![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I thought I would add to the Power of Your Word post I made a few minutes ago.
There are two reasons I am not interested in the reason someone fails to fulfill on a commitment with me. The first is that it doesn't alter the real-life consequences of the missed commitment. That is, the logical consequences of not meeting one's obligations don't disappear because one had a good reason.
Second, and maybe more importantly, the reason will almost certainly not be the truth. The older we get, the more creative and believable the lies we tell. This, of course, subtracts from trustworthiness.
And the circle keeps on growing.
Love,
Lynn
There are two reasons I am not interested in the reason someone fails to fulfill on a commitment with me. The first is that it doesn't alter the real-life consequences of the missed commitment. That is, the logical consequences of not meeting one's obligations don't disappear because one had a good reason.
Second, and maybe more importantly, the reason will almost certainly not be the truth. The older we get, the more creative and believable the lies we tell. This, of course, subtracts from trustworthiness.
And the circle keeps on growing.
Love,
Lynn
no subject
Second, and maybe more importantly, the reason will almost certainly not be the truth. The older we get, the more creative and believable the lies we tell. This, of course, subtracts from trustworthiness."
i have a lot of problems with both your reasons. you are saying that someone who you theoretically love and trust is unable to meet a commitment or engagement and you are not interested in why because (a) the consequences to you are so important that they take precedence over anything else (b) they would probably be lying to you anyway? are you serious? i certainly would never want to live my life so uncharitably. i am more than willing to take responsibility for my own responses to any given situation and handle each incident on a case-by-case basis.
people who are fundamentally inconsistent are often struggling, whether circumstantially or internally. i definitely agree that being consistent and keeping one's word are vital parts of a relationship's foundation and that one should set boundaries and demand a degree of accountability. also necessary are transparency -- honesty about one's inability to follow through in certain circumstances -- and flexibility -- being able to accomodate a person's inconsistencies as they grow and change. transparency often only comes in the face of flexibility and loving acceptance of someone's stage in life. i would much rather encourage transparency in myself and my friends and loved ones and develop flexibility within myself than commit myself to a system of black-marking people in my life for their transgressions.
re: Excuses, reasons and other lies
to each zir own, but i couldn't differ more from you -- i think reasons matter a lot, and reasons examined and talked about are in my own life often the beginning of fixing problems. reasons don't excuse the real-life fallout in many cases, but i think trying to fix things without understanding the causes is more difficult for a lot of people. it's not really possible for me; if i don't understand why i do something i am very unlikely going to be able to find a good solution, but at best a bandaid. and i think bandaid solutions are dangerous. and i really dislike you equating reasons, excuses and lies. that's not particularly insightful IMO.
The older we get, the more creative and believable the lies we tell.
could you be more offensive? speak for yourself, will you already?! ghod, this gratuitous use of "we" bugs the shit out of me. _i_ have gotten vastly better at thinking beyond surface reasons as i've grown older, and _i_ am much less willing to tell white lies now.
Re: Excuses, reasons and other lies
Two parts, cause it is too long. part A
Another game is to have several people observe some carefully planned enactment. Have them all secretly describe what they saw in writing. They will have seen different things and few will be accurate.
So "we" as Homo Sapiens show a tendency to some ways of being that seems to transcend culture. From that we can create a model of how we get where we are in life. Nothing new here.
See part B
Part B
EVENT HAPPENS. Some observable facts. Soemthing that could be captured on film (Rodney King, anyone?)
DESCRIBE EVENT. Now, a few people will stick to the "facts" as they saw them. But most will embellish and add motivations and other meaning to the events.
TIME PASSES. The decription of the event become vague and changes a little here and a little there. But we (the species) believe our descriptions. To us, they ARE what happened.
If the event happened to us, our description of the event becomes our history. What we made it mean. And from that meaning we make decisions. We start doing this game really young. There is a major event somewhere around 5 +/- a year or two. Another at about 12 or 13 and a third at early 20s. Ages very a little by culture, but not much.
There are also a zillion other events.
In each case we create a story about the event. When are young, we tend to make it be about us. Kids often think they are personally responsible for every bad thing that happens in their lives. They are the reason parents divorce or die or what-ever. Then there is a bit of a shift for some kids. At 12, we are either busy blaming someone else for treating us badly or we are blaming ourselves for being treated badly. But world around, kids seem to be very mean to each other around this age. (Biology? I don't know -- and it isn't really important in this context.) The early 20s thing (might be quite a bit earlier in some cultures) is a leaving the nest trauma of some sort.
It's been awhile since I took that pysch class, but this is a generally accepted view of human development.
Now the human brain is a remarkable device. We use it to create safety around us. Some buried bit of brain functioning is checking out every bit of input looking for danger. A huge pattern matching applicaiton.
It has facts, it has stories about facts. It has stories made up by children about facts. It has some sort of animal understanding of preditor danger even if it doesn't know all the preditors.
And with each story comes a little less freedom to act. A little more worry about what people will think. A bit more concern about one thing or another.
At some point, if we live long enough, we stop giving a damn what people think. Then we act from the same interest in life that we had at 3. :)
In the meantime we learn our cultural values, add our individual bits that makes my life different from yours and so forth.
Now and then, someone breaks out of the mold. Yeah US! It might be some extraordinarily severe trauma, or some interesting genetic fluke or something. Who knows. Some people get to short circuit the fifty year thing.
