I do always seem to be analyzing people and trying to figure them out. I think it's a habit I got into a long, long time ago first to analyze myself and then to understand other people for myself. A lot of people ask you to analyze them or people they know but without consciously doing so. By sharing their concerns or problems with other people they are appealing to you to analyze themselves or their neighbours to offer insight or advice.
We all want to understand each other (and ourselves) and often I am in a position to offer a different perspective on someone. I'm not concerned with being expressly right or wrong, so much as circling in on an understanding of each person. I realize we are all dynamic and many-faceted but fundamentally we all do things for similar base motivations and they are almost always noble in our own minds.
I think in the vast majority of situations I come across as either insightful or off the mark and possibly offensive. That's simply because a lot of the time people are offended if you say something that doesn't match their personal self-image or image of another person. We humans are also easily offended even when no malice or even any attempt to assert an opinion is made. Just because I might argue my reasoning for a view doesn't mean I think only I am right, I just want to be clear in my line of reasoning before tossing it aside. Online, I'm sure people might think I'm a jerk, because we all have this lovely view of our piece of the internet being a private island of our ego's on the seas of open sharing. We don't like it if someone busts down the non-existent door and pretends to know us based on a few incidental observations. And you know what, that's fair - I've actually recently chastised myself for doing this - I really don't need to make myself more of an e-ass than I am through my already controversial opinions.
I suppose all I can do is console myself in the fact that everyone does this, whether they tell you or not. Many of us hide behind quick prejudices, some selected from stereotypes, and others elected by one or two statements from the recipient. At least I give you the opportunity to rebut my thoughts and the resultant opportunity to attempt to expand my understanding of "you".
If I had more time to write this and more than the 3x8 window on Formspring to re-read it I could attempt to make this sound more dickheaded but as it is this will have to stand. Comments are welcome on my Blog.
We all want to understand each other (and ourselves) and often I am in a position to offer a different perspective on someone. I'm not concerned with being expressly right or wrong, so much as circling in on an understanding of each person. I realize we are all dynamic and many-faceted but fundamentally we all do things for similar base motivations and they are almost always noble in our own minds.
I think in the vast majority of situations I come across as either insightful or off the mark and possibly offensive. That's simply because a lot of the time people are offended if you say something that doesn't match their personal self-image or image of another person. We humans are also easily offended even when no malice or even any attempt to assert an opinion is made. Just because I might argue my reasoning for a view doesn't mean I think only I am right, I just want to be clear in my line of reasoning before tossing it aside. Online, I'm sure people might think I'm a jerk, because we all have this lovely view of our piece of the internet being a private island of our ego's on the seas of open sharing. We don't like it if someone busts down the non-existent door and pretends to know us based on a few incidental observations. And you know what, that's fair - I've actually recently chastised myself for doing this - I really don't need to make myself more of an e-ass than I am through my already controversial opinions.
I suppose all I can do is console myself in the fact that everyone does this, whether they tell you or not. Many of us hide behind quick prejudices, some selected from stereotypes, and others elected by one or two statements from the recipient. At least I give you the opportunity to rebut my thoughts and the resultant opportunity to attempt to expand my understanding of "you".
If I had more time to write this and more than the 3x8 window on Formspring to re-read it I could attempt to make this sound more dickheaded but as it is this will have to stand. Comments are welcome on my Blog.
I agree everyone does this. I certainly do, I just don't always take the time to put it into words and type it out as you do. Truthfully it's interesting to see how people view myself and people I know, especially since all we all know of each other is what we write on Twitter and Blogger. Which is sort of sad when you think about it. And it's easy to have things misunderstood without the luxury of tone and facial expression.
ReplyDeleteThanks for answering my question, and you're welcome to stop by my blog and judge me any time.