Intellect over emotion IS more human.
I've been riding the high of inspiration again after solving a thorny problem that's beset me. Whether Dan and I go together or me by myself, I didn't know what kind of vehicle configuration. Solving it with the idea of a garage on the back of the house is just exploding with possibilities. If we've got a 30' trailer then that would leave a 6' deck on the back, useful for more control parking the car, as well as being a deck! That made me realize I'd actually have more work space in the new home than I've had since moving to this tiny cottage. The space cleared by the car would allow me to sculpt, sew, invite friends for dinner, set up a hot tub, lay out a project, dance or just work on my vehicle. On a lovely evening with the door open and chairs out on the deck the house would just open right up spacious and airy. I'm so excited!
But a quick check of the local market shows that finding a trailer for a sum we can conjure is going to be the first miracle for sure. I'm still hoping when I list the koi pond that it'll sell well. I just know that people in Saskatchewan think money is precious to the last dime and they'll bargain for the sake of bargaining! It was a lot more fun on the buying end. I dunno, I guess it's just that I'm setting prices too low to feel like bargaining but dealing with people who think they're still insanely high.
I'm feeling stressed because it's about time I listed the thing and I don't want to deal with it at all. Not one bit till the sale is done and I can help them dig up the materials out back. You get too many phone calls from people who just wish they could have a koi pond and want to pretend briefly then complain that it's too expensive.
So I got up late and Dan was already gone to work. The sun was shining too SWEET! Nice morning, it really perked me up to be alone for a change. I used to love having mornings to myself so much I tried fucking around my schedule fifty different ways to get it. Unfortunately, no matter what schedule I adopted, Dan soon mirrored it so it was pointless.
I've been thinking so much about him. How he's just driven first by emotion, every time. Americans have been bathed in a cultural stew of "being human" wherein emotion is constantly trumped as more important than reason. I didn't get that stew so badly because instead of my formative years spent in front of the tv or movies, I was a book reader. The tv wasn't mine to control and forced me to put up with family irritations. The movies were out of my price range. So I read books. Books from long ago as well as recent. Both fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose, technical and story, sci fi and drama, and even a little mystery. Lots of fantasy too, but I think of that as scifi.
Anyway, I know for a fact that human culture hasn't always promoted emotional drama storms as a mark of humanity, let alone maturity. Rather, the idea that the reason should triumph over even the most cruel of emotions was promoted. Emotionality like that displayed by American heroes in pretty much all their media, was the province of villians and fools. It was usually the weakness that brought him down. I think Star Trek was the first media I consumed that promoted the idea of humans needing to be emotionally demonstrative to qualify as human. It set up spock, the scientific ideal, as dislikeable. He was the Autistic in the group and they bullied him mercilessly trying to mess up his hard earned cool. Just like Dan and other emotional barbarians do to me in my life. The stronger I gett, the more control I have over my feelings, the harder they peck at me to destroy it. When the result for me can last days of poor mental health. At least Spock knew he was needed. He had value and recognition as ship's first officer.
Modern american action inevitably presents the villians as cool and detached (in control of their emotiions) and the heroes finally defeat them emotionally, exhulting in the display of distress they caused in their enemy.
Frankly, that's not my idea of a utopia. I prefer the "age of reason" approach of triumphing in self control, emotional reign, and the ability to face up to pressure and distress without stopping the effort. I'd much rather find a community of folks like that and surround myself with that.
Either Dan grows up and gets on board or the ship sails without him. Either way, I'm quite sure I can build right up to the finishing stages without eliminating him from the plans. I'd really rather bring him along but he's got to step up.
I do worry he's actually got something, like alzheimers. I should research it, I guess. Nobody else will dx him and I need to decide how to address it. Do I join him for a ten year march through hell and then pray I've got the health and resources to do more than rot away in the nastiest neighborhood around? Do I take the selfish route and knowing what's going on, leave anyway? Frankly, the latter is really much more likely. He's not going to get labled by anyone until the day the police drag him intoo a psych ward for something radical. He just isn't able to co-operate and that's only going to get worse if he's got something. So for me, this is in fact the simple answer and I just need to know if I can live with the story should I do that. I do need to research the subject. I need to know exactly what I do before I choose. I dislike self-deception and never practice it. I don't actualy think I know how.
