Yesterday I wrote about how there’s a tendency for people to obsess about something so much that it becomes impossible not to bring that up in an otherwise unrelated situation.
The trouble is the person, whoever they might be, with a particular obsession usually has no clue that his or her obsession is not applicable to friendly conversation, or to everyday kindness. In a nutshell, it shows an an immaturity of decent human interaction.
I’ve heard these instances a lot from friends with parents who have dived face first in the deep-end of the fringe pool. I chatted a little last night with a friend who needs to keep her mom at arm’s length because her mom inserts irrational ideas into otherwise rational situations creating a disturbing and chaotic atmosphere. The chaos hurts.
Or another friend whose brother is a flat earther who brings it up even when the topic is jelly. Or another friend who hasn’t talked to his agoraphobic parents for probably five years, because their obsessions with certain news channels built a wall between son and parents. Or another friend whose dad shared with him a sermon from his church on who they should vote for.
These are all people who cannot have a close relationship with their parents. Any time spent together requires applied limitations, time restrictions, quick forgiveness of little slips and often experience a forced parental grounding.
Instead of being able to achieve civil plenitudes between otherwise loving individuals, a selfish instigation of personal ineptitude disrupts casual situations.
In the situation with “Bill” that I wrote about yesterday, I briefly mentioned that I lost my temper. I lost it hard. I berated Bill with absolute ruthless anger.
When I look back at the situation, and replay the multiple disruptions brought to the table previous to dropping the nuclear attack in the form of, “I can’t talk to this person on the phone because he has an Obama Phone” I count a lot of little nudges to lose my temper. It’s almost as if, conspiratorially, Bill wanted to see how far he could go before something took control and made me, not him, look like a maniac.
Before that point in the conversation, there was a mention of Biden’s loan forgiveness program, to which I held my tongue and didn’t mention the sheer number of Republicans who enjoyed loan forgiveness in the millions. Why didn’t I? Because I’ve been told that Bill should be able to “just be Bill.” There was a continued attempt to paint an old black man as inferior. Because it’s an uncreative talking point. I’ve read it. So it must be true. Right?
“Let it slide!” They say. “He’s just being Bill!” they repeat. “Bill has carte blanche to be an asshole, because he’s set in his ways!” is what everyone means. That makes no sense, though, as we could all agree that a life-long temper loser is quite close to being set in his ways, too.
The onus is put on anyone else except the “Bills” of the world to acquire super human strength of emotional fortitude. Right? I mean. If you lose your temper for a continued battering of insulting comments, the person who loses temper is completely at fault, right?
Later, after the spirit of the stairway had overcome me multiple times, I lightbulbed.
When the dust kind of settled from me losing my temper, I latched on to a concept. We all agreed on something in spite of the whole outburst, and that was, that the outburst (my outburst) was unwelcome, unsavory, undignified & off the table.
In a text, I mentioned that I felt my loss of temper was justified. But because we talked through with everyone present, I conceded and said, “Yes, you’re right. My lost temper was completely unjustified. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
We all agreed that certain behaviors are wrong, and I would argue that certain behaviors are wrong, because they are apolitical. We can all agree that if a person makes fun of a disabled person, that it’s wrong. But if a man who’s attached to a political affiliation does it, the people who point that out and ask for everyone to agree to its wrongness are considered political attackers.
If a man says that he has the ability, no a right, no a near obligation to grab women by the pussy, because of his station in life, and he is attacked by one side to have all parties look at that as an apolitical level of unwelcome, unsavory, undignified human behavior, but the action is later justified by “they other side is being political”, justifying it as “locker room talk” then where, where oh where, can we find common ground on what is and what is not politics?
If a woman said, “I have the right to grab a man by the balls and twist hard every time they say something sexist,” there’d be about 25% of men lying on the sidewalk crying their eyes out. Is that political? Or is it a call to human decency?
If we can all agree that a lost temper is negative and unjustified, then how do we discuss behaviors of politicians who use those behaviors on a daily basis and claim justification?
We should all agree that apolitical behaviors do not allow political justifications. We should all be holding our friends in the political spheres to the exact same thresholds of expectations to the same judicial comportments.
But, politics requires no morals or upstanding human values, so here we are. Pushing each other away, because the news agencies with tons of money and know how to titillate the minds of masses who follow and do not lead, they have latched into the minds of good people and created political werewolves lurking in every situation waiting to pounce, then change back into their human forms and say, “Don’t judge me for what I did when I was in werewolf form.
Eye rolls. Here we go again.
Le Café Wittypoots 