trying to catalogue my virtues
This is another one of those things you're supposed to do, but nobody wants you to actually do it. They always go on about making lists of your pros, but only in a career/resume fashion. When people are seeking love, they talk about it, but just to sit down and tell anyone what's great about you? No, don't do that. Just don't. They'll hate you. Every damn time.
So how do you do that? Well I don't use pen and paper, my hands never felt comfortable making tiny letters, my eyes no longer see well enough even with glasses, and it's a waste of paper and ink! This however is a lovely private place where it feels like someone will read it. And if there is one thing I always felt in life, it was unheard and misunderstood! I can't see any way to mend that in the world around me, but this little blog is a welcome answer to the problem. In fact I often recommend this, making a "secret" blog that you don't share with people you know, you just leave it out there open for strangers to read. It gives you an outlet, a sense of being heard, without the complications of betrayal and emotional hurt and whatever else someone might do about what you really think.
Ok before I go off on a favorite side track about how alone I am and how I feel about that, let's get to the main event, what's great about me? I'm just going to start riffing and listing.
I'm really smart. Even when I'm stupid I'm smarter than most of you. Not in a "haha I'm better" way, but a "why the hell won't you USE me?" way. But recently I learned that this smartness, which I can't hide even if I don't brag on it, makes people angry. It's because it's the one and only virtue that is genetic and they simply can't pretend they could be my intellectual equal if they only tried. Truth is, I don't think that's entirely true. I think many people are operating far below their potential and just never got taught techniques, or they are lazy brained, or they are failing to notice that their genius is very specific. My genius is pretty general and that makes me seem smarter yet. Truth is, I have places where I would qualify as intellectually disabled, like maths. To a crippling degree. So that's what I mean about how I think everyone's potentially just as smart. I suppose for some it's all kinesthetics and they do best with physical work, but could we please recognize that as a form of genius too? Because it is, but specialized in an area we traditionally don't celebrate as brain, but as brawn.
I do wonder why we put these absurd valuations on skillsets. We are like that as humans, we specialize. It's what makes us as a whole such a powerhouse animal. It's our diversity. And look how much diversity we bring to our domesticated animals too. Clearly we understand that control over entropy is best achieved through diversity!
Ok, another amazing thing about me is I'm a shaman. I can speak with animals, ghosts, Deity, and your heart. I can and have healed quite a few people of some really entrenched mental issues, just by being a friend. I don't get credit because they had all the mental labour to do, so they don't see how my perception and careful speech helped. That's ok too. I mean it'd be nice to get a card ten years on with "wind beneath my wings" crap on it but I get it, part of the process is usually learning to hate me in the end because I know them too well and that makes me scary.
Which brings me to the next point. I wanted to say I was a true friend then remembered all the many times I have complained to a third party about a friend's behaviour and that this is a form of gossip and betrayal. I think it minor and common but it does wipe out the statement of being a true friend. But I do think I'm a good friend. I make the effort (used to) to come when you call, to give when you need or I have more, to be there to talk to, to shut up and let you talk, to care how I'm affecting you with my talk and behaviour, and to pick up the phone and be the one initiating even when this gets really hard. If someone else is also doing these things with me, I try and match their generosity with my own. This is incredibly rare, though, I'm almost always the one picking up the phone. Well when I've had people who phone a lot, it's often been people who seem just a wee bit too controlling if you know what I mean. I think I come across too cold to be clingy/controlling, but really it depends on how I'm interpreted by the other person. I'm just trying to figure out the "correct" way to behave, not just reacting and being emotional.
I'm passionate. I know most folks see it and it's a negative, but I think this access to raw emotion with intellectual control is good for a person. I can really let it out without ever losing it. I might seem to have "lost it" by the amount of noise and distress I display, but I haven't given over control to those emotions. I think that my level of self control and my level of emotional expression are good things. I just wish other people understood, and frankly that they too could hold themselves together while enraged or weeping.
