« Video Games | HomePage | Stupid Stupid Stupid Scientists (an objective assessment of what they can teach us about raising kids) »
07/18/2007
saving the world
I’ve given up trying to help people and I’ve given up trying to save the world, instead I’m just going to do my own thing and hopefully a few people will be interested. I’ve learned that people don’t want to be helped. And I’ve learned that the world doesn’t want to be saved.
I’ve also learned that maybe trying to help everyone else is a substitute for something else. And I’ve learned that that it’s a good way to disconnect from people, to turn them off. I guess I was lucky to start doing a radio show, that way I could talk about the issues the concerned me and the people who wanted to listen could do so and the people who didn’t could just switch off and everyone was happy. (I say everyone but there was this one guy who kept ringing up and demanding that I play music instead of interviews…).
I don’t know if I ever converted anyone like I intended to. I know I changed a few minds about a few issues but whether anyone had a wholesale mind shift like I did the day a guy in Canada handed me a Noam Chomsky book, I don’t know. It’s what my ego wants of course.
Lately I’ve concluded that rather than trying to change a lot of the world a little bit I could change a little bit of the world a lot. More specifically I could change the world of my friends and family a whole lot by changing myself. (Easily done by shutting up and listening).
You might think that if I’d figured that out I’d be doing well but somehow it doesn’t feel that way. Like my radio show the readers of this blog can turn me off whenever they want but if you were to experience my views in person you’d be in for quite a different experience. It doesn’t help that my father (and main role model throughout childhood) was a school principal and prefers to address people rather than talk to them, or that I am quite excited by some of the issues I wish to discuss but really no one deserves a badgering about an unknown issue like I can do. These days I tend to swing the other way and say nothing at all and am then quite nervous when I do speak up which is hardly any better.
Karen is much better about this, she doesn’t try to tell her friends anything but when they are having a serious conversation and one of them admits that they don’t feel like being so hard on their kids, or so rigid with their baby schedule she is able to encourage them to listen to their instincts. It’s much nicer and very effective to affirm someone else’s instinct like that – especially when they are in an environment that discourages the loving instinct just letting someone know they’re not alone is a powerful thing.
This ties in to what I've been reading in The Different Drum. The chaotic second stage of the community building process outlined by Scott Peck is often characterised by people trying to force help on each other. Really it's an attempt to create community by eradicating the differences between people. Unfortunately true community doesn't arrive until people stop doing this and start to accept their differences. Outside of a community building workshop people can just walk away or be obstinate but just like a primitive villager has no where else to go people in Scott Peck's workshops have committed themselves to staying the distance so eventually they learn from it, empty themselves and move on into a true state of community. True community is also characterised by the fact the people become good at listening.
Scott Peck says we areunableto stay in commuity because our old habits of seperating ourslves from other people will come back in unguarded moments. I wonder how many generation it will take to lose that tendency.
It also ties in to some of the man stuff I wrote about a few posts back;
…I’d like to be engaged and really listen to people who talk to me but it seems to require such a lot of energy to do that – to be specific it seems to require a lot of emotional energy which I just don’t have.
Probably the emotional energy thing is a part of our problem. If we’re being honest though another part is that we shouldn’t have to bother with unimportant people when, as men, we have so many other important things to do…
I wonder how much space, time and ego-death I’ll need before I am ready to just listen to people.
10:50 Posted in Big Ideas | Permalink
Comments
"If we’re being honest though another part is that we shouldn’t have to bother with unimportant people when, as men, we have so many other important things to do…
I wonder how much space, time and ego-death I’ll need before I am ready to just listen to people."
I don't know how long it will take, but it's good to see that you're recognizing that. Most men go through their entire lives without realizing how they've been brainwashed by society.
When I read that part about not listening to unimportant people, I am reminded of how many times I've been dismissed by men, either at work or at home. And truth be told, a lot of the things men do is NOT important. Just because a person with a penis is doing something, doesn't make the something important.
There's a fella at work, who is really nice and is generally a good guy, but everytime there's a question about something, he will argue relentlessly. Not nastily, mind you. But he just seems so incredulous when I tell him things. It's rather annoying. If I say it, I must be mistaken, but if google backs me up, then he acquiesces. Why he just doesn't take my word for it...
Some of the (admittedly ridiculous) things we've "argued" about were:
Limeys...I said it was a term for the English, he thought it was the Germans
Subarachnoid space...He thought I was making the word up. He insisted that he studied anatomy and physiology and had NEVER heard of that term.
He didn't believe me when I said there was a leper colony on the island of Molokai in Hawaii. He used to live in Hawaii.
Then he claimed that lepresy (Hanson's disease) was caused by a virus. I told him it was a bacteria...mycobacterium leprae. He didn't believe me. He insisted it was a virus. The best part about this whole thing? I am a microbiologist.
So, yeah, it's rather annoying to be dismissed outright simply because I have ovaries. I'm not an idiot, I have important things to say and do, and frankly, I'm sick of constantly fighting to be taken seriously.
Posted by: Marcy | 07/19/2007
I remember I use to be treated a bit like that when I was younger but it doesn't happen anymore. Somewhere around 30 I started to look more mature and also started to act more like my father (all that modelling) and these problems went away. It's weird how it works, I must carry myself in a way that prevents a lot of shit from happening. I know my (younger) brother doesn't because he has to deal with the same sort of crap you are.
One thing I discovered on a day when I was very tired is that just going silent for a moment can tip the balance. When I was working for architecture firms I used to have to supervise builders on site (a bit of a joke really when I was 25 but anyway) and a couple of times I was asked if they could do something that was basically an attempt to cut corners. Because I was tired I took a long time to answer and in fact I never did answer because the guys were like
'OK OK we'll do it properly'. Somehow the silence left them stewing in their own foolishness.
I've no idea if this would work for a woman but I did notice that women working in the building industry basically had to be super-aggressive and frightening to keep this stuff at bay.
Of course! I Just realised after writing all that, what he's really arguing for - it's not whether Limey's really are German (!) but who's the dominant person in the room. The poor guy must feel terribly threatened by you Marcy.
btw didn't you used to have a blog somewhere?
Posted by: Aaron | 07/20/2007
"Of course! I Just realised after writing all that, what he's really arguing for - it's not whether Limey's really are German (!) but who's the dominant person in the room. The poor guy must feel terribly threatened by you Marcy."
What's funny is that we'll go out occasionally after work and have a beer. We bitch about work, talk about the meaning of life, his new baby, whatever. He's nice to work with, but he has that infuriating habit of just assuming that I'm full of shit when I tell him something.
I think you're right. It is a dominance thing. I think it also drives him nuts that I pay for his beer when we go out. :-) I do that b/c I don't have a car, and he will drive me home after work occasionally. I figure it's the least I can do.
"btw didn't you used to have a blog somewhere?"
Yeah, click on my name.
Posted by: Marcy | 07/20/2007
So that blogspot site with the Thai writing all over it isn't you then?
Posted by: Aaron | 07/20/2007
No. It *used* to be my blog address, but I had to move my blog to escape some crazy stalker dude.
Posted by: Marcy | 07/21/2007
Post a comment
Sorry Blogspirit insists on an email address before posting but doesn't seem to do anything with it. Try writing fake@fake.com if you want