Thoughts of the day

[brigdh]

Mirrors fascinate me. I always watch myself in them; I can't even walk by a particularly shiny window without glancing at myself. It's not that I'm vain. I just can't get over the idea of what it means to "look like" something. I can't see what I look like to other people, I can never see what they see. I can only see what I look like to myself. I look in a mirror, and I see the scar that I got when I was ten on my right cheekbone, the glasses I bent when I slept on them in an airport in California, the shirt that I bought because it reminded me of Hisoka. All my own memories and associations and feelings, and there's no way to see through those to what other people see. Do I look young? Cute? Smart? Annoying? I can't know. I wish I could, just once. I want to know what other people see. I want to know what people I meet on the street assume about me. I want to know what my friends are reminded of whenever they look at me. But even if I could find someone who would tell me the truth instead of being polite, it wouldn't help, because they'd still only be seeing their own memories and associations and feelings, and every single person I'll ever meet has their own individual set. Everyone sees something different.

And if I obsess over this question, imagine how much more interesting it is to think about what kind of person I am.

A couple of years ago, a meme went around where you described everyone on your friend's list (or as many as them that you knew well enough, anyway) with the fictional characters that you identified with them. Someone who I considered to be one of the only true "best" friends I'd ever had described me as Tsuzuki. I don't remember the exact wording, but the idea was because I was nice enough to hurt and tended to keep people at a distance. And I was amazed. I must have read that little paragraph a hundred times, because I'd never heard anyone come so close to how I thought about myself.

I don't know if that's true anymore, though. I've noticed that I've picked up a habit recently of describing myself as a misanthrope. I've called someone a bitch to his face, and meant it, and would do it again in the same situation- actually, if I had to do it again, I'd probably call him a bitch two weeks sooner and do it more than once. Am I still a nice person? I think so, though perhaps you can't ever see yourself with any accuracy. But I'm not the kind of nice that hurts. Some people are, you know. Some people are so worried about doing the wrong thing, about hurting others, about making a mistake or being inconsiderate or looking mean that niceness becomes a compulsion.

My niceness, now, is a conscious choice, and one driven by cynicism more than anything else. People are rude and thoughtless so easily, and for such stupid reasons. Because they're tired, because they've had a bad day, because they're busy, as if that gives them the right to treat other human beings like trash. It's so petty that I can't stand it. So, yeah, I'm going to be nice, if my other choice is to feel like an idiot who can't even notice the people around her.

But what type of person does that make me? I have no idea. And have I changed so much in a year or two, or was I always like this, and I was just too busy hating myself for being incapable of making friends to notice that, for most of humanity, I don't really want to bother with anything beyond politeness. I don't know who I am. I don't know if it's possible to know who I am. I don't know if it even means anything to say "a type of person", or if the only things that matter in the long run are the consequences of the choices we make, and not what we think or feel.

I want to stay up all night with a bunch of people I love and have deep philosophical debates while we hang out at a Shi-Shah Lounge, but no one I know does that anymore.

Comments

[tasuseme.livejournal.com]

I think everyone feels this way. Or at least I do. I'm under the impression that everyone is selfish if they're honest with themselves, but it's what you do with that knowledge of yourself that makes you a good person. You don't have to be false to be good. I'm also under the impression that you never really know yourself completely, cos' you're always influenced by new things and you're always in-limbo between yourself today and yourself tomorrow... :D I'm waxing philosophical, though...

I just saw this post and felt the need to jump on it because it's so nice to see that someone else thinks about these things. And your way of writing makes it that much more powerful. Good luck with sorting out your feelings on this subject! When you figure it out, please let the rest of us know!! <3 I'd love to hear the tail-end of this thought train.

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

See, but I'm not. Yes, I do think that most people are assholes but when I'm nice to people I'm genuinely being nice for the sake of being nice, and I am one of those people who does get hurt because of it. I've tried being mean or not caring or just being angry but I get worn out if I have to keep it up too long. And I have a tendency to think that other people are the same way, which just leads to more hurting.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. The way I think of it, though, is that those are two different things. To be nice is to act decently towards others; to get hurt by it is to need others to act nice to you. You can do one without the other.

