December Days 2022 #11: Kind
Dec. 12th, 2022 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradept[What's December Days this year? Taking a crowdsourced list of adjectives and seeing if I can turn them into saying good things about myself. Or at least good things to talk about.]
That's really sweet, for someone to say that about me. I do want to come across as kind to people that I want to be kind to.
Admittedly, there's some aspects of it that can be twisted into negative aspects. My ex certainly took advantage of my kindness, exploiting my general unwillingness to make my partner unhappy by refusing to accept my no unless it was phrased as a no. So she taught me, by necessity, about how no is a complete sentence, and then followed that up with the lesson that I needed to be willing to stand by that no, and accept her unhappiness as a consequence, if I was going to use my no. It was stressful. But, as it turns out, it was specifically because it was always going to be a fight and an effort to use my no. For other people who respect me as a person, I can use my full arsenal of no available instead of having to only use one method.
Back to kindness, though. Other than the "Easily governed" part, the rest of those definitions are part of how I want to approach the world. It pains me, to some degree, to not be able to do as much as I could for people that I want to, but I'm also trying to keep my household afloat, and that, at least for a little while more, is going to mean having to manage my resources carefully. I can, at least, do the warm-hearted, affectionate, forgiving parts and try to be gentle and mild in the way I relate to others, so long as they haven't done things that warrant either suspicion or hostility from me. (And even then, as evidenced by how long I stayed with my ex, I can still believe that progress is possible long past the point where it won't happen and more stringent measures have to be taken.)
The last part of the first definition is interesting to me. I hadn't noticed the additional dimension present about service here when I use the word kind or when others use it around me, even as I have used it to mean "considerate," often in a context of "considerate and accommodating in a situation where it's not demanded, required, or necessary." Which is why when people thank me for helping shepherd a child through the process of selecting interesting books, or I stick with someone through the process of doing something new and technological like attaching documents, scanning documents, or navigating an unfamiliar benefits website, I usually respond with "They pay me to do this," an indication that I'm performing something within my job description to use my knowledge to help someone achieve things. Some of that knowledge is not as commonly distributed among the staff, admittedly, but the thanks is often as much for the patience of seeing someone through the process as it is deploying the knowledge that will help get them through it.
The "service" element of the definition is interesting, not just for the choice of profession (and the often explicit weaponization and exploitation of wanting to help and be useful to others that comes with it to avoid doing things like properly paying someone and making efforts to make the workplace safer and less mentally taxing on those who work there), but also because one of the "core" brainweasels that I have struggled with all of my life is the one that insists my worth is tied to how useful I am to others. Not so much believing that productivity is my only important metric, or inappropriate identification with my work or profession as the sole indicator of worth I have, but an insidious underlying layer that insists that my full self is boring, selfish, and uninteresting. (Or that the bad elements of my full self overshadow the good ones.) So I try to compensate for that by being useful. For a not-as-random-example-as-it-looks, I remember reading, probably in a Playboy or similar magazine when I wasn't over the age line to be looking at the pictures (but I spent most of my time reading the articles), or possibly someone's manual for achieving boast-worthy feats of masculinity (morbid curiosity about what the pick-up artists were striving for, maybe,) there was a list of suggestions of "how to get the hot bartender to go home with you at the end of her shift." The first was "don't buy a drink from her, because then you're a customer like everyone else, and she'll dismiss anything you say after that as either the booze talking or a customer trying to butter her up." One of the first few after that, though, advised the would-be Cyrano to have a talent, a trick, or something useful to do at the bar that would help drive more drink orders or better tips to the bartender. One of the suggestions of how to impress the bartender by helping with the customers was to have close-up magic skills on hand to provide entertainment.
The phrasing "be useful" stuck in my head, even if I never really did much with the bar scene in the ages where I theoretically should have been at the top of my game. And quickly came to the conclusion that trying to pick up the bartender while the bartender was working (or shortly after) was identifying yourself as the conductor of the train to Creepsville, the kind that ran into the Bouncer Express with regularity. So my default mode of interaction in a new situation (or even in familiar ones where I feel nervous or outclassed by the other people there) is "be useful." Which often translates into acts of concern and service where possible, because people are less likely to reject someone who helps out when needed, right?
My internal worries and concerns may interfere with being confident that I'm a likable person all by myself have been with me for a very long time. It certainly wasn't helped by my ex's desire to keep me away from having, making, or maintaining friendships that weren't first her friends, but my worries predate my ex. As a university student, I was regularly invited to gatherings hosted by someone I knew from the Internet and his friends, some of whom were also Internet people, but just as many weren't. As a university student in the presence of people who clearly appeared to have their shit together and talk about topics that intelligent people do, I mostly listened, asked what I hoped were good questions, and wondered about whether the other people around thought I was okay. (I also tried to ask and remember to bring something with me to contribute. It was usually a case of soda.) The minor reassurance to me was that if I wasn't okay, I wouldn't keep getting asked back. The major reassurance was the host pointing out that one of the people who came out when I was there did not come out for everyone, and therefore I was just fine exactly as the person I was. Those were reassurances, even if I didn't understand them as fully then as I might now. Because there's always a little bit of "well, I'm presenting a specific version of myself here, the one I think fits best to this group, would they still like me if they knew all the good and bad things about me?" that comes with any social situation.
