It's been a while since my last post on here. Usually when I'm away this long it's because I have no thoughts in my head that seem worthy jumping from my mind to the page. There are a great many things that I think and feel throughout the day which I believe I should write... but they never stay with me long enough to make it to the blog at night when I have time. This time, however, I have plenty of things to discuss (though I guess I'm really discussing it with myself, aren't I?). Indeed, I've had things to discuss for a while, but I never seem to find the time, or if I have time, I never seem to have the inclination. Funny enough, whenever I have some mental problem I'm trying to sort, I don't like to write it down until I'm finished figuring it out... and, paradoxically, once I've got it figured out I see no point in writing it down. There must be some name for the type of insanity I must have.
Nevertheless, I am here now, and the thought that has been swimming in my head today is one of kindness. A friend thanked me for a postcard I sent, which, when re-read even a half-year later, still was uplifting. It made me very happy to get this news. Sending it was one of the rare purely unselfish things (if there really is such a thing as total unselfishness) I've done; something entirely for another's benefit.
Anyway, my point is, originally I hesitated to send it. I'm always suspicious of actions that follow emotions, so much so that normally when I feel emotionally compelled to do something, I don't do that thing, and I study it to understand why. Some part of me realizes the morbidity of such an action, like dissecting a bird to understand the magic of watching the bird fly; but another part of me feels it very necessary.
I have two fundamental reactions to any kindness done me by another person. The first is suspicion. I feel the person is buttering me up for something; doing something for me so that I feel compelled to do something for them, to return a favor. If there is one thing I hate above all, it is being manipulated (there's an entire blog entry right there, if I ever come back to this theme). My second gut reaction, when I realize it is done out of pure kindness, something done entirely for me to put a smile on my face, is guilt. Guilt for being suspicious of the person, and a guilty feeling that I am not worthy of the kindness.
Actually, it was quite a revelation to me that acts of kindness could be interpreted in other ways, and I didn't realize this until I did kind things for someone else. I think most of our emotional reactions are spontaneous as a child, and reinforced as we grow up. We find supporting evidence for however we feel, we remember that evidence, and we disregard and forget the counter-evidence.
The other ways I realized I should interpret kindness came slowly, and were things much more thought than felt at first. If the person does actually want me to do something, at least they care enough to do something for me. It can be seen as the person showing their kindness and affection for me beforehand, before they ask anything of me. (Naturally, it could still be manipulation hiding in kindness) If they didn't care, they would just ask and/or expect the favor . (which, a for a good friend, I would expect this more often, and without resentment) And if it is a pure act of kindness, then maybe I do deserve it. Not in an arrogant way, feeling I deserve all the best of everything, but the idea that I deserved the kindness enough that I can accept and enjoy it. There is such a huge difference between positive and negative thinking. And the positive thinking maybe wishful thinking, for certainly negative things happen, but if you remain thinking positive, then when something truly positive happens, it's wonderful and well worth the effort. On the other hand, if you think negatively always, you herald the doom of anything positive that might occur. I always believed optimists were fools who couldn't deal with the reality of the world, they had to create a fantasy world where everything was magically happy in order to live. I remember always believing they needed to learn that the world had teeth and needed to learn to face those teeth rather than closing their eyes, forcing a fake smile onto their faces, and acting as if everything was okay. I thought the idea of being an optimist was a drug they desperately needed, it was a distraction that prevented them from assessing the reality of their lives and prevented them from fixing whatever was wrong with them.
(I still think there are fake optimists; pessimists who put on an act in an attempt to convince themselves, and others, that if they think positively, or act like they think positively, they will fool the world into behaving like it's a better place for them. It's rather like watching a wolf in sheep's clothing trying to eat grass, or watching someone shove feathers in their ass and pretend to be a chicken.)
Thankfully, I have met people who are truly positive. These people are not ones who cannot deal with their reality, they are people who have come to grips with the reality of their lives; they grasp and embrace it. Before I realized there truly were positive people, when I thought they were all charlatans and actors, it didn't matter how many people told me to see the positive side of life, because to me it was a fake drug, an addictive dependency on falseness and lies. After I was able to sort the truly positive people from the fakers, I understood. I was around these people, and I felt that my presence was dirtying their purity (not that they were pure people in the sense of perfect, but they were people more pure, more human, than I was).
I watched what these few people did, I watched for falseness and trickery, and found none. At first I thought it was a fluke, unreal, that I had somehow missed something. It was genuine I found, and I was astounded. They say the eyes cannot see what the mind cannot comprehend, that believing is seeing; they are right. An example is the mind/eye game of two faces, or a vase. You have to think about seeing it first, then the image appears. Somehow, it's impossible to see both images at once.
http://www.marcofolio.net/images/stories/fun/imagedump/faces_everywhere/face_vase.gif
After thinking about this, I realized that this was how the brain worked, and therefore I needed to open myself to ideas I never before would have considered. To really judge the merit of something, I had to first imagine it possible. I didn't understand kindness until I was able, as an adult and not a child, to do a kindness to another with no expectation of repayment. (I think my mother always tried to teach me the value of kindness and kind acts, but somehow what I learned was that kindness had a value in a monetary sense. Do a good deed for another, and expect the deed to be repaid. Now, this is an interpretation of kindness I abhor. If you do something kind for another, you should expect nothing in return, otherwise you're not doing it for them, you're doing it for yourself, writing a check for some other kindness from them you expect to get back). Only then did positiveness, and true kindness, become real; it was as if a great burden had been lifted, as if I were Atlas and the weight of the world was removed from my shoulders. Truly feeling for the first time since I was a child that happiness was possible and real, not just a fake high achieved by denying the real world, was really indescribable.