Ironically, the "dan voice" in my head says "yah, you're doing it right now." That's probably my biggest problem with this marriage, he's planted a liar in my head. A person who constantly tries to prove the rest of the world is lying because he does it so habitually it's harder to quit than to find justification to ignore it. When they then get to know a non-liar, I suppose they grow to hate them. So I need to stop talking to him, you see? Because he hates me for being spock and he's mccoy (why was it the doctor, though?)
He just throws it back onto me so hard at every turn, like how my mother did. Imagine a person walking into your room and taking a dump on the floor. You complain, as you would, and they kick it at you screaming that they just saw you do it and you're trying to make them look bad. Then the stress makes you shit your pants and you start to believe them. So they tell you you're delusional and constantly shitting. Repeat this enough times, you'll check into a looney bin. You don't need actual feces to do this. A dramatic display of emotion works great.
Dan starts with the cold shoulder and lots of volcanic rumblings and mumblings. As he builds over the course of a few days, it starts to include cracks of noise as he handles things more roughly. If I'm trying to be nice and cheer him up, it also includes a pretty constant barrage of rudeness. He fails to follow through on things he's promised to do, withdraws further into his monitor, and gets more sudden with his little whatevers.
Then either he blows over something stupid and scares everyone in the house over it. "where's my blah bla!" or whatever. Or maybe he cheers up and gets me talking about something, then takes the most ignorant, shallow, biased stance possible with a bully's smirk on his face till I am the one being dramatic in my effort to sound earnest and sincere and outraged all at once. Not talking to him has done a lovely job of bypassing that all week and i'm so much more relaxed because of it.
finding a balance where I talk to him enough to maintain household function yet shut him out the rest has been a challenge. I keep repeating "you don't have to teach anyone anything" to myself every time I find myself daydreaming out a conversation. I think at him "google it and you may not upset me anymore" when he tries to engage me in conversation. Then I grab my headphones and some source of inoffensive noise and ignore him. He quickly quits. If it's legit, I will respond, but little of what he asks ever needs an answer. He usually supplies it himself right after I don't. He's just kind of whack that way.
But a quick check of the local market shows that finding a trailer for a sum we can conjure is going to be the first miracle for sure. I'm still hoping when I list the koi pond that it'll sell well. I just know that people in Saskatchewan think money is precious to the last dime and they'll bargain for the sake of bargaining! It was a lot more fun on the buying end. I dunno, I guess it's just that I'm setting prices too low to feel like bargaining but dealing with people who think they're still insanely high.
I'm feeling stressed because it's about time I listed the thing and I don't want to deal with it at all. Not one bit till the sale is done and I can help them dig up the materials out back. You get too many phone calls from people who just wish they could have a koi pond and want to pretend briefly then complain that it's too expensive.
So I got up late and Dan was already gone to work. The sun was shining too SWEET! Nice morning, it really perked me up to be alone for a change. I used to love having mornings to myself so much I tried fucking around my schedule fifty different ways to get it. Unfortunately, no matter what schedule I adopted, Dan soon mirrored it so it was pointless.
I've been thinking so much about him. How he's just driven first by emotion, every time. Americans have been bathed in a cultural stew of "being human" wherein emotion is constantly trumped as more important than reason. I didn't get that stew so badly because instead of my formative years spent in front of the tv or movies, I was a book reader. The tv wasn't mine to control and forced me to put up with family irritations. The movies were out of my price range. So I read books. Books from long ago as well as recent. Both fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose, technical and story, sci fi and drama, and even a little mystery. Lots of fantasy too, but I think of that as scifi.
