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on contradictions and inconsistencies
Feb. 4th, 2007 06:06 pmThe striving for integrity and internal consistency is really important to me, to the level of personal virtue. It's not as though I ever expect to be fully integral or consistent, but I'm not at all averse to sisyphean goals, so long as they bear fruit along the way (and, to be honest, sometimes even if they aren't fruitful). I think it would probably be troublingly dull to get there, so it's a good thing I don't think it's possible.
In the struggle, the space between the goal and the inconsistency is very interesting to me. It's not necessarily an erroneous or bad place; it's dynamic and often ripe with potential and meaning. I used to have a tendency to beat myself up about every failure to think, feel and act in accordance with my stated beliefs, but now, I want to investigate those gaps, to figure out the whats, whys, and hows (curiously, the whens don't matter nearly so much).
At some point in the past, I developed a reputation for calling people on bullshit, for judging, and for being unkind and harsh about it. I think a lot of that reputation was probably justified at some points. I've tended to say that when I did cut others, the it was with the least sharp parts, that the most cutting was done to myself, but really, true or not, it doesn't matter. I like to think I'm much less cutting now, and hopefully more conscious of how my words and actions might be perceived, but it's still tricky ground.
Ultimately, though, it's not that I want to call people out or make fools of them (unless they're being unrepentant assholes, but that's another story). What I want is to talk about that space, explore with them the inconsistencies and apparent contradictions, to know what it feels like to them and what they think about it. In part, it's because I'm really interested in people, in their uniquenesses and how they move through life, but there's also a much more self-interested part. I want to know how all of you navigate this so I can understand my own more, too.
In the struggle, the space between the goal and the inconsistency is very interesting to me. It's not necessarily an erroneous or bad place; it's dynamic and often ripe with potential and meaning. I used to have a tendency to beat myself up about every failure to think, feel and act in accordance with my stated beliefs, but now, I want to investigate those gaps, to figure out the whats, whys, and hows (curiously, the whens don't matter nearly so much).
At some point in the past, I developed a reputation for calling people on bullshit, for judging, and for being unkind and harsh about it. I think a lot of that reputation was probably justified at some points. I've tended to say that when I did cut others, the it was with the least sharp parts, that the most cutting was done to myself, but really, true or not, it doesn't matter. I like to think I'm much less cutting now, and hopefully more conscious of how my words and actions might be perceived, but it's still tricky ground.
Ultimately, though, it's not that I want to call people out or make fools of them (unless they're being unrepentant assholes, but that's another story). What I want is to talk about that space, explore with them the inconsistencies and apparent contradictions, to know what it feels like to them and what they think about it. In part, it's because I'm really interested in people, in their uniquenesses and how they move through life, but there's also a much more self-interested part. I want to know how all of you navigate this so I can understand my own more, too.
