster closeness. This was after a group of mutual acquaintances grew suspicious and angry towards me because I shared so much less than they did, even though I talked to others about their problems (and thought I was sharing quite a bit, actually). If I were to do this, I still wouldn’t be normal. I wouldn't have become nicer. I wouldn't have become more considerate.
I would be performing an action that’s normally tender and uncontrived between friends simply because I don’t want to repel them, invite them to gang up on me, or give them the wrong impression through “being myself” and sticking to my natural personality and style of communication. Something benign is something that communicates what I'm trying to say in the first place in a way others understand, not a flat-out lie in order to achieve a specific result from others.
And look where benign-only gets me. Losing one of my few friends to the enjoyment of being part of a group (that happens to me incredibly hostile towards me). If I'd manipulated them into liking and accepting me regardless of my feelings towards them (I could have given useless or false shows of vulnerability, even, as long as they were believable), I could be there, too.
Despite the changes I’ve made to avoid being an ass, I’ve tried to not present a version of myself that doesn’t exist just to benefit from being more liked (well, from having a false me liked, anyway). I can’t imagine feeling good about presenting a persona that was created not just to survive, but to emotionally and socially exploit the world around me – but I think about it a lot lately.
I see numerous opportunities to benefit from false information, false displays, and other people's likes, dislikes, weaknesses, and desires. I may know nothing about more social topics than I can count on my two hands, but I can see that people advertise so much and so openly. Communication is pretty much firing off physical and verbal signals that make people think or feel certain things, and the only thing more vulnerable to exploitation than that is chatting up a hot girl online who's totally into you but never does voice or video call.
Problem is, how am I to be genuine and feel human warmth when my every interaction is the human version of the A B B Up Down A B B cheat codes on old video game consoles?
I could have so much more than I do now: the world I’ve never had access to because I was born me, and me means having learned most nonverbal communication, bonding differently, and being on a completely different wavelength. I wasn’t born this way for any particular reason – I didn’t commit a crime, murder someone, or steal from a gypsy – I just came into the world with these difficulties.
“Even though I'm no better than a beast, don't I have the right to live?”
I have a right to live. What about replacing what was taken from me before birth by exploiting the local language?
