are you still breathing?
i remember in 2003 having told someone that my honesty was in itself deceitful. obviously i had an idea about why, otherwise i wouldn't have said it, but i feel like today i realized how to better articulate it - what it means and why.
i was thinking about whether it was true then, whether it were still true now, and i realize that it is, possibly more so now than then.
i was thinking about it because i had recently regarded someone as a private person, and wanted him to be open with me. i tried to coax him with my openness, which is what i have always done, and that is how my honesty is deceitful...
personal information is like emotional currency. details have value. of course the value of a currency depends on the individuals involved and the value they place on it.
i offer details that most people presume are intimate and private, and so in terms of this emotional currency, it seems to others that the information is valuable, but to me, it's not.
i'm actually just as private as anyone, because i'm not intimating details that are personal to me. they're not private, because i give them to everybody.
i'm constantly talking about personal details for a number of reasons. i'm self-centered, for one thing, but the constant gibbering about things that seem personal gives the illusion of an intimate conversation to which people can contribute their own personal information, and it distracts me from what might actually matter to me as a person.
i say things as soon as i think of them, so that they're out of my head and in the ether. then i don't have to think about them anymore. i will talk about some things incessantly so that i'm no longer thinking about them, and this gives the illusion that i'm very concerned or obsessed, when really the discussion is only a distraction from what could actually concern me - what i'm choosing to ignore.
at this point, i've been doing this for so long, that i don't even know from what i wish to distract myself. i don't know me... i wonder if my friends do. i suppose, it's likely that they know me better than i know myself. i suppose that's also pretty common.
beginning around the end of elementary school i've had friends whom i considered very close, and for the most part still consider so. there are several in whom i know i can always confide, but i rarely do. this year, i've made some new friends whom i would consider just as close, maybe closer. still, even with these people whom i love and regard so highly, i exhibit deflective behaviour.
there have been a few times this semester when i was really despairing for whatever reason, and didn't talk to anybody about it. in other people, i find emotions endearing and intriguing, but in myself i find them weak. i have a serious issues with revealing what i perceive as weakness - be it emotional, physical, or otherwise. i don't want to need help, or to accept it, because i should be better than everyone else. my intense arrogance is a tower in an ocean.
i fantasize about being an automaton: devoid of emotions, better than human.
[/emo]
i was thinking about whether it was true then, whether it were still true now, and i realize that it is, possibly more so now than then.
i was thinking about it because i had recently regarded someone as a private person, and wanted him to be open with me. i tried to coax him with my openness, which is what i have always done, and that is how my honesty is deceitful...
personal information is like emotional currency. details have value. of course the value of a currency depends on the individuals involved and the value they place on it.
i offer details that most people presume are intimate and private, and so in terms of this emotional currency, it seems to others that the information is valuable, but to me, it's not.
i'm actually just as private as anyone, because i'm not intimating details that are personal to me. they're not private, because i give them to everybody.
i'm constantly talking about personal details for a number of reasons. i'm self-centered, for one thing, but the constant gibbering about things that seem personal gives the illusion of an intimate conversation to which people can contribute their own personal information, and it distracts me from what might actually matter to me as a person.
i say things as soon as i think of them, so that they're out of my head and in the ether. then i don't have to think about them anymore. i will talk about some things incessantly so that i'm no longer thinking about them, and this gives the illusion that i'm very concerned or obsessed, when really the discussion is only a distraction from what could actually concern me - what i'm choosing to ignore.
at this point, i've been doing this for so long, that i don't even know from what i wish to distract myself. i don't know me... i wonder if my friends do. i suppose, it's likely that they know me better than i know myself. i suppose that's also pretty common.
beginning around the end of elementary school i've had friends whom i considered very close, and for the most part still consider so. there are several in whom i know i can always confide, but i rarely do. this year, i've made some new friends whom i would consider just as close, maybe closer. still, even with these people whom i love and regard so highly, i exhibit deflective behaviour.
there have been a few times this semester when i was really despairing for whatever reason, and didn't talk to anybody about it. in other people, i find emotions endearing and intriguing, but in myself i find them weak. i have a serious issues with revealing what i perceive as weakness - be it emotional, physical, or otherwise. i don't want to need help, or to accept it, because i should be better than everyone else. my intense arrogance is a tower in an ocean.
i fantasize about being an automaton: devoid of emotions, better than human.
[/emo]