Multiplicity.

It suffices to say that I'm a complex person. I don't think I know myself as much as I'd like to think I do.

In a sense, all writers are complex because in one moment he or she can inhabit multiple perspectives. Sometimes I find myself lost in that multiplicity. If I give equal weight to the other's perspective, it becomes difficult to justify my own. That makes me behave tentatively in social situations. It might not just be a writer's complex - perhaps it is an introvert's reflex. It's a kind of imaginative buffer where I distance myself from my own thoughts and compunctions, and automatically see the situation from where another stands. It's like inviting an outsider to church one Sunday. Suddenly the music seems too loud, the lyrics too incomprehensible, the gestures too exaggerated, the sermon too insular, the pews too uncomfortable, the crowd too alien. When just a week ago it was familiar running grounds since childhood.

How does one maintain the obstinacy of one's correctness in a situation of conflicting perspectives and contexts? How does one offer advice - without first knowing the weight of considerations hanging on the person - her background, her personality, the social intricacies surrounding that thorny issue? Why are people so quick to give advice?

I am loathe to advise. Or to interfere - unless I know the person and the context well, and they specifically invite me to weigh in. Too often, I've sat on the receiving end of well-meaning but almost always grating advice - and had to endure it out of politeness. But in my head, oh in my head, I am anything but polite.

Another thing I've realised recently about myself is that I'm dogmatic about accuracy. It annoys me to no end when people speculate about issues they know very little about, and go on about it with baseless confidence and assertion. Often times, when I become curt and anti-social in tone, it's because I'm trying to get someone to clarify something they said or to think it through - when it's probably not a big deal to other people. "Tenor is a higher vocal range than soprano! It's tenor, followed by soprano, alto and bass." "That's not what I learnt. Are you sure?" "Yeah!" *Googling* I become the annoying person who reads out the correct definition of vocal ranges from wikipedia. *sullen silence*
Why can't people just say they don't know when they don't know? Why is accuracy such an issue with me?

The other pet peeve (while we're on the subject of my flaws and complexes) is time-wasting. Efficiency is probably the highest on my list of performative priorities. Worrying is a form of inefficiency. Illogical fears are a waste of emotion. Excessive philosophising and talk is to me empty, vapid, useless. "Did you wash the glass first? Is it really clean?" "What if she feels upset because we didn't give her equal opportunity to share?" 'Did you zip the bag? Did you check?" There is valid concern, and then there is excess. People in general err on the side of excess. This internal ticker timer projects externally as impatience, I'm sure. Why do people worry so much? Why are they cautious about so many things? Why do they keep speculating on the intentions of others and their motives? Why are they so fearful about potentially offending someone? What gives? I realise without concrete examples it is very difficult to illustrate this point, without sounding like some inconsiderate, selfish or stoic prig. Worry is often a form of action paralysis - thinking yourself into a muddle, masked as concern for others - and that aggravates me; when people are constrained by fear.

Recently on a Christian group trip, some unexpected dancers came into the restaurant where we were seated and started egging on a young guy to drink and dance with them. They had been invited by one of the hosts without our prior knowledge. The guy drank the wine they offered, and they started to tease him by being too intimate (hugged him while trying to do the cross-handed cup exchange). Some group members laughed and cheered, others were frozen with a look of horror on their faces. The guy smiled awkwardly throughout the experience, his face beet red, as you would expect with someone embarrassed. The dancers then went on to make fun of other male members in the group.
That evening, we found out that the young guy was furious with the rest of us and wanted to skip debrief and devotion. He felt coerced into the situation, and betrayed by the group's response. Betrayed?

My first response was to brush it off (before I found out about the severity of his response) I'm sure he's fine. It's so minor. He wasn't the only one targeted. He played along, who forced him? If he didn't want to, he could have stopped.

Then we got wind of how he was completely silent on the drive back to the hotel, furious and very affected. A started being moody to the point of tears - I couldn't understand if she felt like she was responsible, or was just so sensitive to other's feelings that when someone else was upset, she felt upset too. Suddenly I had a crew of emotional people to manage, comfort and counsel. The whole situation just seemed blown out of proportion to me. Perhaps he really did feel forced. If I did something, it'd be because I wanted to do it. If I didn't want to, I'd stop doing it. Who's forcing? What, if you just shake your head and break out of the hug, the group would be offended? No, the group would then know you felt uncomfortable and side with you!

So I found myself in a situation where I had to take responsibility for the event even though it had been foisted unplanned upon us. I had to counsel someone even though for the life of me I couldn't understand initially how something as small as this could trigger such an intense emotional response. Community life is draining because what you see as small, is huge to another. What you perceive as an important issue (accuracy), is to someone else inconsequential.

Most people relate to multiplicity of views (a differing opinion, a jarring perspective), with an emotional outburst. Anger, impatience, sadness, guilt, indignation. But for writers, or people like me, (I don't think I'm the only one?) my response is the recognition of a rational/personality disconnect that needs to be explained. I stay fairly calm, and I approach the issue with a kind of tender distance. I pick apart the strands of what led you to feel that way towards something, while standing on the outskirts myself - preferring not to soil myself with the distorting smear of emotion. That distance is sometimes hard to understand. Others might misconstrue it as a lack of empathy, or an anti-social detachment. Psychologists might recognise it as a notch close to psychopathy - an unfeeling distance.
But the fine line that separates this tender distance from psychopathy is that word, "unfeeling". I know what led you to feel upset, even if I wouldn't feel or respond with that same emotion in the given context. I sense the broken frameworks that might have led you to process something differently. It might be wounded esteem, expectation, pride, or a hundred other reasons. In that sense I feel you - as a post-rational trace; circling back, divorced from the initial blow.

I am not there yet, though. There are many responses I don't understand. There are situations that strain the limits of my empathy. There are so many instances I am aloof, and stay aloof- refusing to process, seeing as tediously minute what to you might be mammoth. There are times the issues loom so huge (like insecurity) I don't have the energy to dare to wade into deep waters. There are even times it is not my place to care.

Coming of age.

Do we ever arrive? Coming of age - becoming- is typically applied to teenagers; but adulting doesn’t ever exhaust that process. Nobody seems to ever fully arrive. We may have clearer or fainter ideas of our goals and where we’d like to be headed; but the moment one milestone clears the other looms ahead. These mountains may make you feel small, or they may motivate your swell so that you can overcome. Oftentimes a mountain is both- inflating and deflating.
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Growth - there is a place for that. Unbridled, and in the wrong places, it becomes cancerous.

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How much you know a person > how much you trust > how much you rely on > physical touch

Apparently the equation to an enduring marriage relationship.

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This is just a record stream of consciousness, like a notebook; sorry that it doesn’t make sense.

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Vision: If space is language, I want to be a linguist. Translating from ideation to sensation. Program to spatiality. Intention to matter. To be a doorkeeper into new worlds of experience.

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Community - what kind are we building?