Entry 16 "Orbiting the Ego"
I feel like I might be approaching the end of the line with my job. It’s not that I feel like I’m overworked or underpaid, or even like I’m being mistreated in any way. The primary driver behind it is my increasing frustration with my coworkers. It’s all kind of silly when I try to process it rationally, because it’s not like they get in my way or that they go out of their way to bother me. I just don’t like them as people, and I’m more upset at myself for harboring these feelings about them than I am about any of the number of minor annoyances they’re capable of inflicting.
They say that familiarity breeds contempt, and I’m starting to see why. On the surface level, my coworkers are decent enough people. It’s a big reason why I’m at odds with my way of seeing them now. They’re mostly harmless, outgoing, good-natured people that survive their lack of intelligence by staying on enough people’s good side. Their petty banter and fruitless arguments are just part of some bizarre bonding ritual, but they manage to still hold each other with regard despite the emptiness of their discussions. And even when though they frequently abandon their stations to slack off, they’re typically cognizant about covering for each other.
But there is a darker side to their personalities. A while ago we hired this intellectually disabled woman that, to nobody’s surprise, tends to screw things up a lot. But when confronted with her never-ending cascade of mistakes or her distinguished lack of productivity, she just laughs it off or makes excuses and tries to rectify the situation when eventually prodded to fix it. She’s probably the closest thing to a living cartoon character I’ll ever meet in my life. Her stupidity is almost endearing, and even I am coerced to laughter when she eagerly shows up for a shift despite not being scheduled at all that day. Everyone acknowledges that she’s wholly unfit for the job, but they all agree that she’s “a nice lady” and tend to tolerate her. She’s gregarious to the point where she invariably keeps people from doing their job and forces them to shoo her away like a needy puppy or a hungry fly.
As a result of her profound ineptitude, she’s frequently the target of teasing and even becomes an emotional punching bag of sorts when people are stressed and need something from her. A few coworkers have gotten into the habit of making up lies to tell her because she will believe anything that anybody tells her, no matter how ridiculous. If it were a one-time prank, then maybe it would be funny, but it just keeps going. It’s now at the point where they mess with her emotions and convince her she’s going to get fired, or that somebody has a crush on her, or that she’s going to be made a manager. And then later as she trusts them to be her source of information, they betray that trust by telling her the opposite of what she thought was going to happen. For them it might seem as harmless fun, but I can’t help but see it as abusive.
So obviously they may not be great people, but they’re also not great workers. They occasionally make mistakes themselves and get combative when confronted with it, sometimes refusing to correct their errors if asked by someone not above them in the hierarchy. And if someone should call out for a shift, rather than everyone taking turns helping out or doing a small bit of extra work to cover for the missing person, many of them would complain and try to push the entire workload onto somebody else. Even if the day is slow and there is nothing else to do, I’ve seen them stand around and do nothing rather than take a slight bit of initiate to help the people affected by the callout. The sheer unwillingness to help was probably the most disheartening thing I’ve seen, but it’s far from the worst.
They also like to gang up on those outside the clique and either gossip about them behind their backs or mess with them out loud. They will poke fun of people’s voices, appearance, age, weight, relationship status, etc. It’s bizarre, because if you point out how they’re short, paunchy, ugly, or speak English poorly, they tend to get defensive about it, despite having no issue picking on someone else’s social faux pas. Recently a coworker of mine got mugged at a bus stop, and another coworker was making fun of him for it a few days later. Or they will tell a chubby coworker of mine to settle for any man available because nobody would want her. Or they make fun of a new coworker struggling on their first few days solo instead of stopping to help them. They do it all with smug little grins on their face, so maybe it’s just light-hearted fun and I’m too much of a stiff.
In either case, the contrast is pretty stark for two people in the same profession. I have little doubt in my mind that I come across as grim, brooding, insular, and reticent, and if my coworkers knew what those words meant, they would probably describe me that way as well. But I’m also resourceful, considerate, and effective at what I do, which gains at least some positive affectations from people. I wouldn’t say so much that I have bad interactions with anyone; just that I don’t really have interactions at all. When it does happen, it’s usually brief and cordial, but it’s not uncommon for me to go through a shift without saying a word to anyone.
