For the most part, I like to keep it positive. However, once in a great while, I believe a venting, a purge or an honest assessment of how I feel, is not only healthy but allows for a good mental exfoliation. A dump-truck drop of all that nags at the corners of my mind means I can move on.
I am a hermit. I like it that way. Hermits often are observers of human behavior. Being a little quieter than most; this allows me more room to take note of what happens around me, how people treat each other and how relationships ebb and flow around these 5 annoying games that people play.
This isn’t directed at anyone but if you see yourself here, change it already. I am sure the people around you that love you now, will love you just a little bit more if you could at least be conscious of when you’re doing these things.
1. Passive Aggressive Bullshit. This also falls under #5, but deserves its own heading, nice and prominent. I attribute this increasingly-common trait to a lack of communication. This is something that seems to plague more and more people. They don’t know how to tell others they are upset, feel angry, are confused, don’t like something or feel generally unappreciated. So instead of saying, ‘hey, you know what? you are really pissing me off’, or something that allows the air to be cleared, they let it fester. They let it grow into something it isn’t and then they let it rot.
It isn’t a bad thing to have disagreements, if you can talk about them and work them out. Its human nature. We are competitive, combatative and generally ornery. But as a species, we really ought to try to work on that.
So, just like taking spoiled food out to be composted, the hermist recommends playing with the big-kid set of playground rules. Learn how to tell others how you feel, learn how to have a disagreement, air it and then move the fuck on, and let others know they can talk to you and vice versa. Its not that hard.
2. Lack of responsibility. The hermist loves nothing less than someone who says they’ll do something, PROMISES they will do something, and then they fall through. Repeatedly. My hermisty heart also detests watching a person blame shortcomings, failures and fuck-ups on any and all outside circumstances. Who knows why? Is it a perfection-driven society that demands we are all immune to saying ‘I’m sorry for blowing this/that’? Does it involve a critical flatlining of the ego to admit guilt or to work on flaws? I make mistakes all the time … and I imagine that I probably always will.
Oh, and if you can’t do something, don’t say you will. Thanks.
3. Teamwork. When I am not hermitt-ing it up in my hobbit-land, I work around folks who are trained to work together in teams. It is a thing of beauty. Watching one anticipate the needs of another and witness those who pick up right where the other leaves off makes the heart swell. Teamwork is the essence of community, if you think about it. When I witness the birthing of the rogue Amelia Earhart that steps to the front of the line with their own groceries instead of helping the little old woman whose produce has gone askew … well, that pisses me off. Are you not part of this mess?
4. Too much ego. Pride can be lumped in here too. Imagining greatness, inflating the self to proportions where there can be no questioning of integrity, no evaluation of self, no willingness to be challenged or to be plunged open like a pomegranate. That eggshell is only so tough.
5. Games. Humans play games all the time. We are masters of saying-one-thing-while-meaning-another. We play games on Facebook, we send out texts that we ‘meant’ to send to someone else with poisoned barbs in them, we include/exclude, pit friends against one another and do these with a competitive shrillness. Its probably where the term ‘the ugly american’ came from, at least in part.
There you have it. A big heaping laundry basket of human tics, digs and gouges that are out there every day. These are the ones that bug me and these are the ones I see repeatedly, unfurling like a big hopeless snarl of yarn that you know you’ll never be able to untangle.
So. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. Don’t say you’ll be there if you won’t, do something if you can’t, or meet a deadline if you know you won’t. Don’t turn off your phone to avoid a call and for a change, have a conversation instead of avoiding it.
Oh, and adopt a dog. Saving a dog’s life helps to redeem regretable human behavior.
