Wednesday 11/27/24
People are almost always reliant on what is happening in front of them to be able to say anything. That is, they require that external stimuli, because they can't locate a topic within themselves or source one from their own thoughts.
This is why almost all relationships have to be relationships of geographical proximity in which people can go to the same spots together. Most relationships are really relationships of being activity partners. That's it. They go to things together. They do things together. They are in the same place together.
Otherwise, they are left to what they can come up with--looking inwards for material, rather than just commenting on what's in front of them--and they can't come up with anything. That's why you have so many texts that are nothing but pleasantries and exclamation points. "Good morning!!!"
There is such a willingness--and it baffles me, because it's so limiting--to place one's self in the broadest of categories. What then happens is one shapes one's behavior and thoughts and very self to fitting what they think of as the two, three, or four--it's not much more--basic rules--the qualifications--of that category.
You'll see this when someone says they're an introvert, and then starts speaking in the most general fashion about themselves, as if they are not different in any way from millions and millions of other people who fit into this group. They ascribe the broadest characteristics to themselves.
The person doesn't even know they are cutting away whatever individuality they had. This is their attitude, and people usually become their attitude. An attitude is like a self-fulfilling prophesy. I'm not saying that if one has the attitude that they'll be the best player in the NBA, then they're sure to get there. I don't mean an aspirational attitude. I mean in terms of who you are as you go about during the day.
You also see this with all of the fashionable terms right now. ADHD, neurodivergent. That kind of thing. I know--so many diagnoses. I feel like anything, just about, can be diagnosed if that's the goal, and I think it often is. Especially in matters that pertain to the mind than the body. Then look how people put these terms in their bios. They self-define via these terms. They are the things they wish to be thought of first, before anything else. Know me by this acronym.
It's so...un-person. Un-individual. Un-them. What should be them. But there is no them. There's hardly a them, I mean. There's a lump. And there's a lump. And there's a lump. And people lump themselves, if you follow me. They lump themselves into a lump--a group lump, a lump with whatever their first and last name is, which is often the only way to differentiate that lump.
I'll do these experiments with people. They will be very uninteresting people. That doesn't mean they are necessarily bad people. If I'm talking to them, over text, I see how long they'll go talking about themselves. You could be the most interesting person, with the most interesting life, and they wouldn't make so much as a single comment about any of that. They wouldn't have a question. They won't even break their pattern as a courtesy. A keeping up appearances thing.
You can get them to talk about themselves indefinitely, and it takes so little prompting on your part. They'll tell you things they've told you many times before. There will be no perspective. Each thing will be the biggest thing ever. If something happened to them--which they'll be distorting, because they're totally unreliable as narrators, or lying about--it will be treated like the very worst thing to ever happen in the history of humankind. It will be the simplest stuff.
They'll go for days. You could, if you stuck it out, get them to go for years. They would never come off the subject of themselves. If they asked you anything about yourself, it'd just be so they could say something else about themselves. They don't have the courage to talk about anything else either. They are so focused on themselves, it's like they've lost it everywhere else. They've fallen behind. They don't know what's what. The cost of milk, if you will. So they're not going to quote a price.
They're going to steer clear, and just go on and on and on about their boring, simple self. It's all they know, but they don't even know this--themselves--at all. They don't even know what they're doing, how this comes off. When they are not talking, they're waiting for their turn. They're focused on it being their turn next. They're not listening or looking to engage. They might throw in a perfunctory line, as if to say, "Right, now you're done, and I'm gonna go..."
I see these people with their empty lives that they bemoan, usually by blaming other things and other people. Or whatever it may be. Elected officials. Their ex. And it's like, "It's you. It's you. You, you, you. People like you. All of the people like you who can only be this way, who are this way. That's the problem."
But you can't say it. Imagine the rage? It's the rage of impotence. Because what are they going to do? Start working to be better? That's overwhelming. Where would you start? There is no quick fix. Are you expecting them to commit to a new life of doing so much differently?
Right. That's not going to happen. What they're wearing has to fit, so to speak. Has to be made to fit. To work, for lack of a better word.
Only, it doesn't work. Everyone goes along to get along, which often means that they devolve in the same ways, they find ways to be like each other. They rub off on each other. Then you have a whole society in which most people are like this.
Doesn't really make for anything good, does it? Doesn't make for happiness, does it? Doesn't make for fulfillment, does it? Doesn't make for connection, does it?
These are things that nearly everyone says they want, and which they're often going on about in their running commentary about themselves, and yet, they very ways in which they act, are themselves the methods that would be most effective in making sure a person never had any of these things. And they can't see that. Nor would they want to, I don't think.
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