All in all, it’s been puzzling me for a while. Introversion doesn’t have to manifest itself in such a standoffish way. From personal experience, I know it’s possible to be placid and patient and amicable while still saying little. And I know it doesn’t take a lot to show some interest in people and make them feel more welcome. I’ve definitely been friendlier in my past, and I don’t know if it’s a symptom of my years of untreated depression or if I’m just surrounded by truly insufferable people. Maybe they’re all simple idiots trying to enjoy their lives and I’m a resentful misanthrope warped by reclusiveness.
I can definitely acknowledge that they have positive traits of their own. Even though there are fairly esoteric cultural barriers between them and others, they still make attempts at building connections with them. Trying in vain to understand social media memes with the younger girls on their breaks or football scores with the guys even though they couldn’t name more than a handful of teams or any of the players. They have stupid little inside jokes with each other and like to be obnoxious and loud in the attempt to lift morale through their flippancy. It’s all behavior I couldn’t imagine myself doing.
And maybe that’s the crux of this perverse feedback mechanism. My resentment of them stems not from their flaws and imperfections, but because they are willing to do things I’m not. Maybe at some subconscious level I’m envious of them and it sublimates itself as loathing. It’s not something I would have considered prior to the most recent ContraPoints video, but it’s a possibility I can’t now ignore.
They have managed to make friends at work where I have not. They find joy and pleasure in life where I cannot. They take social risks and make fools of themselves where I dare not. It’s these diametrically opposing personality types that have really gotten me to take a closer look at who I am, fundamentally, as a person.
After some digging, I’ve come to the conclusion that my biggest motivation in life is peace. I ran away from my family to find peace of mind. I travelled the Western half of the US to immerse myself in the most peaceful outdoor spots. I’ve read so many books and watched so many movies to indulge in peaceful escapes. And I’ve spent so much of my life alone trying to reach an inner peace. I’ve never even thrown a punch despite the moments where flaring tensions could have called for it.
Since my teenage years I have had this visceral disgust of traits like ambition, competitiveness, and confidence; not because they’re without merit or even because I think they’re overvalued by society, but because there is conflict inherently imbued in these traits which is the direct opposite of peace. Ambition demands sacrifice. Competition creates losers. Confidence breeds arrogance and ignores consequences. It all creates disruptions in the peace, and I realize now why it was so important to start the Bible with the story of Adam and Eve. It wasn’t scientific or philosophical knowledge that was contained in the forbidden fruit, but the knowledge of loss, of shame, of guilt, and of regret. Maybe it’s fitting that I feel so much like a monk. Living in reclusion, resisting temptations, abstaining from relationships. It’s a pretty peaceful life if you can get past the loneliness, but that’s been a fairly monumental if to climb.
I suppose that through feeling so powerless as a child growing up, avoidance may have been the only strategy against unnecessary conflict with a modicum of success. I spent my youth isolating myself from my family to spare myself from the wrath of their fragile pride. I’ve withdrawn from relationships whenever I’ve not been given enough time or proper consideration, mostly to avoid confronting them about being ignored or put on hold. And I’m fairly sure my work ethic comes more from the fear of letting people down than from an actual desire to achieve. Even in my political leanings and musings, I make an effort to appeal to both sides and navigate towards the most diplomatic solutions.
It’s only recently dawned on me how this unconscious lifetime pursuit of peace could be rated so unattractive. It’s fairly unromantic to fight for nothing, to mull over conflicting nuance, to analyze the risks, and to prepare for the worst. Our cultures are saturated by tales of heroes who ventured into the fray, who acted decisively, and who ultimately came out triumphant through some display of virtue. It was the possibility of losing, not the spoils of victory, that people find the most inspiring. And indeed, there’s a very distinct difference between confidence and courage. Confidence is an act of deception meant to obscure the dangers. Courage sees it clearly, yet runs towards it regardless. It’s clear now that all the cleverness I employed to avoid significant losses was simply cowardice reframed as self-preservation.
