Flawed Fate

You know, if I made these posts shorter, I'd probably feel less intimidated about updating.

Probably.

...

I begin with rationalization!

There are some times when you should probably set your problems aside and take ownership of your responsibilities. But there are also some times when you should take your thoughts and emotions and see to them. Thoughts and emotions will affect your responsibility, and if it doesn't, it'll probably affect something else. Mind, spirit, or body.

So this is what I'm going to do.



I've always seen myself as an introspective kind of guy. I think about myself and how other people see me. I've heard from a very young age that it doesn't matter how others see you, but how you see yourself is what really matters.

I see a problem with this. Assuming that you interact with people, people will look at you and have perceptions. Some of those perceptions are changeable, but a lot of those perceptions are not. Even if you were to break stereotypes and mess up others' schemas on a regular basis, it is to human's best interest to ignore those incongruencies.

If the thoughts of most people were so easily changed, society would not be as stable, because norms and social ideals would change from individual to individual. After a while, words and concepts would no longer hold the same or similar meanings for people even within the same culture. People couldn't figure out what to do or how to act or what to expect.

So people, on the whole, are unchangeable. If they are changeable, it would require a traumatic event or the change would come very slowly. The traumatic events would be rare enough so that society would remain generally unchanged, and personal change in beliefs and opinions would be slow enough that society itself would not become unpredictable. Although these might cause great change in one's life, it wouldn't affect society. That one would begin to interact with those whose ideas are like the new ones of the previously stated one. It probably happens when a person moves to a new place that allows for the exchange of ideas (college, certain religious arenas, coffee shops, dimly lit street corners, etc.) or a place where it would be horribly disadvantageous to not incorporate many of the culture's norms and ideals (i.e. Alabama.)

So.

If you accept that string of ideas, people interact with you based upon perceptions that cannot be easily changed, or in some case, cannot be changed at all. Those interactions affect you, positively, negatively, or neutrally.

And as long as you interact with those people, unchangeable factors that you cannot control in any real way affect your life with other people.

From dictionary.com, something that unavoidably befalls a person. The first defintion of fate.



And of course, human perception is flawed in many ways. Even if you could completely separate others from yourself, the perception of yourself is likely to be different from those around you. Given how hard and how long it takes for people to change their often incorrect opinions, you will probably be associating with people who see you differently than you see yourself. Because they don't know everything about you, they'll probably see basic identities and their associated traits before anything else.

Even if those opinions did change, it wouldn't break likely decades of being trained to think that a certain identity carries certain traits. Subconsciously, you won't make any headway. Not without those people around you, essentially, changing how they view the world around you.

And I'd really like to believe that people change other people, but I really feel as if it's just intentional exploitation and unintentional manipulation of what was already there.



So, if you're still with me some what, in agreement or at least in train of thought,

AND THROUGH ALL THE COMMAS,

we're dealing with fate. Not the kind that's random or directly divinely inspired.

It's the kind that's based off of years of media influences, inaccurate stereotypes, and information that simply does not fit you.

Of course, even you or I couldn't know everything about ourselves. How could we expect anyone else to who lives as someone other than you? Even with that bit of knowledge in mind, it doesn't change the fact that there are some life-altering incompatibilities at work. For no good reason, mind you.



Yeah, yeah. Let's whine and complain about stuff that I've already said was unchangeable.


Well, I hope it doesn't come off as whining. I know for me, it's personally frustrating to realize that, and then to understand all future interactions will follow that form of fate.

So I guess it all comes back to small attributes that are strongly associated with certain identities that ensure a specific course of interactions, how people will know you, and how you will develop relationships with people over your life.


Yes, quite. Life's unfair. Can we get some Free Range Cookies now?

Sure can!
http://freerangecookies.com/index.html



Peace. Love.

And probably some other topics that don't have to do with either.