Friday, July 21, 2006
self-phone(y)
To muse some more on self-deception... I think it's definitely a coping mechanism and, if under frequent enough review or self-scrutiny, necessary for esteem and protection from adverse psychic elements. But like all things that sour at the extreme, it can become critically negative when it impinges upon another's well-being (or challenges their own manners of delusion). Only when another is affected detrimentally, I believe it should be confronted. Or to prevent harm coming to the deluder. Sticky sticky sticky, as what gives me (bonded to my own formative deception) the ability or right to review another's? Perhaps this is where we begin to notice things in others that we don't like in ourselves and bulldoze them with criticism directed only at ourselves... "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, er..."
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self deception seems interesting in so far as what it might indicate about the mind. in order to deceive myself, a part of me must know the truth or full story. if part of me knows the truth then it's like part of me deceives another part of me...
i don't really think we have a right to review the degree to which others are deceiving themselves. such a review will always be clouded by the reviewer's experiences. i like that paul simon lyric: still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
and what's this taking responsibility for your emotions? do you blame other people for how you feel?
mmm, no. funnily, from what i understand of my conversation of a few nights ago, i was blamed for blaming the source of my emotion on others and thusly holding them responsible. which i abhor as a trait, and would in myself if i thought it completely true (but i hold much store in personal accountability, so i was shocked that i might be it's worst offender). it was a sophistic-ated stabbing, as 1) you can't completely not do it, it is common in everyone, and denying it seems only to solidify the accusation and 2) the comment itself is an act of blame.
Awhile ago I read something (I think it might have been in some sort of psychology paper) that the trick to arguing with someone is to phrase everything as an "I feel" statement..."I feel as though you are not putting me first." It's a trick because the statement cannot be refuted. If it is how you feel than it must be true regardless of the facts of the situation.
When I think about taking responsibility for your emotions and your feelings, what I think I mean is having a degree of self awareness that allows you to acknowledge that these feelings might be irrational. The difficulty comes when you know instinctively, rationally, logically, your actions are irrational and unreasonable, and yet you can't seem to change the pattern of behavior. And granted, I am a complete control freak as anyone who knows me can attest, but when I say taking responsibility for your emotions, I just mean not scapegoating them and using them as an excuse for acting irrationally, as I am wont to do.
Jeez Tom, hit a nerve why don't you ;-)
Since I'm getting comfortable targeting Lindz by now (all in good fun, of course...and given the link to her blog perhaps "targeting" isn't my best choice of words), might I say that the ";-)" at the end of Lindz's post on the topic of emotional responsibility is rather emotionally irresponsible of her. Especially in the context of uttering that dreaded interjection "Jeez". An otherwise well-intentioned sent to the dogs because of the gristle hanging off the end...
what i fail to see is how a wink created out of punctuation marks, a wink of confederacy, a symbol the receiver helps assemble and impregnate as much as the sender, can be possibly construed as emotionally irresponsible. are you saying, Rogering, that she has no right to seek emotional contact? not saying what you feel is the only way i can see emotional responsibility being undermined: you have to emote, that is one's of the few responsibilities we have to emotions, not WHAT you express, and i reckon lindz did it with sincerity (at the heart, does it matter what choice of language is used to deliver? do you condemn the kids that smoke behind the stripmalls as having less emotional validity, the ladies driving around in the graphite fumes their tennis rackets give off from the leather-clad backseats as being asunder from their hurt, the angry, raggedy panted homeless, as being trite, overcooked, UNORIGINAL, inferior?). sorry rogering, but for all i've agreed with your observations, you superimpose on this one. you immure your own accountability with your neo-TheRepublic-an allusions. a fin, it seems your attack here serves little save purpose masturbatory: here you tug only on your own gristle.
I decry a maturbatory wink and I end up with Jeez all over my hands. If you'd like a laundry list of serious masturbatory matierial I refer you to your blog. This is not an insult, and indeed it is why I engage: I do love masturbation of many kinds, and it's benefits are sexually, psychologically, and medically relevant (feel free now to jump down my gag-reflexless throat given my previously emoted anti-Freud statements). I'm going to assume that you honestly don't understand why I thought Lindz's "Jeez Tom..." was emotionally irresponsible. Is the passive regressive tone not obvious? I am not in a position to doubt that she was writing sincerely, but isn't that all the more troublesome if she's so afraid of implying that "using them as an excuse for acting irrationally" is refering to anyone but herself ("as I am wont to do"), that she must cover her behind with a Jeez and a wink. I do grant - since I am unaware of your combined emotional relationships - that it could've been a wink of solidarity, but it doesn't smell like it. Now that that's cleared up, I'll answer your two parenthasized questions from planet Zygone: No, no. And I'm not aware of "gristle" being used in any allusions put forth by Plato...or were you trying to go for a cheap shot at presupposed political views? Or perhaps at the East Van paper? Or The New Republic? I'm curious on this one.
