Irrelevant thoughts

Tag: self-respect

  • Respect

    Respect

    Respect!

    How much value does this word have? I place it at the value given by the one who uses it…, and how do I evaluate that? I look at him: how much he respects himself, how forbearing and understanding he is with others, how harsh he is with himself, having as reference the harshness he has in judging others…

    The semi-conscious — or unconscious, based on uncorrected frustrations or on other „pressures” — choice of one’s own actions and attitude can lead towards a dual system of reference (that is: I am allowed to…, while the other was not even allowed to imagine it).

    I have noticed that the term „respect” is used predominantly in a context in which the term „pampering” would rather fit, for example „I consume Prosecco because I respect myself…”, when in fact much closer to the truth would be the expression „I consume Prosecco because I pamper myself…” (or I coddle myself, or I „bonus” myself).

    Respect…, the one I understand, reveals itself in the way you treat others: you greet all your work colleagues regardless of their position, with the same attention and warmth, you speak without trying to raise yourself above them, without underlining your superiority, whether you have it or whether you do not…, you are understanding, you do not practise arrogance…

    If I am to put it otherwise… it would be „the way in which you treat your fellow men reveals the price you put on yourself”…

    I am not trying to convince you. But if you have a measure of your own, I would like to hear it…

    Further: Thoughts on human relationships and their naturalness (vs. their toxicity)

  • Mercantilism

    Mercantilism

    I have met very many people, in the expression of my sincere intention to find a partner…, the time allotted proved unjustified…, for the most part I met “mercantilism”, in various forms…

    I think it was the form that rounded the lie…, and made it slide (roll) more easily…

    I cannot help recalling a sequence from “Game of Thrones”, when Jon Snow was sincere and any negotiation with Queen Cersei was ruined, and he said, approximately, that if we all set about lying there will be no more truth, only, in his words, “better and better lies”, and then words will no longer mean anything…

    Life, for all of us, comes with problems, needs, wishes…, but it is up to us not to make dramas out of that…, drama is a “semi-elevated” form of mercantilism, when you speculate on emotional blackmail, very often used in the couple, in order to obtain something from the other…

    It seems to me that the moment such a thing appears in the discussion…, that relationship has been “defiled” (dirtied in a way that can no longer be washed off), because one of the persons involved has put themselves and their need above the other, and has trampled the other’s person underfoot, not being fairplay enough to ask clearly, in a friendly conversation…, they forced things so that the other person would consider themselves indebted, and would have the intention of “offering”…, a boorish way of obtaining…

    It can no longer be a partnership, it is mercantilism, between 2 entities that deliberately swap their roles — at least one of them is aware — between master and servant.

    Then we gather frustrations and begin to think with a speculative note about anything the other person does or says…, and it has long ceased to be a partnership, a walking together through life as in a dance…, we are talking about flatmates “with benefits”…

    Nor is it a matter of friends any more…, the first condition of friendship is sincerity…, from second 1 in which one of them had a speculative thought about the other…, from then on it can no longer be friendship either…

    I understand, most people are taught this way…, I do not know who exactly teaches them, but what is certain is that it is practised, and practised in the belief, first of all, that they are protecting themselves…, which is false, they are protecting their frustrations and the unresolved problems inside them…

    And what is most interesting is that it is up to each one of us to resolve them…, and we credit the comfort of the lie — that we are good and great — instead of the correction and the stitching of those wounds that hurt us years later, decades later, because we did not heal them, and they were made in childhood, or in adolescence…

    Through this mercantilism we buy ourselves torment, even if it does not reveal itself at first sight, in essence that is how it comes out…, it is as if you look, like an accountant, at last month’s expenses…, and you see that you bought sweets every day, a few tens of lei each time…, out of a reasoning of the kind “it cannot be much of a problem”…, and at the end of the month you realize you have gone several times over the budget…

    With care not to let myself be defeated by failure…, I feel my way…, only I do it with great care and without compromises…, it is interesting to watch myself, my reasonings and my emotions, how I go about “trying the sea with a finger”…, and at the first sign of incompatibility I stop on it, until it clears up one way or the other…, the worst, it seems to me, is when I identify no sign at all…, and then I feel I am in danger of repeating the mistake of choosing…

    Now, in full experiment about myself…, I try not to let myself be led by wounds I have not yet seen and have not stitched…, it is interesting how I feel very well alone and do not accept “just anything” (just anyone), and at the same time I feel there is a large place…, vacant…, beside me…, and I have the tendency to stretch out my hand and somehow expect to touch someone…

    Talking to a friend, on the phone…, and asking myself, as between friends…, I was telling him that I no longer have the curiosity to meet people…, all the ones I have met had expectations of the kind that I should bring, that I should put into play…, that I should offer…, more than my person and my time…

    And, still on the phone…, I tried to explain to him why the two of us seek each other out, write to each other, call each other, and when we meet we behave as if we had last seen each other yesterday, even though the previous meeting came twenty years after the one before it…

    “Because what we receive from each other is enough, we have no expectations that you should give something more, we ask for nothing of the kind, we are glad that we give each other time, and it is up to us to make it of quality.”