Some other time I would like to get into the subject that the smarter a person is, the more depressed they seem to be. Stupid people are happy because they're too dumb to let doubt in; whereas intelligent people are looking for ways to live a better life and they let much more doubt in because they can hold more difference equations, information, in their minds, and are better able to sift through the dross to achieve a correct answer. Related to this, smart people necessarily let in more doubt; they have a better understanding of how much they don't know. It's my contention that this doubt tends to accumulate. Intelligent people who are happy are typified by simplicity in their lives. Again, I took the negative view of this, believing they were weak and couldn't deal with reality, and so abandoned everything their intelligence gave them, in favor of living a simple "stupid" life. Again, I was wrong. Intelligent people with simple lives have worked at simplifying their lives, they look to the deeper truth foolish people can't see and so order their lives according to that truth; they are not closing off part of their minds because they cant deal with it. They live by simple principles and are, for the most part, undistracted by the negatives and false surface information that plague others. This doesn't mean that they aren't susceptible to negative and false information; they are still able to believe something to be true, which is actually untrue. (More money, or less money, will make me happier, and so on with more or less of anything)
The point is, stupid people need to be told that they are stupid. Not to ridicule them, or make oneself feel better, but because they need to know they are stupid. A parent does not knowingly let a child believe an untruth, a lie; yet we in the present-day world are afraid to tell another that they are wrong, or rather, that they are wrong because they are foolish. Facts can be determined as yes or no, right or wrong, but to be foolish or stupid is a judgement call, and we don't accept opinion as valid. Stupid people are people with consistently wrong answers who believe themselves correct; they make bad life choices, big and/or small, that benefit no one, not even themselves. We don't tell them they are stupid, we let them try to figure things out on their own, but because they are stupid (or even if they are just temporarily being stupid) they don't realize that they are wrong, consistantly making bad decisions. We ignore their fuck-ups because we think we haven't the right to tell them otherwise. And to some extent, this is correct. We don't have the right to ridicule them, to put them down to make ourselves feel better; such is only spite and malevolence toward another. I'm describing the (relatively) objective form of stupidity; there's a difference between the two. We don't have the right to put other people down, but where or how do we not have the right to help others? If another is making a bad decision, stop them! Or at least try to. We confuse the two motivations for calling someone stupid, we think we haven't the right to correct another person, but if it's to help them and not to only make yourself feel better... how can we really forbid the right to help others? Naturally there is a judgement call here, and mistakes will be made, but there are so many situations in which a stupid person makes a poor decision and the results affect others. At this point we transition from, "Let them figure it out, it's not my place to say anything." to "How the hell did this stupid person get in the position to make these decisions!? Especially since most of their decisions are so bad!?" The answer is obvious, no one has told them they are stupid, they don't know! They've never had the chance to correct themselves. We must tell stupid people they are stupid!!! (I don't mean mentally handicapped, that's legitimate, and we don't give them important decisions that affect other's lives because their reasoning is "impaired." We don't let drunk people make important decisions either. What I mean is a person is behaving stupidly, that is the definition of stupid, from the same word-base as to be in a stupor).
Okay, I rambled a bit there, but I said that so that this makes more sense. We must tell special people that they are special. We need to give compliments where compliments are deserved, even if it's just a compliment or encouragement for a person being the person he or she is. It is our way of combating "stupid" in a positive way, by encouraging good. Every so often we stumble into people who are truly wonderful, they have more of the answers to the questions of life figured out than we do, or at least, they have other questions answered that you yourself could not answer. They must deal with the buildup of doubt, of negatives, just like everyone else does. These people have the potential to handle life's questions and answers better than most, they live life more fully. They deserve our compliments in the hope that they will continue to be special and not become discouraged. And maybe, just perhaps, they will be able to share some of their answers to life with us and so improve our lives. I have met some of these people, I owe them my improved life, such as it is, and I can never repay them. All I can do is tell these few people that they are special, they are doing something right, and they deserve my encouragement.
This is the kindness toward others I started with. Formerly, I was suspicious of kindness, and even now, when I do someone else a kindness, I have a great fear that they will view my kindness with suspiscion. It's an old habit, one that I am trying to change by learning from the wonderful people I have met, and one I'm trying to change by encouraging those very same people when I have the chance. Recieving the news of the postcard tells me I'm doing the right thing. So, when given the choice between kindness, and embarrassement or fear of doing a kindness, err always on the side of kindness. Do it. Anyone can complain about the world, but how many people actually try to improve it? I've determined to help the world by bolstering the people who make this world a better place. =)
Every so often
we stumble
into people
who are truly special;
it is they
who make this life
worth living.
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