As I've gotten older and wiser and been in plenty of other situations, as far as I know, other people have found me genuinely likable in person. Both people who knew me from the Internet before they met me in person and people who have never met me on the Internet before they've met me in person. (I am regularly reminded by others that things that I consider baseline proper behavior for human entities are often several tiers above what the actual baseline is for human behavior, and maintaining such a high standard for myself makes me very likable to anyone who meets me.) At my worst phases of life, I am convinced that I am unlikable, unkind, unreliable, and that it is better for myself and everyone if they stop associating with me and don't come back until I have learned how to properly behave. Or my ex was working on isolating me more and convincing me that the reason why I wasn't being invited to things any more was a fault in me, rather than because those friends rightly didn't want to associate with her. (I'm not always the best at reading hits. Even the blatant ones.) With time and assistance from the professionals, though, I feel reasonably confident in saying that in some alternate universe where I recognized that the relationship with my ex wasn't going to work out early enough to not have to suffer the major consequences from it, I would still be able to make and keep friends, and probably have at least some form of dating life, even possibly to the point of pooling resources for a shared apartment or house by now. (Although the housing market would still be as unaffordable now as it is in this dimension.) While the pandemic has made it more difficult to achieve some of that broad social circle that I'll likely be chasing in a FOMO-y kind of way if things ever ease enough where the thought of eating in restaurants or going to karaoke nights doesn't feel like taking your life into your hands, I feel a little bit more confident in saying that I can meet people and make friends by being myself around people with similar interests.
The kindness certainly helps, so that's what I'll lead with.
- kind (comparative kinder, superlative kindest)
- Having a benevolent, courteous, friendly, generous, gentle, liberal, sympathetic, or warm-hearted nature or disposition, marked by consideration for – and service to – others.
- Affectionate
- Favorable
- Mild, gentle, forgiving
- Gentle; tractable; easily governed
- (obsolete) Characteristic of the species; belonging to one's nature; natural; native.
That's really sweet, for someone to say that about me. I do want to come across as kind to people that I want to be kind to.
Admittedly, there's some aspects of it that can be twisted into negative aspects. My ex certainly took advantage of my kindness, exploiting my general unwillingness to make my partner unhappy by refusing to accept my no unless it was phrased as a no. So she taught me, by necessity, about how no is a complete sentence, and then followed that up with the lesson that I needed to be willing to stand by that no, and accept her unhappiness as a consequence, if I was going to use my no. It was stressful. But, as it turns out, it was specifically because it was always going to be a fight and an effort to use my no. For other people who respect me as a person, I can use my full arsenal of no available instead of having to only use one method.
Back to kindness, though. Other than the "Easily governed" part, the rest of those definitions are part of how I want to approach the world. It pains me, to some degree, to not be able to do as much as I could for people that I want to, but I'm also trying to keep my household afloat, and that, at least for a little while more, is going to mean having to manage my resources carefully. I can, at least, do the warm-hearted, affectionate, forgiving parts and try to be gentle and mild in the way I relate to others, so long as they haven't done things that warrant either suspicion or hostility from me. (And even then, as evidenced by how long I stayed with my ex, I can still believe that progress is possible long past the point where it won't happen and more stringent measures have to be taken.)
The last part of the first definition is interesting to me. I hadn't noticed the additional dimension present about service here when I use the word kind or when others use it around me, even as I have used it to mean "considerate," often in a context of "considerate and accommodating in a situation where it's not demanded, required, or necessary." Which is why when people thank me for helping shepherd a child through the process of selecting interesting books, or I stick with someone through the process of doing something new and technological like attaching documents, scanning documents, or navigating an unfamiliar benefits website, I usually respond with "They pay me to do this," an indication that I'm performing something within my job description to use my knowledge to help someone achieve things. Some of that knowledge is not as commonly distributed among the staff, admittedly, but the thanks is often as much for the patience of seeing someone through the process as it is deploying the knowledge that will help get them through it.