I’m reminded of the meme “Peace was never an option”, and find a lot of weirdly profound wisdom in that. Peace, in practice, is a state of temporary equilibrium. If nothing else, peace is the freedom to pick our battles. Si vis pacem, para bellum. But in the end, everything is governed by conflict, by scarcity, by passion, and by desire. Somebody will always want more, and eventually their choices will come with a cost. In the choice between a life of quiet desperation or a life of adventure and meaning, the debate comes down to what am I prepared to lose?
It can be tough trying to decide what to fight for? What to sacrifice? What dangers to face? A little bit of internalized prudence might not be such a bad thing. People often make the wrong choices, they fight for foolish reasons, they sacrifice more than they can afford to lose, and fail to see looming threats clearly. If nothing else, this on-going pandemic has illustrated the folly of human confidence to sardonic proportions. Fortunately, peace is not my only motivation.
People tend to like and glamorize success stories far more than cautionary tales because it feels good to them. Frankly, the only way a society can sustain itself and thrive is by having faith in optimistic outcomes. Dreamers have done more to shape the world than fuddy-duddy pessimists and pragmatists. Unfortunately, optimism is not a fleeting emotion like sadness or happiness that can be harnessed to accomplish a temporary aim, but a lasting philosophical outlook that governs how people approach situations in life. It becomes informed by narratives, by experience, by relationships, and by biases. It operates on a scale between the pros and the cons with new inputs constantly tipping the balance. As circumstances would seemingly prove, life has made me much more of a pessimist than others would like.
Though I don’t frame this as necessarily a bad thing. Optimists very often leave problems to chance and see their belief in a positive outcome as an excuse to do nothing about it. It gets to points where they’re actively useless by sending ‘positive vibes’ and ‘thoughts and prayers’ after each and every tragedy rather choosing a more practical approach of materially helping those most affected by the tragedy. My pessimistic nature helps me understand that trials and tribulations are never simple enough to be solved with peppy rhetoric.
Granted, pessimism is not without its own flaws and limitations. One of those being my occasionally crippling level of self-consciousness. The fact that I second-guess myself and doubt my own ideas or sense of worth as often as I do tends to lead to prolonged periods of unfulfilling inertia in life. Months and years where I become stuck in tormenting limbo while life and its opportunities pass me by. It’s a joyless tug-of-war where I’m fighting mostly myself for the possibility of enjoying even a simple pleasure. I lose so much time wading through the muddied fields of complexity and analysis in my mind, and usually wind up going nowhere in the end. A much more complicated way of doing nothing compared to my optimistic counterparts.
But there is a silver lining to this outlook, and that being the other motivator I mentioned several paragraphs ago. I find that I am more attuned to the suffering of others. While it has become quite common to gloat on the internet over others misfortunes, particularly those with whom we disagree with, I found that I tended to take a more sympathetic approach to the matter. I understand that no human being is perfect, and their situations in life are often heavily influenced by their upbringing, their environment, and their circumstances. Not to say that their actions are always defensible or justified, but rather understanding that they were denied many life lessons on the path to where they are now, and that it’s not necessarily too late to learn.
It’s this brand of sympathy that motivates me to be less judgmental and more supportive of others. If I had not suffered so much with my own life and with my own thoughts, I doubt I could be as open-minded today towards the misery of others. It’s not always been a smooth journey to this conclusion, as often my own prolonged agony ate away at my remaining sense of hope or patience and I would lash out cynically at those who were well-meaning.
But in a bid to quell this pain, I adopted a grown mega-mutt of a dog from a rescue shelter right after Christmas, knowing she was there because she was unwanted. Seeing her now as a beaming bundle of happiness so many people love to greet showed me what my love and patience can accomplish. And this has now provided a bit of stable ground to stand on which has helped me better look out for others.
