gaslighting

Reality has always been difficult to pin down.  That's not what our brains do, though.  We use whatever information we have and take our best guess.  It's a creative act, wherein we take the leap to some interpretation that we've made up in our heads.

We never have all the information.  Differences in perspective can change everything.  We presume arbitrary values to everything.  We ignore countless parts we don't understand, to focus on the parts we have more of a chance with.  Our brains have to work this way, just to survive.

It's a far cry from being right about anything.  I try so hard to be a good person, but I don't even know what's going on.  From what I can tell, neither does anyone else ..but, I could be wrong.  What does it even mean to be good? What's more important, honesty or compassion?  How proactive should we be about it?  How much of ourselves is reasonable to give?

If I'm being honest with myself, there's always room for the possibility that I'm getting it all wrong and actually a terrible person.  I'm always trying to figure it out and do better.  I try not to be too hard on others about it.  It's not easy, and I might be wrong about it all anyhow.

trust me

because I don't trust myself.  I don't trust anyone.. but I know trust is important, so please trust me.

What is it to trust someone?  Do I trust that everything a person says is entirely true and authentic?  That they're never wrong, never say shit they don't mean when they're angry?  This would be crazy.  Do I trust some deeper truth of who a person is, do I trust myself to discern it?

Why do we trust?  Why don't we?  The young are trusting, before they learn how badly we can be hurt.  We learn not to trust.  We learn that people can't be trusted.  We learn that we can't trust ourselves to even figure out who can be trusted.  We lose the capacity to form healthy connections at all.

When we can't handle it, we can learn that pain itself is worse than it is.  That to be hurt is some catastrophe, when it's just life.. but we have to trust that we can handle it.  We have to be able to take risks, without the fear that those risks might destroy us.  We need to be sure that we won't be so easily destroyed.

cultural identity

It's good that this has been a light semester, because life has been stressing me the hell out.  I'm just trying like hell to get back on track, before I fuck it all up.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone cares to read all this narcissistic drivel, and why.  Lately I've noticed no one does, but that really doesn't matter to me.  Other times though, I have to write yet another paper about myself for college.  This time, for Intercultural Communication, about the make-up of  my own cultural identity.

palabras

It can be interesting, to read a dialogue, noticing overall trends more than when we're in the moment, responding to each moment.  I'm not the most relaxed person and it shows even when I'm chatting.  Martial arts instructors are always telling me to relax, too.  It's similar in that I'm just trying really hard to get it right.

Most people are very imprecise.  We have this instinct to assume similarities, unless given reason to think otherwise.  So in being imprecise, we can think we're agreeing, when we're actually talking about totally different things.  Great strategy for getting along with each others, but how connected are we if we're not really paying attention to each other?  I suspect people misunderstand each other this way all the time.

I try really hard to understand and to be understood, and successful or not, it can be awkward.  I don't enjoy the sort of banter where we don't really care.  I can relax just fine, it's just that I'll be more non-verbal if I do.

This gets at something I really like about internet interactions.  In text we get to know each other's thoughts in such a way that allows more time to think and process, to remember. I think something can even be lost when we stop doing it.  We forget these deeper parts of the people closest to us.

What our senses tell us feels the most unimpeachable truth, but our minds interpret our senses through what we think we know, missing all that we don't.  One example was this time someone I was with was crying.  She kept saying that she didn't know why she was crying, she wasn't sad.  It was so difficult to wrap my brain around the idea that this person, showing obvious signs of anguish, was having a response to the shrooms she'd taken.  Her words didn't match what was right in front of me.  I believed my eyes instead of her words, and it wasn't until later, in retrospect, that it seemed stupidly obvious.

Of course this isn't everything.  It's a part of who we are, other parts come through more in person, and some will always be unknowable.