Self control. Yeah I have it. Iron fucking will. I decide I'm not moving no matter what and I do, even though some guy is punching my back with needles for 90 mins, or a dentist is taking too long to make a crown and the exposed tooth has no more freezing but he still has to drill it a bit. Or when I still make it to the toilet while screaming pain is sending me to another dimension from the cancer in my body. I can truthfully say I see, in every case in the past where I behaved in a manner I regretted (don't scare the dog) that it always had a moment of deciding to do so. A moment that could easily be influenced by a figure of authority, for instance. So that's how you get your self control. Be that figure of authority in your head.
I'm hard working. Oh yes I am! I can't DO a lot of hard work these days with my health, but I use up the last erg I've got and everyone who takes to know me soons understands that. Even if I can only sit, I'm more likely making something with my hands.
Thing is, so much time has passed, the initial impulse faded and now it just seems like a stupid list, not the deeper insight I was seeking before I got distracted fifty times during writing.
I think I wanted to mention my compassion and pacifism.
I think one of my talents is holding space, as they say now. The ability to sit and hear someone, and to address what they're talking about. Now it's a peculiar thing to say when I have often heard that I "just don't listen" and "talk too much." But I keep thinking to myself when I hear that "no, I'm listening, you just don't like what I'm hearing." or "but if I don't interrupt you I'll get bored waiting for something interesting to pop up."
Truth is, I hate socializing. I don't like standing around talking. Not about the minutiae of lives. But that's what people WANT to blah blah about. The talking points of life moments, the stories of the moments that made them have an emotion. Trying to see that emotion mirrored when they tell the story. And I just can't keep following because it's not like they're all natural story tellers. My brain just loses the thread while they do five side track explanations of who is related to the mailman that interrupted the main story line with a delivery. That I can't do.
So I wouldn't say I'm a good listener, I wish I was, that'd be useful, nope, but I hold space well. I'm good to talk to when you need someone to talk to. Or was. I'm not taking that job anymore. I'm sick and tired of never feeling like I can do the same back. it's work and I'm not getting any value from doing it. These are the people who don't show up to help me lift things. The people who are annoyed if I want to have a whine and cheese pity party. The people who get jealous if I buy something they can't have. Like fresh food.... My friend Tom makes an effort to step out of that headspace to be a friend, so we're friends. But oh he's bad for that jealousy crap. I don't even tell him the minutiae anymore for that reason. I won't get to share my joy because he'll just tell me how much it hurts that he can't do the same. I can't share my pain because he'll either go dead silent or top me, depending. That's not holding space. Holding space is paraphrasing back in an emotional context, without strong emotion, btw, no upstaging the main character on their own story. That's all it is. Being quiet unless you are demonstrating that you heard and understood them. Took me many years to learn that. other times, in fact, people prefer if you distract them, they don't want to talk about it. They may not be ready or they may be talked out. Then they need to be distracted and you need to be a gabber mouth. there is where my empathy/shaman thing comes in. That is something I can do!
I'm a pacifist. That comews with a whole lot of deep thought. That is more than a philosophy or a geas or a pretty idea. It's part of a deep thinking deep feeling level of person. I walk with one foot in the stars, my friends, I kid you not, and I know that pacifism is the harder path that gives us better knowlege and takes us to the valley of shambala. violence is the wide highway to the city of hell slums, poverty and more violence. It looks pretty shimmering on the plains ahead but the hidden valley from the narrow goat track will give you true joy and bliss. Pacifism is that path. I knew this at such a young age it's absurd. How does a toddler know that you must never use fighting to solve a problem? I would even try to argue back with adults over it! I just didn't have the vocabulary or experience to do so.
I see now why I don't do this. It either becomes a pointless run down of a few skill sets or an epic egotistic brag fest.
See, the next one I get to is humility. And now we've gone into "epically self deluded" point. Doesn't everyone think they're humble? But I think I don't have an ego. That's why I'm doing this list here in this private space, because I need to think well of myself! I feel so small and insignificant most days. I don't think it matters either that I feel irrelevant. But some part of my smart brain disagrees so I'm trying to boost myself.
