Unhealthy Altruism

Once when I was 18 at Thanksgiving I was talking about how I always focused and thought about how I could try to always handle every situation in the best way possible. For example, if I had a conflict with my friend I would always think, what is the best, most responsible way to handle this situation and try to make every single action blameless. My sister also said, "Yeah that's what I do too!" or maybe it was the other way around.

Then my Dad said, "I think you are all crazy and need to just relax and not worry about stuff like that so much." Or something along those lines.

He was right.

I also now realize, that in conflicts, the most responsible thing to do is just say exactly how you feel, even if what you feel isn't the seemingly "best" and/or most justified thing to feel. (Another idea that is completely absurd to me, that we attach value judgments to emotions.) Part of being alive is to experience anger, frustration, jealousy, hatred, etc. There is no point in saying "I shouldn't be feeling this." Obviously you need to put constraints on your actions that you take when you feel those emotions lest you do something you regret, but, I feel that when you feel those emotions you should allow yourself to experience them and recognize why you feel them and take action to resolve it if necessary. If you seem to be overreacting to an insignificant situation though (which many people may say, "you shouldn't feel that way about this", it may indicate that there is something deeper going on that needs to be dealt with which is manifesting itself through the seemingly insignificant situation.

But it's foolish to say "it's bad to feel this" because those emotions aren't going to leave. Even if you try to control all of your feelings you will never eradicate the "bad" feelings because it's impossible. But I don't think there are "bad" feelings. There may be emotions which have a tendency to lead you to act rashly in ways you may later regret, but that doesn't mean those emotions are bad and should be avoided at all costs.

I don't know if this is making any sense.

Romance

When I was in high school I always remember feeling frustrated/confused at times when people would portray/communicate one thing to me about their current love interest and then I would see them interacting with said love interest and see them communicate something completely different to them.

I have two theories to explain this:

1. Human relationships can be incredibly complex and while one may feel frustration/hurt/anger/resentment towards their love interest (which gets emphasized when they communicate to a 3rd party) and also love/connection/whatever-the-hell-you-call-it towards their love interest (which they emphasize when communicate to them). Thus it seems inconsistent, but really they feel both things at the same time.

2. People are just full of shit. And just can't stand to let people know what they really feel because they feel some sort of responsibility to obey some sort of non-existent perceived social rules that says they can't. So they just bullshit their love interest to protect their feelings from reality so their love interest can just keep clinging to a false delusion instead of experiencing life, moving on, and continuing to experience more of life.

This also makes me wonder if sometimes we get frustrated at other people's seemingly inconsistent behavior because we don't understand what we've communicated to that person. Their behavior may seem inconsistent with what we think of them but it is actually consistent with what we've let that person think we think of them. But we don't realize it because we don't realize how poorly we've communicated our feelings to them.



Also note: I realize that I am guilty of the said behaviors above also and I'm not trying to say that I'm not. I hope no one feels like I am condemning them or passively aggressively attacking them on here. I am just saying what I think but I realize also at times, although I strive to, I may not always live up to my own principles and I don't want to pretend like I do. Anyways, the point is, don't feel like I'm saying, "I don't like how you do this" because I'm really saying "I don't like how we, collectively, do this". Myself included.

¡Viva la Revolución!

Alissa brought it to my attention today that I haven't written anything for 18 days. I have a few things I want to write about that will be here soon, but, until then, enjoy this.



Cats love roombas. Cats want to take over the world from humans. They're just using us for now because they haven't figured out how to overpower us yet. This looks cute but rest assured that what's going through all of their minds is the realization of how they can use this to mobilize in the revolution.

Dance Dance Evolution

Have there always been babies that have been this good at dancing and I've just never noticed? Or is the human race evolving such that babies getting better and better?

"I COULD care less"

I realize that the proper way to say this is "I couldn't care less" because you are saying that you don't care at all, and it's supposed to be one of those English mistakes that everyone makes; however, sometimes when I say "I could care less" I actually mean "I could care less".

If you are trying to say that you don't care at all, I agree, saying "I could care less" makes no sense. But, in some situations I have noticed myself say this and then realized that saying "I could care less" is exactly what I meant to say. The reason being is that usually I'm saying that I do care a little but I'm only doing you/it/them a favor by caring as much as I do. As in, "Look, I don't care at all about this, but I am giving it a little concern or thought because I know it's important to you. But remember, if anything of higher priority ever came along and made me choose between this or that I'd probably drop this in a second."

So I'm saying, I care a little bit for your sake, but if it ever came down to it, I COULD care less.

P.S. Provo

This is for everyone around the planet
That wishes they were from somewhere other than where they standin'
Don't take it for granted, instead take a look around
Quit complaining and build something on that ground
Plant something on that ground, dance and sleep on that ground
Get on your hands and knees and watch the ants walk around
That ground Make a family, make magic, make a mess
Take the stress, feel your motivation and build your nest

Atmosphere - Shh...

Oh, Provo

Lately I've been noticing how everyone, EVERYONE, coming from all spectrums of the social realm make derogatory Provo remarks. I think that there are more people who mock Provo stereotypes than there are actual existing instances of Provo stereotypes. I think the things we mock are increasingly becoming things that don't actually exist but we all talk about them like they do exist because we hear others talk about it and it seems like they could exist, but in reality, if we opened our eyes and went searching, we would find that there are very few actual instances of those behaviors. Or maybe not very few, but they definitely aren't a majority.