PLA wrote:
About what Dracula (I think it was Dracula) wrote earlier, about shy=wimp . . .
I think associating the behavior strictly with emotional or mental weakness is way off point. There are a lot of reasons that can add up to the same thing. In my own situation, I feel like I have a very physical barrier that keeps me from speaking certain kinds of dialog, get me on grounds that I can follow and everything is good. Socially, because I'm at that disadvantage, I can assert myself when challenged but have to avoid actually creating challenges or causing beef. Yeah, I've never believed in starting fights or conflicts, bucking for dominance, on how my parents raised me. Anymore I know that none of that matters in the sense that society's overtone - if it looks or smells like it could be weakness, it is until proven otherwise no questions asked. When of course your stuck in a position that you really can't fully prove otherwise unless people give you the time of day to listen or really check you out, you've got nothing and in a round about way it ends up being true, even if your a very tough person inwardly, even if your command of fundamental social skills and social knowledge is great, you're still at people's mercy to a degree and it definitely holds you down.
That's just one example of many. A lot of people just have natural inclinations that push on their motivational centers so hard that being any other way it motivationally like pushing two huge positive magnets together and any reaction to that end is completely repelled by your brains internal reward system (I'm fine with socializing but when it comes to needing to be dominant or thowing my weight around, or possibly trying to be the David D'Angelo type guy that's exactly what happens - less than no gratification to where even the possible reward for those actions gets eaten up by the sheer weight of that repulsion from the act and behavior itself). To a point I think people only have so much say in who they are, they can control what they do with what they have but only have maybe have a 5 degree range of freedom in the 360 when it comes to altering what they really have in the end.
Its one thing if a person just hasn't done a thing for themselves, hasn't worked on themselves at all, hasn't done anything to test their limits. On the other hand people who do push their absolute limits because they want more out of themselves seem to be only working on the same fixed amount of mental energy as before. When you push yourself to those limits, you can dance around from side to side and keep the whole tent held up but your stretched so thin that you've got little left to enjoy life with and of course any ground you've gained - often times you really don't want to give it up or go backwards (that energy deficit is a big issue and I still drink a lot of coffee, energy drinks etc.). People who really are just happy sappy, don't do a thing, don't care, and sometimes feel the world owes them; sadly that sort of behavior is rewarded by the central nervous system because the less energy you expend the more you have, the more outwardly lit up you are, and even if your a complete piece of work and most people can't stand you you'll look a lot healthier I think quite often. That's why also quite often its the sappiest idiots who attract the opposite sex whereas the best people out there are hard up for a long time if they aren't already in a long term relationship (guys, girls, I see it everywhere).
So, it really all depends on how a person's geared. If someone wants to say that shy or shy appearing people are literally, in all senses, inferior because they can't summon it up to have a spine in the social dominance without acid or coke, its an f'd up thought but to a certain degree - biologically speaking, they do have solid ground to stand on in that opinion just based on what we are. We aren't all created equal, we really are owned to a huge degree by the bodies that we're put in, the 46 chromosomes we have, and what those chromosomes will or won't allow. Not that piss poor behavior or personal choices are usually not someones fault, just that people do have their limits I think. The people who'd say "Nah, people like that are all just wimps and need to toughen up - its easy, I can do it" may be speaking the truth with some people but I don't think its anything close to a majority. People also say "Don't be something your not", you've gotta pick your side on that one, figure out whether you are what other people think, whether you define yourself as who you think you are, whether you define your true and end goal self as what you look up to in people (after all there's probably a good reason why you aspire to certain things at a deep gut level), and even when being your true self gets people telling you that you aren't, you kinda have to say f' em - sometimes that's even a deliberate slap in the face, status-jostling, and sometimes I think its best to let people know that you know what they're up to and that you can't be played like that.
Anymore if someone wants to make assumptions about me they're more than welcome to. That reality is in their own head, they take their thoughts on what certain things mean to them, from their experience of their own mind and body, project that on whoever it is they're dealing with, and while I think its more just recklessness I think the reason why a lot of people don't stick up for themselves on issues like that is because they're sense of self hasn't galvanized to where they can repel it; hence they'll easily enough absorb and own any accusations thrown at them just by how someone else compiles their behavior in their own minds.
03 Jan 2008, 8:27 am