And I realize that it's easy to say that, but very, very hard, if not verging on impossible, to actually do.

But I'm sorry that you seem to get hurt no matter which way you go. That must suck.

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

Yeah well at least I don't do it with random strangers, just with people I know well and give a shit about. Otherwise, well, that would really suck.

[tasuseme.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean people were assholes, just that people are ultimately selfish. And not that it's a bad thing, either. You can be nice and selfish all at once. And I think people always get hurt when they open themselves to others, because we want them to treat us unselfishly. It's a risk you always take entrusting your feelings to someone else. But when you realize that everyone else is selfish too, it starts to make a little sense. Sometimes we just have to find a happy medium between the two, and that's by no means easy.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

and you're always in-limbo between yourself today and yourself tomorrow...

Oh, that's a neat thought. I was going to go off on another tangent about what it means to change, and if you can notice that you've changed, or if only other people could see it. Because you'd always feel the same to yourself, wouldn't you? But, heh, I figured I'd gone off on enough tangents already.

When you figure it out, please let the rest of us know!!
Ha, I doubt I will. These are just things I like to think about. But if you think about it, you should write a post, too. I want to see everyone's take on the idea.

[tasuseme.livejournal.com]

Oh, but I like philosophical tangents! :D

I'm somewhat of a taoist and also somewhat a mystic. I read alot of stuff on philosophy, religion, and what-not... so I usually end up thinking about this stuff on my way to sleep in the evenings. But if I come up with anything worth reading I'll be sure to post about it just for you. :3

[tasuseme.livejournal.com]

P.S. Would you mind if I linked this entry in my lj?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Sure! Anything I post in public is free to link to.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. I don't know a lot about taoism, I have to admit.

I totally know what you mean about thinking about it as you fall asleep, though! I always do that. Heh. That's also the time when a lot of my crazy AUs come from.

[solo.livejournal.com]

My niceness, now, is a conscious choice, and one driven by cynicism more than anything else. People are rude and thoughtless so easily, and for such stupid reasons. Because they're tired, because they've had a bad day, because they're busy, as if that gives them the right to treat other human beings like trash. It's so petty that I can't stand it. So, yeah, I'm going to be nice, if my other choice is to feel like an idiot who can't even notice the people around her.

But what type of person does that make me?

A mature adult?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ha. I suppose so.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

"Nice" is such a slippery word. But at first take, I'd say that hell yes, you're still a nice person, as evidenced by reasoned, conscious decision to treat other people decently as your default, and not to allow things like fatigue and pressure to push you away from that center. Only now you've added a certain amount of informed judgment as to when circumstances call for a departure from that default. That's something I'd say you should be getting from experience; it would be a bad sign if you'd always been unthinkingly rotten to people, but it would be a bad sign now if you still thought you needed to subordinate your own interests to everyone else's at every moment, no matter what the situation.

I'm suspicious of the whole idea of types of person, or at least, types of person you want to know well; in my own experience, the closer you get to the interesting ones, the stranger you realize they are, until in the end you can only conclude that everybody you like is an alien. (That's one of the things I love about good stories: they're these little glimpses of what it looks like inside other people's heads, no two ever alike.)

As for not liking everybody you meet, you're giving me flashbacks. I went through all of middle school and high school being warily courteous, and having friends whose company I didn't actually particularly enjoy, and assuming that social life was just like that. Then I got to college and met people I actually liked, and it was a revelation. It turned out that I hadn't liked any of my old friends, even a little. But without something to compare it to, who knew?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

"Nice" is such a slippery word.

It is. But I was thinking about the simple sort of categories people tend to think of others in- you know, "she's smart", "he's a jock", "she's the funny one"- and there's no doubt that the one I tend to get the most, and the one I've mostly thought of myself as, is "nice".

I'm not actually terribly worried that I somehow became an asshole and didn't notice. I'm more interested in the idea of what it means to be a person. Hmmm. It's like the difference between characters and real people, I suppose. It's easy to describe a character in a few simple words and predict what they'd do in situations we've never seen them, but can you do that for a real person, or are they too complicated to ever accurately predict? For instance, if you were daydreaming, and said to yourself, "If I was suddenly mugged, how would I react?" and made guesses at what you'd do based on how you think of yourself, would you be right? And if, a few minutes later, you were mugged, and you reacted the way you'd predicted, did you do that because it was an accurate interpretation of your personality, or simply because those are the actions you want to think of yourself as taking?