Maybe there’s some sin behind every virtue. Some duality that naturally creates both darkness and light. A yin-and-yang to the universe, and by extension there would be the same duality within everyone. I think the path ahead is about learning to be more tolerant of the darkness and accepting of the light. I haven’t drawn any definitive conclusions of how to proceed next with my job, but I’m glad that at least some productive introspection came out of it.
They say that familiarity breeds contempt, and I’m starting to see why. On the surface level, my coworkers are decent enough people. It’s a big reason why I’m at odds with my way of seeing them now. They’re mostly harmless, outgoing, good-natured people that survive their lack of intelligence by staying on enough people’s good side. Their petty banter and fruitless arguments are just part of some bizarre bonding ritual, but they manage to still hold each other with regard despite the emptiness of their discussions. And even when though they frequently abandon their stations to slack off, they’re typically cognizant about covering for each other.
But there is a darker side to their personalities. A while ago we hired this intellectually disabled woman that, to nobody’s surprise, tends to screw things up a lot. But when confronted with her never-ending cascade of mistakes or her distinguished lack of productivity, she just laughs it off or makes excuses and tries to rectify the situation when eventually prodded to fix it. She’s probably the closest thing to a living cartoon character I’ll ever meet in my life. Her stupidity is almost endearing, and even I am coerced to laughter when she eagerly shows up for a shift despite not being scheduled at all that day. Everyone acknowledges that she’s wholly unfit for the job, but they all agree that she’s “a nice lady” and tend to tolerate her. She’s gregarious to the point where she invariably keeps people from doing their job and forces them to shoo her away like a needy puppy or a hungry fly.
As a result of her profound ineptitude, she’s frequently the target of teasing and even becomes an emotional punching bag of sorts when people are stressed and need something from her. A few coworkers have gotten into the habit of making up lies to tell her because she will believe anything that anybody tells her, no matter how ridiculous. If it were a one-time prank, then maybe it would be funny, but it just keeps going. It’s now at the point where they mess with her emotions and convince her she’s going to get fired, or that somebody has a crush on her, or that she’s going to be made a manager. And then later as she trusts them to be her source of information, they betray that trust by telling her the opposite of what she thought was going to happen. For them it might seem as harmless fun, but I can’t help but see it as abusive.
So obviously they may not be great people, but they’re also not great workers. They occasionally make mistakes themselves and get combative when confronted with it, sometimes refusing to correct their errors if asked by someone not above them in the hierarchy. And if someone should call out for a shift, rather than everyone taking turns helping out or doing a small bit of extra work to cover for the missing person, many of them would complain and try to push the entire workload onto somebody else. Even if the day is slow and there is nothing else to do, I’ve seen them stand around and do nothing rather than take a slight bit of initiate to help the people affected by the callout. The sheer unwillingness to help was probably the most disheartening thing I’ve seen, but it’s far from the worst.
They also like to gang up on those outside the clique and either gossip about them behind their backs or mess with them out loud. They will poke fun of people’s voices, appearance, age, weight, relationship status, etc. It’s bizarre, because if you point out how they’re short, paunchy, ugly, or speak English poorly, they tend to get defensive about it, despite having no issue picking on someone else’s social faux pas. Recently a coworker of mine got mugged at a bus stop, and another coworker was making fun of him for it a few days later. Or they will tell a chubby coworker of mine to settle for any man available because nobody would want her. Or they make fun of a new coworker struggling on their first few days solo instead of stopping to help them. They do it all with smug little grins on their face, so maybe it’s just light-hearted fun and I’m too much of a stiff.
In either case, the contrast is pretty stark for two people in the same profession. I have little doubt in my mind that I come across as grim, brooding, insular, and reticent, and if my coworkers knew what those words meant, they would probably describe me that way as well. But I’m also resourceful, considerate, and effective at what I do, which gains at least some positive affectations from people. I wouldn’t say so much that I have bad interactions with anyone; just that I don’t really have interactions at all. When it does happen, it’s usually brief and cordial, but it’s not uncommon for me to go through a shift without saying a word to anyone.