The "service" element of the definition is interesting, not just for the choice of profession (and the often explicit weaponization and exploitation of wanting to help and be useful to others that comes with it to avoid doing things like properly paying someone and making efforts to make the workplace safer and less mentally taxing on those who work there), but also because one of the "core" brainweasels that I have struggled with all of my life is the one that insists my worth is tied to how useful I am to others. Not so much believing that productivity is my only important metric, or inappropriate identification with my work or profession as the sole indicator of worth I have, but an insidious underlying layer that insists that my full self is boring, selfish, and uninteresting. (Or that the bad elements of my full self overshadow the good ones.) So I try to compensate for that by being useful. For a not-as-random-example-as-it-looks, I remember reading, probably in a Playboy or similar magazine when I wasn't over the age line to be looking at the pictures (but I spent most of my time reading the articles), or possibly someone's manual for achieving boast-worthy feats of masculinity (morbid curiosity about what the pick-up artists were striving for, maybe,) there was a list of suggestions of "how to get the hot bartender to go home with you at the end of her shift." The first was "don't buy a drink from her, because then you're a customer like everyone else, and she'll dismiss anything you say after that as either the booze talking or a customer trying to butter her up." One of the first few after that, though, advised the would-be Cyrano to have a talent, a trick, or something useful to do at the bar that would help drive more drink orders or better tips to the bartender. One of the suggestions of how to impress the bartender by helping with the customers was to have close-up magic skills on hand to provide entertainment.
The phrasing "be useful" stuck in my head, even if I never really did much with the bar scene in the ages where I theoretically should have been at the top of my game. And quickly came to the conclusion that trying to pick up the bartender while the bartender was working (or shortly after) was identifying yourself as the conductor of the train to Creepsville, the kind that ran into the Bouncer Express with regularity. So my default mode of interaction in a new situation (or even in familiar ones where I feel nervous or outclassed by the other people there) is "be useful." Which often translates into acts of concern and service where possible, because people are less likely to reject someone who helps out when needed, right?
My internal worries and concerns may interfere with being confident that I'm a likable person all by myself have been with me for a very long time. It certainly wasn't helped by my ex's desire to keep me away from having, making, or maintaining friendships that weren't first her friends, but my worries predate my ex. As a university student, I was regularly invited to gatherings hosted by someone I knew from the Internet and his friends, some of whom were also Internet people, but just as many weren't. As a university student in the presence of people who clearly appeared to have their shit together and talk about topics that intelligent people do, I mostly listened, asked what I hoped were good questions, and wondered about whether the other people around thought I was okay. (I also tried to ask and remember to bring something with me to contribute. It was usually a case of soda.) The minor reassurance to me was that if I wasn't okay, I wouldn't keep getting asked back. The major reassurance was the host pointing out that one of the people who came out when I was there did not come out for everyone, and therefore I was just fine exactly as the person I was. Those were reassurances, even if I didn't understand them as fully then as I might now. Because there's always a little bit of "well, I'm presenting a specific version of myself here, the one I think fits best to this group, would they still like me if they knew all the good and bad things about me?" that comes with any social situation.
As I've gotten older and wiser and been in plenty of other situations, as far as I know, other people have found me genuinely likable in person. Both people who knew me from the Internet before they met me in person and people who have never met me on the Internet before they've met me in person. (I am regularly reminded by others that things that I consider baseline proper behavior for human entities are often several tiers above what the actual baseline is for human behavior, and maintaining such a high standard for myself makes me very likable to anyone who meets me.) At my worst phases of life, I am convinced that I am unlikable, unkind, unreliable, and that it is better for myself and everyone if they stop associating with me and don't come back until I have learned how to properly behave. Or my ex was working on isolating me more and convincing me that the reason why I wasn't being invited to things any more was a fault in me, rather than because those friends rightly didn't want to associate with her. (I'm not always the best at reading hits. Even the blatant ones.) With time and assistance from the professionals, though, I feel reasonably confident in saying that in some alternate universe where I recognized that the relationship with my ex wasn't going to work out early enough to not have to suffer the major consequences from it, I would still be able to make and keep friends, and probably have at least some form of dating life, even possibly to the point of pooling resources for a shared apartment or house by now. (Although the housing market would still be as unaffordable now as it is in this dimension.) While the pandemic has made it more difficult to achieve some of that broad social circle that I'll likely be chasing in a FOMO-y kind of way if things ever ease enough where the thought of eating in restaurants or going to karaoke nights doesn't feel like taking your life into your hands, I feel a little bit more confident in saying that I can meet people and make friends by being myself around people with similar interests.
The kindness certainly helps, so that's what I'll lead with.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-13 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-13 04:30 am (UTC)Among other kinds
Date: 2022-12-13 07:25 am (UTC)I am alive because of the kindness of strangers.
I live, with my difference, among people like and unlike me who who make it possible for any of us to live, by being kind.
I pray to no god, I pray only to the hope that I find it in me to be kind.
I could say a lot, but I'm just going to leave it there.
Re: Among other kinds
Date: 2022-12-13 03:53 pm (UTC)