A question which probably has no answer, but I like to think about it.

But without something to compare it to, who knew?

Ha, yes. That's exactly it. I can remember thinking, "How did I never realize how much that sucked? Why did I bother?" But at the time, it seemed perfectly normal.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I don't know how well you can predict yourself (although as I write this, I suddenly recall that people in a position to know have told me that some people do it accurately, some don't, and they can't tell who's in which category ahead of time). But in my experience, you can often predict other people, if -- and this is the big if -- you're exposed to them for long enough, and in a big enough range of circumstances, so that you can accumulate enough information to build a good mental model. I'm thinking here of my fellow lawyers back when I was doing the high-intensity law firm thing. We were all under a lot of pressure all the time; we were all in the same place for what was probably an average of thirteen hours a day seven days a week; we were all dealing with pretty much the same set of personalities and stresses. And it took a while, but after some months, I could tell you, oh, Jonathan's going to do x when he hears that. Not only that, but I could usually tell you why, what the world looked like to Jonathan that x was going to set him off, and be right almost all the time.

Not everybody I worked with could do it, but I think we all had the materials available to us: all it really took was letting people tell you the stories they wanted to tell you, and complain about their problems, and really listening to what they said when they did it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

You're right. Heh, I've even done similiar things myself, but hadn't applied them to this situation. I don't know why, since obviously it's the perfect example, but they must have slipped my mind.

A few weeks ago, as part of that interview meme, a real life friend of mine asked another (also rl) friend, "You are in a crowded room at a party when someone announces that we should, "Kill all the fags!" This person is not talking to you, but everyone has clearly heard him. What do you do?" The next time I saw her, I mentioned that I thought it was an interesting question, and had been wondering what I'd have said if she'd asked me instead of the other girl.

"Oh, I know what you'd do," she said. "That's why I didn't ask."

And, as it turned out, we both predicted the same reaction not only for me, but for her. So, heh, people must be at least a little understandable.

[redshoeson.livejournal.com]

:P

^.~

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Gee, who could that possibly have been in reference to? *grins*

[kohakutenshi.livejournal.com]

I love mirrors. But for a different reason!

The cat in me just can't understand the concept of reflection, and also because they're just damn magical.

I used to write stories all the time, even when I was little, of a friend that would come through the mirror.

Sometimes I slowly place my hand against the glass, just to make sure it's solid. Though sometimes I'd love to escape through one.

So technically I'm not really staring at myself (though sometimes I do, but only because I have such a distorted perception of myself that I don't think it's me in the mirror and have a hard time believing it) I'm just playing with the shiny glass.

Ooh. I like shiny things. :)

[kohakutenshi.livejournal.com]

Also. I don't think anyone truly knows who they are. People are never just one thing. They're a collection of things. People are 'who they are' because of experiences and the things/people that surround them. There is no individual because everyone is tied together so tightly. You wouldn't be 'who you are' without the molding of someone else. And every artist leaves their own impression on their work, so everyone you've met has left at least a thumbprint on you. :)

Or maybe that's the cheese sandwhich talking. Either way, I think you're nice. I don't like being nice to everyone sometimes, because I'm a technicial person. I'm cold and unemotional at times because I don't like people.

But sometimes I do. Especially in merchandising situations. The person behind the counter and the customer down the aisle are great for small conversations. It's when you get passed that level of relationship that all the worries and problems arise and it's just best not to go there.

*hugs* I would say more (since I love philosophy, especially idealism) but I have to go to Church. O.o'

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

People are never just one thing. They're a collection of things.

Yeah, that's part of what I'm interested in. It's fascinating to me, to think that you might have all these different sides to yourself, which perhaps you're not even consciously aware of. It's like you sometimes hear of people who get trapped in horrible situations and manage to do something amazing, like lift a car, even if they've never been very strong. So, are they strong or not? If they were capable of doing it once, why shouldn't they be capable of doing it all the time, whenever they needed or wanted to?