All in all, it’s been puzzling me for a while. Introversion doesn’t have to manifest itself in such a standoffish way. From personal experience, I know it’s possible to be placid and patient and amicable while still saying little. And I know it doesn’t take a lot to show some interest in people and make them feel more welcome. I’ve definitely been friendlier in my past, and I don’t know if it’s a symptom of my years of untreated depression or if I’m just surrounded by truly insufferable people. Maybe they’re all simple idiots trying to enjoy their lives and I’m a resentful misanthrope warped by reclusiveness.
I can definitely acknowledge that they have positive traits of their own. Even though there are fairly esoteric cultural barriers between them and others, they still make attempts at building connections with them. Trying in vain to understand social media memes with the younger girls on their breaks or football scores with the guys even though they couldn’t name more than a handful of teams or any of the players. They have stupid little inside jokes with each other and like to be obnoxious and loud in the attempt to lift morale through their flippancy. It’s all behavior I couldn’t imagine myself doing.
And maybe that’s the crux of this perverse feedback mechanism. My resentment of them stems not from their flaws and imperfections, but because they are willing to do things I’m not. Maybe at some subconscious level I’m envious of them and it sublimates itself as loathing. It’s not something I would have considered prior to the most recent ContraPoints video, but it’s a possibility I can’t now ignore.
They have managed to make friends at work where I have not. They find joy and pleasure in life where I cannot. They take social risks and make fools of themselves where I dare not. It’s these diametrically opposing personality types that have really gotten me to take a closer look at who I am, fundamentally, as a person.
After some digging, I’ve come to the conclusion that my biggest motivation in life is peace. I ran away from my family to find peace of mind. I travelled the Western half of the US to immerse myself in the most peaceful outdoor spots. I’ve read so many books and watched so many movies to indulge in peaceful escapes. And I’ve spent so much of my life alone trying to reach an inner peace. I’ve never even thrown a punch despite the moments where flaring tensions could have called for it.
Since my teenage years I have had this visceral disgust of traits like ambition, competitiveness, and confidence; not because they’re without merit or even because I think they’re overvalued by society, but because there is conflict inherently imbued in these traits which is the direct opposite of peace. Ambition demands sacrifice. Competition creates losers. Confidence breeds arrogance and ignores consequences. It all creates disruptions in the peace, and I realize now why it was so important to start the Bible with the story of Adam and Eve. It wasn’t scientific or philosophical knowledge that was contained in the forbidden fruit, but the knowledge of loss, of shame, of guilt, and of regret. Maybe it’s fitting that I feel so much like a monk. Living in reclusion, resisting temptations, abstaining from relationships. It’s a pretty peaceful life if you can get past the loneliness, but that’s been a fairly monumental if to climb.
I suppose that through feeling so powerless as a child growing up, avoidance may have been the only strategy against unnecessary conflict with a modicum of success. I spent my youth isolating myself from my family to spare myself from the wrath of their fragile pride. I’ve withdrawn from relationships whenever I’ve not been given enough time or proper consideration, mostly to avoid confronting them about being ignored or put on hold. And I’m fairly sure my work ethic comes more from the fear of letting people down than from an actual desire to achieve. Even in my political leanings and musings, I make an effort to appeal to both sides and navigate towards the most diplomatic solutions.
It’s only recently dawned on me how this unconscious lifetime pursuit of peace could be rated so unattractive. It’s fairly unromantic to fight for nothing, to mull over conflicting nuance, to analyze the risks, and to prepare for the worst. Our cultures are saturated by tales of heroes who ventured into the fray, who acted decisively, and who ultimately came out triumphant through some display of virtue. It was the possibility of losing, not the spoils of victory, that people find the most inspiring. And indeed, there’s a very distinct difference between confidence and courage. Confidence is an act of deception meant to obscure the dangers. Courage sees it clearly, yet runs towards it regardless. It’s clear now that all the cleverness I employed to avoid significant losses was simply cowardice reframed as self-preservation.