But failing. I just feel even more scared that I'm none of these things, just a useless bad person trying to hide from how horrible I truly am.
So I guess this was a fail.
So how do you do that? Well I don't use pen and paper, my hands never felt comfortable making tiny letters, my eyes no longer see well enough even with glasses, and it's a waste of paper and ink! This however is a lovely private place where it feels like someone will read it. And if there is one thing I always felt in life, it was unheard and misunderstood! I can't see any way to mend that in the world around me, but this little blog is a welcome answer to the problem. In fact I often recommend this, making a "secret" blog that you don't share with people you know, you just leave it out there open for strangers to read. It gives you an outlet, a sense of being heard, without the complications of betrayal and emotional hurt and whatever else someone might do about what you really think.
Ok before I go off on a favorite side track about how alone I am and how I feel about that, let's get to the main event, what's great about me? I'm just going to start riffing and listing.
I'm really smart. Even when I'm stupid I'm smarter than most of you. Not in a "haha I'm better" way, but a "why the hell won't you USE me?" way. But recently I learned that this smartness, which I can't hide even if I don't brag on it, makes people angry. It's because it's the one and only virtue that is genetic and they simply can't pretend they could be my intellectual equal if they only tried. Truth is, I don't think that's entirely true. I think many people are operating far below their potential and just never got taught techniques, or they are lazy brained, or they are failing to notice that their genius is very specific. My genius is pretty general and that makes me seem smarter yet. Truth is, I have places where I would qualify as intellectually disabled, like maths. To a crippling degree. So that's what I mean about how I think everyone's potentially just as smart. I suppose for some it's all kinesthetics and they do best with physical work, but could we please recognize that as a form of genius too? Because it is, but specialized in an area we traditionally don't celebrate as brain, but as brawn.
I do wonder why we put these absurd valuations on skillsets. We are like that as humans, we specialize. It's what makes us as a whole such a powerhouse animal. It's our diversity. And look how much diversity we bring to our domesticated animals too. Clearly we understand that control over entropy is best achieved through diversity!
Ok, another amazing thing about me is I'm a shaman. I can speak with animals, ghosts, Deity, and your heart. I can and have healed quite a few people of some really entrenched mental issues, just by being a friend. I don't get credit because they had all the mental labour to do, so they don't see how my perception and careful speech helped. That's ok too. I mean it'd be nice to get a card ten years on with "wind beneath my wings" crap on it but I get it, part of the process is usually learning to hate me in the end because I know them too well and that makes me scary.
Which brings me to the next point. I wanted to say I was a true friend then remembered all the many times I have complained to a third party about a friend's behaviour and that this is a form of gossip and betrayal. I think it minor and common but it does wipe out the statement of being a true friend. But I do think I'm a good friend. I make the effort (used to) to come when you call, to give when you need or I have more, to be there to talk to, to shut up and let you talk, to care how I'm affecting you with my talk and behaviour, and to pick up the phone and be the one initiating even when this gets really hard. If someone else is also doing these things with me, I try and match their generosity with my own. This is incredibly rare, though, I'm almost always the one picking up the phone. Well when I've had people who phone a lot, it's often been people who seem just a wee bit too controlling if you know what I mean. I think I come across too cold to be clingy/controlling, but really it depends on how I'm interpreted by the other person. I'm just trying to figure out the "correct" way to behave, not just reacting and being emotional.
I'm passionate. I know most folks see it and it's a negative, but I think this access to raw emotion with intellectual control is good for a person. I can really let it out without ever losing it. I might seem to have "lost it" by the amount of noise and distress I display, but I haven't given over control to those emotions. I think that my level of self control and my level of emotional expression are good things. I just wish other people understood, and frankly that they too could hold themselves together while enraged or weeping.