ah yes, my fellatios response: these starched soldiers are mine; my pastey, papier-machettied, nocturnal slug-trails; my sperms of endearment litter this page. 's why i chose a black backdrop, it's easer to spot. i'd not for a moment pretend this page isn't a bodily function. it takes roughly the same amount of coffees and smokes in the morning, or wine and massage oils in the evening as any of life's great orga(n/sm)ic vices. and too, not once do i take your prepossessing statements as insults (i could imagine a fair amount of vitriol you've received elsewhere, on the pilgrammage to the consummate comment-poster you are today), i take them as selective opinions, judiciously left behind in measured, seemingly self-depracatory but forceful enough to create consternation in the voice of the correspondant, and give you that minute thrill, that bilious-stomach-twinging rictus, those tingley-arms, that gonad-tightening all time-devicing commentators get when 'challenged'. i get that too. in this case, i rejoin on behalf of lindz not because she doesn't like the dance, but because i want to. i think you've picked up on a tone she uses to write that you believe she doesn't know of herself. the same vein of inflection i sometimes render vain and arrogant when i write. she pushes the 'you', not to distance herself, but to suspend. her comment was largely conduit for what she read and wanted to share, school forces this tone on you (esp. lawschool, that's all about obfuscating personal agency), and since she peddles another's work, displays it as such. also, not to be patronizing as i'm sure well you know, but only to display: 'wont' is not some airy form of 'want' but of 'accustomed' or 'tending'. doubly efficacious considering her point was to show how 'traits' are attacked and not 'personality' by the 'i feel' mode of statemnet making.
the The Republic reference was apolitical, as far as that ever goes, and a rather peevish dig at you: it was supposed to slap you with the handle Philosopher King. i.e. assuming you can criticize without receiving any in turn.
thanks for clearing up why you think lindz discredited herself.
As much as I've thoroughly enjoyed this pissing match between the two of you, I feel it's high time for me to interject with some clarifications of my own.
First of all, I will admit completely to being in the midst of the best fucking affair of my life, thus my brains are a little addled, and I'm feeling rather immune to attacks on my character. Rogering, if you choose to do so, you can add your interpretations of THAT to your basket of Lindz's characteristics, right along side independence and great shoes!
I digress...I will agree with Rogering, that I am inclined to end my comments with a pathetic attempt at a joke, or another sort of deflection. And I will also admit to doing that for a number of reasons, but most often, as Tom put it, to imply confederacy, to try and convey something of my cheeky self over a medium that I have never thought conveyed sarcasm in a very effective manner. My manner of communication, as Tom seems to get in a way that makes me feel naked in a disarming sort of way, in my own mind at least, does not translate well in written form...something is missing.
However, I also acknowledge doing the same thing because I am uncomfortable with vulnerability - thus, my confession about my issues with control - the wink feels like a coat: keeps me warm and gives me wiggle room. Perhaps that makes me cagey...leaving a back door, never backing myself into a corner. Perhaps, if that's what Rogering Me meant by emotional irresponsibility, he has successfully undressed me as well.
I feel like I've been shagged raggedly at the end of a tree branch hanging over a waterfall and no one even told me about it. My attempted blogophile sociorapes of Lindz have been replied to with an inspired e-undressing. Unfortunately this happened back in July, and I've even posted rather blandly since then. This is like that 18yr old who everyone thought was still a virgin but really has had his nose up a stripper's crotch for the last three years, and not that he was really cooler than everyone else, he really thought that that's what everyone did. Tom, I hold you responsible. Lindz, I'll see you in hell (the temptress in distress section, if it's not overflowed with varminty independent naked trash wearing nothing but the most expensive shoes and handbags).
oh no! i thought you knew.
well, graceful rejoinder in any case..
please don't write blandly, i like your bandying words, especially the defamatory stuff (making fun of lindsey is one of my most treasurable pastimes. i guess this whole debacle was akin to me walking in and seeing you playing with my favourite Tonka toy), also it was the only way i could begin to get my noggin working this summer...
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