I’m reminded of the meme “Peace was never an option”, and find a lot of weirdly profound wisdom in that. Peace, in practice, is a state of temporary equilibrium. If nothing else, peace is the freedom to pick our battles. Si vis pacem, para bellum. But in the end, everything is governed by conflict, by scarcity, by passion, and by desire. Somebody will always want more, and eventually their choices will come with a cost. In the choice between a life of quiet desperation or a life of adventure and meaning, the debate comes down to what am I prepared to lose?
It can be tough trying to decide what to fight for? What to sacrifice? What dangers to face? A little bit of internalized prudence might not be such a bad thing. People often make the wrong choices, they fight for foolish reasons, they sacrifice more than they can afford to lose, and fail to see looming threats clearly. If nothing else, this on-going pandemic has illustrated the folly of human confidence to sardonic proportions. Fortunately, peace is not my only motivation.
People tend to like and glamorize success stories far more than cautionary tales because it feels good to them. Frankly, the only way a society can sustain itself and thrive is by having faith in optimistic outcomes. Dreamers have done more to shape the world than fuddy-duddy pessimists and pragmatists. Unfortunately, optimism is not a fleeting emotion like sadness or happiness that can be harnessed to accomplish a temporary aim, but a lasting philosophical outlook that governs how people approach situations in life. It becomes informed by narratives, by experience, by relationships, and by biases. It operates on a scale between the pros and the cons with new inputs constantly tipping the balance. As circumstances would seemingly prove, life has made me much more of a pessimist than others would like.
Though I don’t frame this as necessarily a bad thing. Optimists very often leave problems to chance and see their belief in a positive outcome as an excuse to do nothing about it. It gets to points where they’re actively useless by sending ‘positive vibes’ and ‘thoughts and prayers’ after each and every tragedy rather choosing a more practical approach of materially helping those most affected by the tragedy. My pessimistic nature helps me understand that trials and tribulations are never simple enough to be solved with peppy rhetoric.
Granted, pessimism is not without its own flaws and limitations. One of those being my occasionally crippling level of self-consciousness. The fact that I second-guess myself and doubt my own ideas or sense of worth as often as I do tends to lead to prolonged periods of unfulfilling inertia in life. Months and years where I become stuck in tormenting limbo while life and its opportunities pass me by. It’s a joyless tug-of-war where I’m fighting mostly myself for the possibility of enjoying even a simple pleasure. I lose so much time wading through the muddied fields of complexity and analysis in my mind, and usually wind up going nowhere in the end. A much more complicated way of doing nothing compared to my optimistic counterparts.
But there is a silver lining to this outlook, and that being the other motivator I mentioned several paragraphs ago. I find that I am more attuned to the suffering of others. While it has become quite common to gloat on the internet over others misfortunes, particularly those with whom we disagree with, I found that I tended to take a more sympathetic approach to the matter. I understand that no human being is perfect, and their situations in life are often heavily influenced by their upbringing, their environment, and their circumstances. Not to say that their actions are always defensible or justified, but rather understanding that they were denied many life lessons on the path to where they are now, and that it’s not necessarily too late to learn.
It’s this brand of sympathy that motivates me to be less judgmental and more supportive of others. If I had not suffered so much with my own life and with my own thoughts, I doubt I could be as open-minded today towards the misery of others. It’s not always been a smooth journey to this conclusion, as often my own prolonged agony ate away at my remaining sense of hope or patience and I would lash out cynically at those who were well-meaning.
But in a bid to quell this pain, I adopted a grown mega-mutt of a dog from a rescue shelter right after Christmas, knowing she was there because she was unwanted. Seeing her now as a beaming bundle of happiness so many people love to greet showed me what my love and patience can accomplish. And this has now provided a bit of stable ground to stand on which has helped me better look out for others.
Maybe there’s some sin behind every virtue. Some duality that naturally creates both darkness and light. A yin-and-yang to the universe, and by extension there would be the same duality within everyone. I think the path ahead is about learning to be more tolerant of the darkness and accepting of the light. I haven’t drawn any definitive conclusions of how to proceed next with my job, but I’m glad that at least some productive introspection came out of it.
31-35, M