Self control. Yeah I have it. Iron fucking will. I decide I'm not moving no matter what and I do, even though some guy is punching my back with needles for 90 mins, or a dentist is taking too long to make a crown and the exposed tooth has no more freezing but he still has to drill it a bit. Or when I still make it to the toilet while screaming pain is sending me to another dimension from the cancer in my body. I can truthfully say I see, in every case in the past where I behaved in a manner I regretted (don't scare the dog) that it always had a moment of deciding to do so. A moment that could easily be influenced by a figure of authority, for instance. So that's how you get your self control. Be that figure of authority in your head.
I'm hard working. Oh yes I am! I can't DO a lot of hard work these days with my health, but I use up the last erg I've got and everyone who takes to know me soons understands that. Even if I can only sit, I'm more likely making something with my hands.
Thing is, so much time has passed, the initial impulse faded and now it just seems like a stupid list, not the deeper insight I was seeking before I got distracted fifty times during writing.
I think I wanted to mention my compassion and pacifism.
I think one of my talents is holding space, as they say now. The ability to sit and hear someone, and to address what they're talking about. Now it's a peculiar thing to say when I have often heard that I "just don't listen" and "talk too much." But I keep thinking to myself when I hear that "no, I'm listening, you just don't like what I'm hearing." or "but if I don't interrupt you I'll get bored waiting for something interesting to pop up."
Truth is, I hate socializing. I don't like standing around talking. Not about the minutiae of lives. But that's what people WANT to blah blah about. The talking points of life moments, the stories of the moments that made them have an emotion. Trying to see that emotion mirrored when they tell the story. And I just can't keep following because it's not like they're all natural story tellers. My brain just loses the thread while they do five side track explanations of who is related to the mailman that interrupted the main story line with a delivery. That I can't do.
So I wouldn't say I'm a good listener, I wish I was, that'd be useful, nope, but I hold space well. I'm good to talk to when you need someone to talk to. Or was. I'm not taking that job anymore. I'm sick and tired of never feeling like I can do the same back. it's work and I'm not getting any value from doing it. These are the people who don't show up to help me lift things. The people who are annoyed if I want to have a whine and cheese pity party. The people who get jealous if I buy something they can't have. Like fresh food.... My friend Tom makes an effort to step out of that headspace to be a friend, so we're friends. But oh he's bad for that jealousy crap. I don't even tell him the minutiae anymore for that reason. I won't get to share my joy because he'll just tell me how much it hurts that he can't do the same. I can't share my pain because he'll either go dead silent or top me, depending. That's not holding space. Holding space is paraphrasing back in an emotional context, without strong emotion, btw, no upstaging the main character on their own story. That's all it is. Being quiet unless you are demonstrating that you heard and understood them. Took me many years to learn that. other times, in fact, people prefer if you distract them, they don't want to talk about it. They may not be ready or they may be talked out. Then they need to be distracted and you need to be a gabber mouth. there is where my empathy/shaman thing comes in. That is something I can do!
I'm a pacifist. That comews with a whole lot of deep thought. That is more than a philosophy or a geas or a pretty idea. It's part of a deep thinking deep feeling level of person. I walk with one foot in the stars, my friends, I kid you not, and I know that pacifism is the harder path that gives us better knowlege and takes us to the valley of shambala. violence is the wide highway to the city of hell slums, poverty and more violence. It looks pretty shimmering on the plains ahead but the hidden valley from the narrow goat track will give you true joy and bliss. Pacifism is that path. I knew this at such a young age it's absurd. How does a toddler know that you must never use fighting to solve a problem? I would even try to argue back with adults over it! I just didn't have the vocabulary or experience to do so.
I see now why I don't do this. It either becomes a pointless run down of a few skill sets or an epic egotistic brag fest.
See, the next one I get to is humility. And now we've gone into "epically self deluded" point. Doesn't everyone think they're humble? But I think I don't have an ego. That's why I'm doing this list here in this private space, because I need to think well of myself! I feel so small and insignificant most days. I don't think it matters either that I feel irrelevant. But some part of my smart brain disagrees so I'm trying to boost myself.
But failing. I just feel even more scared that I'm none of these things, just a useless bad person trying to hide from how horrible I truly am.
So I guess this was a fail.