glitch25

I've been percolating a new subject to write about that might get me a little more active here. This is good for the fact that I've trying to get folks over here and away from Big Blue.

The deal is that I've been contemplating the many ways that I process how to interact with other humans and how to be better at successful human relationships. And I mean that in the simplest terms.

One of the things I've dug out of my past is that I tucked away a lot of emotions and emotional awareness in efforts to protect myself, and in doing so, I lost a lot of faculty to build and maintain good human relationships. Most humans are widely emotional creatures, and not having a good handle on how to navigate that is a significant disadvantage. Learning how to revive those things has not been easy partly because I sometimes think I still lack some of the core emotional awareness to have a basis on which to "feel" things, and it means that navigating "tricky" emotional situations with people is less tricky for me, and more ... well.. frustrating, because i don't "feel" the same way, and it kinda puts me both at a distance and at a place where I can't have empathy nor do I understand what is appropriate.

Fortunately, having at least become aware of the fundamentals of the issue, progress towards the issue has sometimes come as a function of paying attention to how other more emotionally functional people choose to interact with others and using their example as a guide. Sometimes help has also come with people who have the patience to guide me directly, and as long as I can find some sense of logic in the process, I've been able to learn there too.

In practice, this comes as a methodical thought process where I choose to change how I approach a situation. I try to keep enough awareness of myself and a situation to choose compassionate and empathetic responses to people even when the overwhelming impulse is not to have an emotional response. It isn't so much that I don't want to be compassionate or empathetic. It's that most often, I don't understand the need for it. My need to have people be compassionate or empathetic with me is limited at best, and I have a hard time some days recognizing that there are those in the world that require it more than I seem to, and to keep that in mind as a part of my 24/7 interaction with other people.

In any case, progress comes by breaking habits and building new ones, and this has been the hardest part. The logic side always prevails over the growing but limited emotional side. Some days, the best I can seem to do is to mitigate the logical side on the fly with what seems like appropriate responses to the situation and hopefully get the point across that I'm interested and wanting to be better. Many days I fail completely. I take heart in the fact that it feels like a majority of people have trouble at least once in a while, and if I can keep the struggles outwardly minimal, it often seems to fall in the realm of "normal".

Not all of my emotional sense is deficient. I seem to have retained somethings. But the more I dig and the more I work through building a new foundation for myself, the more I realize what is missing. Some comfort to that comes from being able to piece together past interactions and situations that have always left me a little confused or feeling weird. Now I know at least part of why, and I am learning how to make similar situations better in future.

I want my ongoing writings on this to be about the daily things. I often find that each day either teaches me or reminds me of things I'm learning with regards to how to better human. And I want to share those things with you. I accept that as these things go, my privilege will play a role, and while I guess I don't mind comments about how my privilege makes my struggle lessor or different, I think what I most want to discuss is how we each might struggle on those things. It seems to me that most people struggle socially in some manner or another, and while there are those of us that struggle collectively on many factors, I imagine each of you have your particular weaknesses. Maybe we can at least support each other. Maybe we can remind ourselves that we aren't alone. Maybe we can learn to be better humans for our own sake as much as for each other's. And you bet I take we to include me. :-)

If nothing else, if you've found yourself having a strange or difficult interaction with me, you might take away knowledge of some of the moving parts behind the curtain. Then again, knowing how these things tend to go, you may not have even noticed or thought much of it. Whereas I probably not only remember, but feel bad for the awkwardness, and struggle to find ways to make it better. Either that, or I completely didn't notice and continue forth not knowing, which in some ways is worse. It's a "fun" place to be.

But considering this is a daily forefront topic in my mind, at the very least, it will offer lots to read!

More to come.

Today is another opportunity to be awesome. :-)

There are times when I allow myself to get wrapped up in things that can inevitably bring me down. Whether it's overdue housework, the fact that I'm a little behind on classwork. Money stuffs. Musical project progress. Musical practicing progress. Health issues. Other personal and shared situations. To say nothing of the world at large. Politics. etc etc etc.

There seem to be a lot more excuses to not be happy than there are to be happy.

But I think that is really a lie. It seems like it is a thing. A thing to not want to appear to be TOO happy. Shouldn't brag. Shouldn't talk up the happy part in my life. Might make someone feel bad. Someone with less, someone with greater problems, someone else might feel threatened or otherwise be upset with my happiness.

Why is that?

I actually have had one person in recent years become upset with my happiness. With the happiness of many of my friends. At least, that was what we were told.

Did I agree? Definitely not. But why? What about that person's allegations and assertions sat so outside of reality for me? Why did I think that this person was projecting their disappointment with their own life on us?

Are you happy? Do you tell me? If you do, or if I can see it, I am happy for you. It is a thing for ME. I like seeing happy people enjoying their bits of lives from as little as waking up one morning and not feeling like a zombie to hearing about grand planned-forever road-trips that happened. Little things, big things, and things in between. I appreciate and enjoy hearing about those.

I appreciate hearing about the not-so-good times too. I think for me it is a reminder that we are all human and that we all struggle.

I grew up in a very Us/Them environment. My parents both were subject to their own versions of racial/social bias and discrimination and it colored their view on things. Even though my sister and I grew up in a time and place where we did not face those same challenges, I know at least I had my experiences colored by my parents feelings and worries.

Over the years, I've worked to untangle a lot of that. I find it interesting that barring awareness, that it is really really easy to take the fear of being discriminated-against and turn it into its own flavor of discrimination. Add to that my introvertedness, and it is astoundingly easy to talk myself into a lot. Can't trust them. Can't take their word. Don't want to share. Shouldn't treat them well. Don't look them in the eye. Don't expect equity. Don't give. Don't love.

I'm happy to say that I realized early on that there was a problem with this. And though it was difficult to find support in it, I chipped away at some of it early, and more of it as I got older and found my own truths.

I think some of those voices will never really go away. I've learned to listen less, and to fight against them to be a better person. But not for the fact that I'm reminded how easy it would be to listen. Someday perhaps the fight will be less deliberate. I'm comforted by the fact that I often can sense when I'll hear from the voices and can cut them off at the proverbial pass. Helps some. Other times, I let them do their thing in my head and then step back and say to myself with greater expectation, "Are we done now?" Sometimes that helps too.

These things inside are things that threaten to bring me down too. And I think they are a lot harder than the external stuff to fight against. At least for me. Granted, the external stuff can make a hard situation worse. But the days when I'm at peace inside are days when I feel like I can do anything. And really, I can. As long as I have the wherewithal to know I'm on top, the rest is semantics.

No matter how fast the world turns or how messed up things get, I'm comforted by the fact that I have another opportunity to do better. It isn't license to allow myself to slack off. But it is motivation to keep moving forward. It is another opportunity to not do as well. But that is part of life. I can't fear failure. It is a part of the process of learning. And learning and growing are the only things that keep us whole.

So when I express that I'm happy and that things are going well, it is a sign that I am learning and growing and appreciating the direction of my life. It is an expression of love and of desire and of gratefulness. Sometimes it is a moment of exasperation at the fact that life sometimes will push me hard. And there as I set on the flat of my back, sometimes bruised and battered in the battle, looking back up at life, I can raise my finger up to it and say, "Fuck you! I'm coming back for you tomorrow!"