A use for every thing & every thing a use…
I’ve been working on this pseudo-philosophy for a while now. You might have heard of something similar from other sources. I, in no way, claim it to be unique or prime mover. It’s a working theory. A working thought, if you will, that there is a purpose to every thing, every event and every person… in your world.
Two important points I should make off the bat. Firstly is that this is a perception game, not one based in destiny or fate. The second is that it is in your world, not the world at large. They are basically the same point, but from either ends of the spectrum, as your world if based on your perceptions. So, the first point is about interpretation, while the second is about your personal paradigm. Pieces and the whole.
So, why this now? Well, people. There are certain people who, mostly, are without purpose. They appear to be foolish, or downright idiotic. Selfish, or obvious. The sort of folk who seem to go out of their way to share misery. I know some like this, and they’re use had become more readily apparent today, and previous days. So, this is a little thought about how to use these people to greatest personal advantage.
That sounds odd, especially because they will never know they are being used. Take this example of what I’m talking about; the friend of my mother decided she wanted to lose weight so she put the photo of a prominent national politician on her refrigerator door and in her cubical in work. The politician was, and still is, fat. Very fat. So each time my mother’s friend thought about snacking she would be presented with this woman’s face, multiple chins and all. And it worked. She lost a couple of stone (14 lbs each) in weight, and was very happy with the outcome. The politician was none the wiser, but may have been sent a fruit basket… anonymously.
The public figure never knew of her use in this project, but it can be argued that the woman may never have gotten through her weight-loss regiment without it.
In a similar way, when I was in school, my social group was a group of guys who ranged across the school years. One of the guys, “G”, who was a year ahead of me failed (or didn’t do as well as they would have liked on) their final exams, and repeated the tests. In Ireland, that takes a full year to do. It’s called repeating the leaving, and there is some heavy stigmatization attached to it. So, a year later, I’m coming up to my exams and G is going for his repeat. When studying a second friend “N”, one in my year, put up a sign beside his study desk saying “I will not be like G”. This story appears to be roughly the same as the first, except that G knew that N was doing this. Pretty much a dick move.
N was unrepentant, because he didn’t want to fail and knew that this would help. Letting G know was him not caring what G was going through himself.
So, using your perceptions of others can be helpful and harmless, assuming of course, you keep them to yourself. The moment you tell your friend that his girlfriend’s in your spank-bank or explain to your boss how you count the number of mindless cliché’s he uses as a way to make it through a meeting, then you just become a dick.
Recently, I’ve been dealing with a sort of personal upheaval. Feeling became apparent, relationships were torn asunder. If it was one-on-one, then I could probably deal with it better. Indeed, normally, I process multiple same opinions as one, but this is different. I’m raw. I’m angry. So, I’m not firing on all cylinders. So, her suitors and her supporters have irked me.
Until today. Today I was reminded of this philosophy and over the course of a series of moments, I found myself finding an ease point. And here’s the point that’s not like the others;
If you want to know how someone else feels, don’t ask them. Talk to their closest, most confidential, most trusted friend. Why? You don’t expect them to break a trust? No. But, they will be armed only, and exclusively, with the information provided by the subject. The hot button topics, the big issues. If they do talk, it will be about them. If they don’t speak, they might let a nugget slip about why they’re pissed, which will be why the subject is pissed.
I’ve often found that significant others are the best sources of information. They have access to a larger pool of information, and are often not as equipped to deal with the questions which are asked. Think about it in reverse, for a second, before you dismiss it out of hand. How many times has your boyfriend/girlfriend said something which you told them in confidence to the one person they shouldn’t have had? How often has something come back to you that only your significant other would have known? It’s not out of malice or spit (except when it is, but that’s for another post). It’s them trying to help, trying to be there for you. And because they have a lot of information, they think they can do it. But, the problem is, they don’t have all the information.
So, the greater the egotist, the more massive the dick, the larger the benefit you can gain from them… if it’s only to piss them off. They act out of a good place, but their lack of experience and one-sided knowledge base means that they can never either truly hurt you, nor never offer good support. They are, in truth, echo chambers, allowing the briefest, scantiest morsels of (often partly corrupted) data to slip through. But, when you’re dealing with a subject’s feelings, corrupted data is gold.
Wooh, that was an incoherent ramble…