So, if you have all these parts to yourself which even you don't know about, how do you think about yourself? How can you say, "I can't lift a car!" when maybe you can. Or, conversely, could you say, "Maybe I can lift a car and just have never had the chance!" when there's no way you could pick up several tons of metal- or however much a car weighs, I don't know.

Heh. I just could go on and on about the topic.

[kohakutenshi.livejournal.com]

Of course, with enough willpower, anyone can do just about anything. Especially in a tense situation.

It's kinda like...how I hate heights. But I hate stinging insects and spiders more. So when they come flying at me when I'm high on a ladder or step stool, suddenly the heights fear isn't there anymore. Tense situations force you to do things that you couldn't normally do, simply from the adrenline and the need to survive and protect. :)

That's not saying that any other time you couldn't, just that your body knows it has no need to move a car. Bodies are strange things.

But it's like I read in a book about ESP a few years back, and it just stuck with me:

"Everyone has the potential to do anything they put their mind to. Including psychic gifts. Everyone has at least a little bit that with proper training, can be grown."

So who's to say it's just with ESP? Anything can be taught and learned with enough willpower and training. Anything.

Some things are just harder. XD

And as you can see, I can ramble with the best of em. XD

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

When I was little, say from 6 to 10 or so, my friends and I were obsessed with the Bloody Mart game. The one where you stand in front of a mirror and try to get her to appear? There's a million different versions of it- either you have to do it at exactly midnight, or say her name 13 times while spinning around, or have three people holding hands chanting in unison, or do it in a completely dark room and switch the lights on just at the last word, etc, etc- and we tried them all. It never worked, but we'd make up stories of this one time when it had worked, and freak out each other with them.

[kohakutenshi.livejournal.com]

We did that once in Fifth Grade. Just when we finished chanting, the door came open and we all screamed.

It was one of the teachers asking us just what the heck we were doing in there with the lights off.

But it was funny, because we all thought it was Mary come to get us! XD

Once I saw a show on television about how you can dim the lights in a room with a mirror, and some people (normal people) can see the future through it.

But then I also saw that it's a gateway like Tarot cards and Oujia boards. So mirrors can be kinda scary, too. O.O

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee! That's a good Bloody Mary story. We never had anything interesting actually happen to us.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I just wrote about Bloody Mary on my LJ, in the comments to the "dim mak" entry.

Regarding the rest of your post, I used to think I was a total hypocrite for being nice to people who I didn't particularly care for or know. Then I decided that the world would be a better place if everyone was nice regardless, unless they had a really good reason not to be.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Heh. Synchronicity pops up in the weirdest of places.

And that's interesting; I'd never thought about it in those terms. I always thought of being impolite as just being mean instead of honest. But I think I sort of like your attitude, even if doesn't necessarily contribute to making the world a better place. *grins*

[katsue_fox]

A thought-provoking post!

For what it's worth, I think you're a very likeable and basically decent and considerate human being, and the most obvious change I've noticed in you is that you're showing more of the complex person that is yourself.

I wouldn't describe myself as nice. Personally, I think I'm an asshole who tries to behave decently. Partly I don't enjoy hurting other people and partly I don't enjoy feeling I've behaved like an asshole - unless I've behaved like an asshole towards someone who richly deserves it!

In my case, I'm the sort of person who *does* hurt, but it's not usually something I mind unless it gets totally out of hand, like feeling I have no right to update my journal and get comments from others when I've not been feeling up to replying to others' posts.

That's a useless, negative kind of hurt, but when hurting either helps me understand what someone else is going through or reminds me to be considerate towards others, then I'm fine with it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. Well, thank you!

In my case, I'm the sort of person who *does* hurt, but it's not usually something I mind unless it gets totally out of hand, like feeling I have no right to update my journal and get comments from others when I've not been feeling up to replying to others' posts.

You're right, of course. You shouldn't ever have to feel that way; there's no reason why you should stop yourself from posting. For one thing, it's more likely to cut you off from help than do anyone else any good. *grins*