I play the game of "possibilities" to short circuit my overly cautious pretection mechanism.
No one else has to play. My game isn't the True Way of Being. It works for me and the people around me who want to play the same game.
And it has given me a life I had only dipped my big toe into before. A really big life.
There are a 6 billion or ways to have a great life. None are better or worse than any others. And we all find the games that work for us. But we make them all up. We just don't notice or we have forgotten that we created the stories and meaning.
What did I make it mean when I was beat in public by my school teacher every day, or my mother each evening?
What did I want to believe about my brother and my sister that had me make up a story for each about things that never happened?
What did I make it mean when I moved from the city to the sticks at 12?
What did I make it mean that I was really slow to be sexual with someone. (after puberty. I had lots of sweeties until then)
What decisions did I make at the time and how did those decisions influence every major decision afterward?
A whole damn lot.
I think this model for how human beings work is very useful. It is, however, only a model. I can apply it to me like a tool, but I don't apply it to others like a fix or make correct. People have to figure out their own lives, make sense of their own patterns, cope with their own fears and phobias.
We each find our own way of making sense out of social reality, this is my current game.
Love,
psych 101 and why i don't enjoy it
no, "we" haven't. maybe you have. and not all of it is assigned story/meaning either; this is way too simplistic IMO.
and you go on and on like this. "we" this, and "we" that. don't you get it? *sigh*. stop speaking for me! i am part of "we" and i hardly ever act like you claim "we" all do. "we" all rarely do the same thing, no matter what you took away from your intro to psych course and your HAI workshops. those deal in statistics (at best), and statistics are meaningless on the level of the individual. and here, in your journal, you are dealing with individuals.
i can't have a decent conversation with somebody who claims to speak for me; it never seems to get past me saying "no, that's not how it is for me" and then you break out into another lecture; i feel you don't actually listen. i don't want your lectures. i am interested in how each individual person i know feels, but if your feeling is limited to yakking on about how we all have the motivations you find within yourself, then this is just not very satisfactory for me.
what is your problem with the pronoun "i"? you use it now and then, and that's when i find what you have to say interesting.
What decisions did I make at the time and how did those decisions influence every major decision afterward?
there. this is interesting. this sort of thing i'd love to talk about, share information about, dig into, think about, learn about.
And with each story comes a little less freedom to act. A little more worry about what people will think. A bit more concern about one thing or another.
this, on the other hand, makes me roll my eyes because it's not true for me at all. if you had just written it in the first person, then i'd find it interesting. i'd want to know more about it. i'd wonder how come we went such different paths; we might be able to learn something from the different approaches.
and what does any of what you said here have to do with your original point and my reply? could you please snap out of lecture mode? i have a freaking degree in psych, do you really think i need to hear this sort of stuff? i mean, of course this is your journal, and if you feel like lecturing, you can lecture 24/7. i am just saying that i don't find it interesting when you do it, and that if you'd like to have a conversation, this isn't what works for me.
sometimes i wonder whether this isn't a form of escape from discussing real issues right up front and personally. lecturing can easily create a barrier, can move the subject onto another level, away from the trenches. you were talking about how not living up to one's promises makes people untrustworthy, and when some people took issue with the way you expressed that -- did you retreat into lecturing because the questioning made you uncomfortable? do you feel criticized when people don't agree with the way you expressed an idea? i'd be interested in that.
i don't mean to rail on you. you're a good person in my book. but i would talk a lot more with you here if the lecture mode were rare. i love to hear you talk about your rocky horror show because then you talk about how you feel and what you're learning from that, and it sounds real, and personal, and never presumptuous.
Re: psych 101 and why i don't enjoy it
Also, and this has happened to me before when having philosophy conversations through a computer, there is no way interesting (to me) way to get passed a breakdown in communications. You hear a lecture when I am describing the model of humanity I am using right now. I know the map is not the territory. In face to face dialogue, others know I know. On the computer people don't know.
It bothers me that I can't find a way to talk about philosophy over the computer. It is a major part of my life, but it comes out like the Almighty Church of Lynn when I type it. Then I try to fix it and it gets worse. I think it is mostly because I am talking about theory out of context.
You don't see the applicability of this model to your life. Fine. It isn't required. It's just a model. It doesn't apply to parts of my life very well, either. As it was presented to me, I had a lot of trouble with it. I molded it to fit. It is not dogmatic law. I don't even believe it like it is the truth. It is just one of many models.
Another one I like is "human beings are a network of conversations." I am not schooled in that model, but what I know of it, I like. It provides access to practical understanding that allows growth.
no subject
Me: Last night my son called me from Georgia. I found myself getting up around 3 AM, just thinking about our conversation and "Again"...the change I see in him. It was nothing in particular in our conversation...but rather a noticing (on his half) of what I was and was not saying. This is not going to make sense probably...but I know that he knew when I was not being completely honest with myself in something I said. Now what I said had nothing to do with anything we were talking about...only something I was fooling myself about... and he wound up asking me, "Are you sure the reason you didn't go there was because your shoulder hurt...or because of having to face a particular thing that was going to happen there..." and I was taken back by that...as I just didn't think he would be really listening "Deeply" to me - but he was - and 50% of what he said was true. Ramble, ramble. Anyway... I have been saving and even though I won't have the money entirely for the Feb 1, 2 and 4 class... I am going to go ahead and put a deposit down for the next one after that. I am calling today to find out when it will be. (Landmark)
no subject