How long should it take? How many examples should be provided? Will a deep and methodical explanation ever lend itself to the problem being fixed?
With the vagaries aside we can start by pointing to the ironic heart by which nothing could exist otherwise. We think we’re saying something and are terrible communicators. Stop. Right now. Slow the fuck down to a stop and prevent yourself from taking every cliched road your head was going upon hearing that sentiment. It has nothing to do with all the answers you just gave yourself.
Increasingly, I think communication is about empathy. I don’t mean you have to cry as someone is crying or spiral along with someone else’s depression. I think we feel what people say. I think that happens because we’re too stupid and lazy to formulate our own thoughts and therefore find the capacity to understand someone else properly impossible. We take in words like a punch or a song. We pay lip service to pretending we know what they’re doing.
Empathy is a form of responsibility. To be able to not simply claim you understand how someone feels, but return to a time where you can feel it as well is a mindful skill. To then take that feeling and direct it into something constructive is practically an act of god. We’re not a species or culture that puts much stock in taking responsibility for our feelings. To then suggest or pretend that incapacity is going to translate into progress socially is more than a bit naive. Again, look who we elected.
I know I wasn’t born a woman because dealing with the amount of condescension I do already makes me flirt with prison in what I want to do in retaliation. It’s a condescension bred from emotional incapacity. A stagnant immaturity that prevents someone from seeing you as anything than they feel they can emotionally deal with (manipulate) at any one time. “Mom” will always be mom who you can scream at like my 40 year old uncle used to do to the sweetest woman who was my grandma. Wear the wrong uniform or costume and people will reflexively treat you like their deepest conception of your place in the social hierarchy. How quickly we seek to call someone a child and dismiss their feeble brain for suggesting something so “immature” and off-putting.
This inability to communicate uses very deliberate and EXCESSIVELY FUCKING FRUSTRATING language that permeates every menial level of life. It’s one thing to go around calling people names. It’s an entirely new and elevated level to say something like, “I’m absolutely willing to talk with you about things so we can work them out.” First, it suggests that all problems are fixable. Sometimes the customer isn’t right. Sometimes you don’t have the answers. Sometimes you should move on and not try to nitpick details in a situation you don’t understand. Second, it’s a lie. You don’t want to talk, you want to head off a potentially bigger emotional outburst you won’t be able to control. You want to avoid being blamed, but mostly you want to run from the idea that you have any culpability well in spite of your accommodating words. Finally, when the situation gets dire, you’ll say things like “I feel I’ve been receptive, I’ve tried to listen, had it not been for what you said or did perhaps things would have gone better.” These are the last gasps of a drowning man. These are bait they want you to chomp down on to give them license to throw the entirety of the whole of their inflamed existence in your face.
To some degree they don’t know any better. People are flatly ignorant of how often they’re not saying anything. They’re not helping. They’re not being thoughtful. They’re not the proverbial shoulder or emotional support. They’re either punching bag or boxer. The unicorn embodies that genuine exchange of emotion or ideas. And unicorns don’t exist unless you really really believe.
To a greater degree, they’re making poor choices. It takes effort to be accusatory. It takes deliberate persistent wrong thoughts to chase something around the room you wouldn’t know what to do with if you caught it. Your manager doesn’t bitch at you because they have to, they simply have to believe in themselves, which they don’t. Republicans know trickle-down economics don’t work and it’s sinful to deny people healthcare. Your emotionally abusive family or spouse knows hitting you or yelling doesn’t make them feel better. Keep choosing the lie, the linguistic house you’ve built to keep your excuses cozy, denial warm, and immorality immortal will have the deed passed to those you’ve emboldened indefinitely.
What compounds the problem with communication is that we’ve made it a brand of “wisdom” to consider these placating apologetic sentiments as actually true. “Well, he said he wanted to help didn’t he! Acknowledge and reciprocate or it’s your fault!” It’s like we’ve all gone through some kind of horrible training to engage with each other in platitudes that transcend the basic utility of informal courtesy. “Don’t use such hateful language!” “Can’t you hear the sincerity!?” No, I can’t, and I hate you. We’re not getting better acquainted by dancing around that. We’re certainly not breeding long term health or heading off problems. The longer you run from experiencing how much I hate you, it’s all just going to come to a head in a more dramatic way neither of us needs.
That’s the point of intrigue about which blogs do or don’t hit home. What are you feeling that you can finally see in what I’m trying to express? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? Or did you see your entire life burning up in front of you because the heart of my sentiment rang true in an impossibly frustrating and life altering way? How many beyond stupid conversations or obligations have you allowed to rob you of your time, not just killing you by their audacity, but in their disregard. That well of ignorance and pettiness that kicks you in and never lets you hit the ground.
I wish I was just tired. I wish it was as simple as, “Well, you’re’ just too rude!” I wish that consigning myself to “normalcy” for the time being didn’t mean the death of words, the death of self-respect, the death of decency and common sense, and the sublimation of the already meager spirit that keeps me bothering with each day. You may have already gotten used to it, but I refuse. Things made sense with my TV shows and books. Things make sense when I’m out digging on the land. I’ve genuinely thought to myself over the last few weeks that perhaps I’d do well to learn more “survivalist” techniques so I can live out there regardless of how long it takes me to build a proper structure. I need to pull out of whatever you’re calling this kind of life. It’s not worth it.