    I am not trying to convince you. But if you have a measure of your own, I would like to hear it…

    Further: How it would be if I were

  • The convenient illusion of the Ego (and of the confusion around self-respect)

    The convenient illusion of the Ego (and of the confusion around self-respect)

    There is the “pride” through which the Ego expresses itself…, and it is generally accepted as being “normal”; I believe it is merely usual, because it is simpler, more comfortable, and we have fewer and fewer examples of — and understanding for — the concept of self-respect…

    I will enumerate a few aspects, just enough to make known to you “my reference”, in such a way that you do not feel offended. I am not interested in argumentative discussions of the kind “whose reference is better, or bigger” — which is also why I call myself Irrelevant…

    Aspect one: if you are a trained and strong fellow…, and you pick a quarrel with people who are neither trained nor strong, only so as to dominate them and to practise your illusion of potency, that is not self-respect, it is boorishness — and more than boorishness, it is a great sign of weakness.

    Aspect two: if you are a person who sees that another person needs, or wants, or would find useful, a thing that lies within the first person’s power, or that they have and it costs no great effort to offer, and they do not offer it but instead put a price on it, a price that brings the 2nd person, the one with the need, to their knees…, that is not self-respect; it is not necessarily boorishness, but it is certainly a great sign of weakness — the need for control, which springs from insecurity. You cannot expect a person who “steps with fear” (through life) to understand self-respect; hard, as long as they step that way…

    Aspect three: if you feel you can do something for others, something that counts, your contribution to their life or to the community’s, and you do it, that is self-respect — when you treat the others the way you expect to be treated as a being; and among other things it excludes duality — or triality, or quadruplicity, depending on how far the thing has gone — that is, that aspect in which you have at least 2 systems of values, one for yourself and another (or others) for everyone else.

    I have underlined 3 points of reference so that you may become familiar with “my measure”, with the subjective measure of the Irrelevant in me.

    In order to communicate to you what self-respect is, I will enumerate, and explain why, the things that exclude self-respect. The first point that comes to mind is “ignorance”: any person who chooses ignorance falls out of the scheme of the possessor of self-respect, because ignorance is a common term that describes comfortable people… One of the greatest efforts is to think…, the ignorant one is a person who spares themselves intellectually…, not to be confused with limited access to information, where the person’s tendency is still to seek to understand.

    The second aspect I would underline is “arrogance”. At a certain moment in my existence I realized how ugly arrogance is, but I did so when I was on the other side of it…, and then, meeting a person I could talk to, when he asked me “why are you upset, Irrelevant?”, I told him “I have realized how ugly arrogance is and I do not know how to get rid of the one I have grown inside me”, and he said to me “my dear Irrelevant…, arrogance is the prerogative of any intelligent person”. I told him I do not agree, but I understand his reasoning…: being intelligent, at some point you no longer have many people around you to talk with, and a “shortcut” appears (which then becomes a reflex) — to treat people from above, being used to having no partner in conversation…; however it may be, arrogance is the treating of other people from above, and implicitly the underlining of their smallness, which for the most part might lean on ignorance…, and I would say that arrogance does not help…, everyone gains more if people understand certain things, or processes, and if they cannot, it still stands that everyone gains more when, through your behaviour, you lift up the one beside you rather than point out how far down he is.

    Now that we have arrived “organically” at where self-respect appears: it is in moral conduct and in the treatment of those you interact with. This respect reveals itself also in each person’s work — they never make a mockery of what they do, they do it conscientiously, and above the financial motivation stands the moral motivation, “principles”, as some like to formulate it, except that when you mention them you feel the need to name them precisely because they are not evident…

    If people had self-respect and behaved towards others the way they hope or wish to be treated themselves…, everything would go far more simply and naturally. Think what it would be like, in traffic: being attentive to all the participants, you see a fellow driver who is in a hurry, or who simply does not know which lane to take…, and you make room for him, without horns, without “my right is bigger than your right…”, without anything of the sort…, you might have the impression that you are in a civilized country where people have some self-respect…

    Beyond traffic you can approach any other conjuncture. At work: everyone goes to work for money, you have already made the agreement of the kind “your time, your potency and your capacity for ‘this’ money”, and you have a bad day, or there is a particularity you have not understood…, or…, various details, from time to time…, would it not be simpler and easier, and perhaps even decent, for it to be explained to you, for you to be helped, a little…? — not as a habit of not knowing; that would mean you are not in the right position or the right post…

    And now, the concept of self-respect being clear, in my optics — a respect that is not practised the way the world says it has principles, because if it were…, this world would be a better place…, I tell you that it is up to each one separately to have self-respect, and it has nothing to do with what the others do…: if I am honked at in traffic because I did not signal during a quick jerk of the wheel, having not been in the right lane — travelling a great deal, I do not know all the “details” of every city, and it does happen that I take the wrong lane — and I have got in someone’s way…, I thank him for “letting me in”, I put on the hazard lights, and if our eyes meet I thank him sincerely and admit, with a raised hand, that I made “a jerk of a move”; if I were to relate to the offence the fellow driver felt and answer him with a horn of my own, it would be a pointless circus, because I have already done a jerky thing, and in any case nobody was hit, but the contest of “my right is bigger” brings nothing good…, in my optics…

    The same thing appears in any kind of relationship, especially the couple…, if you are under the impression that this is self-respect, to have the bigger right, and for the other person to agree that yours is bigger…, in my optics…, it is childish behaviour in the couple relationship…, and you are practising arrogance…

    I am not trying to convince you. But if you have a measure of your own, I would like to hear it…

    Further: The need to underline one’s importance