Anyway, I know for a fact that human culture hasn't always promoted emotional drama storms as a mark of humanity, let alone maturity. Rather, the idea that the reason should triumph over even the most cruel of emotions was promoted. Emotionality like that displayed by American heroes in pretty much all their media, was the province of villians and fools. It was usually the weakness that brought him down. I think Star Trek was the first media I consumed that promoted the idea of humans needing to be emotionally demonstrative to qualify as human. It set up spock, the scientific ideal, as dislikeable. He was the Autistic in the group and they bullied him mercilessly trying to mess up his hard earned cool. Just like Dan and other emotional barbarians do to me in my life. The stronger I gett, the more control I have over my feelings, the harder they peck at me to destroy it. When the result for me can last days of poor mental health. At least Spock knew he was needed. He had value and recognition as ship's first officer.
Modern american action inevitably presents the villians as cool and detached (in control of their emotiions) and the heroes finally defeat them emotionally, exhulting in the display of distress they caused in their enemy.
Frankly, that's not my idea of a utopia. I prefer the "age of reason" approach of triumphing in self control, emotional reign, and the ability to face up to pressure and distress without stopping the effort. I'd much rather find a community of folks like that and surround myself with that.
Either Dan grows up and gets on board or the ship sails without him. Either way, I'm quite sure I can build right up to the finishing stages without eliminating him from the plans. I'd really rather bring him along but he's got to step up.
I do worry he's actually got something, like alzheimers. I should research it, I guess. Nobody else will dx him and I need to decide how to address it. Do I join him for a ten year march through hell and then pray I've got the health and resources to do more than rot away in the nastiest neighborhood around? Do I take the selfish route and knowing what's going on, leave anyway? Frankly, the latter is really much more likely. He's not going to get labled by anyone until the day the police drag him intoo a psych ward for something radical. He just isn't able to co-operate and that's only going to get worse if he's got something. So for me, this is in fact the simple answer and I just need to know if I can live with the story should I do that. I do need to research the subject. I need to know exactly what I do before I choose. I dislike self-deception and never practice it. I don't actualy think I know how.
Ironically, the "dan voice" in my head says "yah, you're doing it right now." That's probably my biggest problem with this marriage, he's planted a liar in my head. A person who constantly tries to prove the rest of the world is lying because he does it so habitually it's harder to quit than to find justification to ignore it. When they then get to know a non-liar, I suppose they grow to hate them. So I need to stop talking to him, you see? Because he hates me for being spock and he's mccoy (why was it the doctor, though?)
He just throws it back onto me so hard at every turn, like how my mother did. Imagine a person walking into your room and taking a dump on the floor. You complain, as you would, and they kick it at you screaming that they just saw you do it and you're trying to make them look bad. Then the stress makes you shit your pants and you start to believe them. So they tell you you're delusional and constantly shitting. Repeat this enough times, you'll check into a looney bin. You don't need actual feces to do this. A dramatic display of emotion works great.
Dan starts with the cold shoulder and lots of volcanic rumblings and mumblings. As he builds over the course of a few days, it starts to include cracks of noise as he handles things more roughly. If I'm trying to be nice and cheer him up, it also includes a pretty constant barrage of rudeness. He fails to follow through on things he's promised to do, withdraws further into his monitor, and gets more sudden with his little whatevers.
Then either he blows over something stupid and scares everyone in the house over it. "where's my blah bla!" or whatever. Or maybe he cheers up and gets me talking about something, then takes the most ignorant, shallow, biased stance possible with a bully's smirk on his face till I am the one being dramatic in my effort to sound earnest and sincere and outraged all at once. Not talking to him has done a lovely job of bypassing that all week and i'm so much more relaxed because of it.
finding a balance where I talk to him enough to maintain household function yet shut him out the rest has been a challenge. I keep repeating "you don't have to teach anyone anything" to myself every time I find myself daydreaming out a conversation. I think at him "google it and you may not upset me anymore" when he tries to engage me in conversation. Then I grab my headphones and some source of inoffensive noise and ignore him. He quickly quits. If it's legit, I will respond, but little of what he asks ever needs an answer. He usually supplies it himself right after I don't. He's just kind of whack that way.