The People Conundrum

I am continuing to struggle with dealing with people – groups of people and individuals. I have leveled out on my disgust with all the concepts that I see, at least for this week, but the people are still kind of making me nuts. Not that it’s their fault, or mine, I think it’s just the way in which I think about them—I make it harder on myself than it might have to be if I was a stupider or more thoughtless person.

Over and over I learn that my moral and logic centers are considerably out of plumb with those of the people I know. Even the people I really like. Learning to accept people in a holistic way and appreciate their place in my life while disagreeing with their beliefs and sometimes their actions is just fucking hard, and doesn’t promise to get easier with practice. It’s the constant reanalysis that wears on me. It looks like this:

OK, you’re doing this –> I like you –> you doing/thinking this must be OK… wait, it’s actually not OK. Do I still like you? –> Yes. OK then how can I incorporate this action into my view of you, and the world? How can I separate who you are to me from what you are doing?

-or-

You’re doing this –> I like you –> This is not OK –> This action/belief system is so morally unacceptable to me that I no longer can accept you as part of my world. –> Now you need to go away (Sometimes with a footnote of –> Oh wait, you’re still here? –> Everyone else thinks your actions are acceptable? –> Reevaluate –> No, you still suck. –> Grudging tolerance.)

And you know what? That’s fucking hard, and that’s fucking tiresome, and I am sick of it. But it’s constant, whenever you’re in relationship with people and you don’t wish to be consumed or subjugated by their belief systems and completely lose who you are. I would prefer that people be good and be simple, and do good, simple things that are easy to live with and understand and not bring up all these sticky problems for me to analyze. But that’s not the way of it. People I like do bad things*. To themselves, to each other, to me. They do them on purpose to be hurtful, or they do them on purpose because they do not believe them to be wrong, or they do them accidentally because they don’t understand what they’re doing and what the consequences might be. And each of those things requires some level of thought for me, some reshuffling of the facts in my mind file for them.

And I feel as if I am the only person in the universe who thinks about people in this way, or has these particular ethical quandaries. I do not see others struggling to understand people quite this hard. Maybe because the concept of being in relationship with people – any people, at all – is one that is negotiable for me. Maybe other people don’t think this way because the idea of not doing people is one they can’t conceive of, so it’s pointless to ponder whether they can do these particular people, or those particular people. There are going to be some people, and people are bound to be all variable and hard to understand, so what’s the point in thinking about it? I get that. Or maybe they don’t think about it, or care about it – maybe the social neediness of primates just overcomes all and they shut down critical analysis. I don’t know. I mean – people ARE compelling. Being in a group IS enjoyable, otherwise no one would do it. Social feedback is satisfying, and people are whimsical, charming, entertaining creatures. I adore many of them, and find them very necessary to my happiness. I just also happen to find them challenging, draining and baffling too.

The one thing I know is this—the only way I can function successfully without going insane is to let my core beliefs be what they are, and not change them based on the beliefs of the people I am around, even if I care deeply for them. Everyone I know may think that something is fine, and if I don’t think it’s fine, that’s my right. It’s my right to feel it, it’s my right to express that I feel it, it’s my right to live my life in the way that I believe to be correct. And it’s my right to eject people from my personal world when the incompatibilities are too great. When trying to stretch my brain far enough to make their actions somehow acceptable is too painful or disturbing for me.

And in the end it’s not for anyone else to understand, or appreciate or approve. It’s only for me to live inside. And that seems so simple, doesn’t it? You can’t please everyone, so just please yourself? There’s even a song. But social pressure is a powerful thing, no matter how grounded you try to remain.

So the question is exactly the same tiresome, unanswerable one it’s been for years. How can I be with you and not lose myself?

Stay tuned – one of these days I may figure it out.

*Yes, I do realize that I am most probably doing bad things to other people without knowing it. I realize people don’t necessarily approve of  my value system and life choices, or my opinions. But they can get their own fucking blog and bitch about it there.

   Filed under: anti-socialism, personal ramblings | Comments (2)