A few days ago I met a friend for dinner at a bar nearby. After that we took a walk through the neighborhood.
We caught up with each other and talked about our goals and the direction we are moving in, and about the town and what we would like to see happen in our community and how we might steer it in a positive way.
We shared a bunch of information with each other, about other places where interesting things are happening that we could visit together. We eneded up recommending a bunch of music and shops to each other.
It was a mostly positive conversation but I noticed an old habit popping up.
I often feel that people can be way too biased towards things they like and biased against things they don’t like. In an effort to show that I am not like this and also in an effort to encourage others to take a more fair view of something, I always try to explain the positives and negatives of something and share as much as I can about both.
I don’t think is a bad thing in and of itself, but laying it all upfronttends to overwhelm people, and sometimes turn them off to whatever it is I’m recommending. It also tends towards the negative as that’s how we are wired as humans, we seek to reduce discomfort.
“Hive is an awesome place, it not perfect but it’s a great place to earn while exploring your creativity and meeting people”.
This would be a perfectly balanced and healthy way to introduce Hive. If they ask more about any part of that statement I should go into it more, but my tendency is always to preemptively share the details of each.
I’ll share a lot
I think formal education drilled this into me. I was raised to support all my statements with as many facts as possible. I was also used to being challenged by both teachers and peers because a lot of my ideas were foreign to them and because Western cultures tend to teach us to express our things logically rather than emotionally.
I believe in balance of course, and my natural tendency is to express things emotionally, often in metaphor, in artistic expressions. To some extent I appreciate they I learned to express things logically and in an organized way.
But before I experienced that, I experienced the anxiety of not feeling free to express myself naturally. The things I said were often ridiculed because they felt so far outside of what was on peoples minds.
I used to contemplate the nature of dreams and complex ethical questions brought up by sci-fi novels I was reading, such as the Dune and Ender’s Game series.
I felt a strong sense of wonder towards the world and its complexities but I found early on that cynicism was much more socially acceptable in both social situations and in academics. Dry sarcasm and a flippant attitude was how boys became popular, and having clear opinions that you could defend with evidence was how you succeeded at school.
There wasn’t much room for gentleness or creativity and so I became extremely guarded, and kept almost everything I thought to myself.
Eventually I found the punk, emo, ska and hardcore scene in surrounding towns and that gave me a kind of support network, but whether it was there or online culture, or university or more broad social settings pessimism reigned supreme.
I guess it’s not so different for many people around the world. Pessimism rules supreme in most environments. In some cultures, like the one I live in now, pessimism is meant to be hidden with new people and only shared with close friends, but it’s still present under the surface.
I don’t believe in pessimism and I never really did. Of course life can be hard or complicated but existence itself is unspeakably beautiful and I want to honor that as often as I can.
But when awkward silences arise or when you are not sure if the other person will accept what you are saying, for many people, myself included, the easiest thing to resort to is some kind of negative remark because it’s so easy to relate to. Back to that instinct of avoiding discomfort, identifying threats is the first step and pessimism is an easy shortcut.
Since so many people are defensive (or offensive) towards ideas that are new or different from theirs, I’ve gotten used to including my own skepticism even with regard to something I like, or believe.
The need to fill awkward silences is just an overactive mind. I hope to learn how to appreciate the silence so it no longer feels awkward.
I don’t want to complain out of default. I don’t want to present so much negative information preemptively. I don’t want to always be in defense.
My conversation with my friend was positive overall but it could have been a lot more natural and fun if I had just leaned into excitement instead of trying to be overly protective by warning him about the bad side of everything immediately after showing him the good side.
I’m going to try and be more aware of this in the future.
I wonder if this article is a little awkward, I wrote the first half two days earlier and wasn’t in the same state of mind when I finished it.
Either way, it feels good to organize my thoughts like this.
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