Social Perceptions

[Secular Sanity]

Not really sure why but I've heard it from other people who in hindsight don't really know me.

For starters.....I am not easily persuaded by large groups nor am I trendy. I tend to deal with issues on a personal basis, direct and blunt. People have no idea what I have done on a charitable level because I don't brag about it. I look before I leap in just about every endeavor. I rationalize things, reason and logic are important to me. One of favorite expressions is 'there's no reward for stupidity'.

"We will gradually become indifferent to what goes on in the minds of other people when we acquire a knowledge of the superficial nature of their thoughts, the narrowness of their views and of the number of their errors. Whoever attaches a lot of value to the opinions of others pays them too much honor."
― Arthur Schopenhauer

If you have numerous people testifying against what you think may be the case, and if they’re in a position to judge the matter with their views not being superficial or prone to error then you have to wonder whether you’re getting it right.  So, it is valuable to have other opinions.

Of the opinions that I do value, apparently, my bluntness can be viewed as being judgmental, especially by professional victims, or people who don’t really know me.  A friendship that has mutual value is a rare commodity.  It’s friendship, not ownership.  You have to value a friend as a person that needs to pursue their own interests.  

Speaking of ownership, I was reading about how France is all smitten with Francois Mitterrand’s love letters to one of his many former mistresses.  They can’t get enough of their former president's love affairs.  It reminds of our current presidential campaign. They had previously viewed her as a victim forced to hide her love.  He was 46 and she was 19 when they first met.  One article said that powerful men, especially presidents, are almost expected to have mistresses, and Henry Kissinger’s contention that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac" is taken quite seriously in France.  

Some excerpts are very romantic, for example, "Near to you, united to you, in you - that is what I am. It is the unbelievable paradox: I exist at the very moment that I dissolve into you," but there were a few others that I found disturbing.  

"I love you as one loves one’s child,"Mitterrand confesses. . . . "the joy that flows in me when I hold your mouth, the possession that burns me with all the fires of earth, my blood gushing in the depth of you, your pleasure that surges from the volcano of our bodies . . . Nothing else has existed . . . oh perfect incest . . . Imagining you belonging to another, physically, is atrocious."

I’d be saying, "Oh, shit!  Red flag!  Red flag!"  WTF?  That’s ownership right there.  

Hmm…maybe I am judgmental.  

[Zinjanthropos]

Hmm…maybe I am judgmental.  

Then again, this is the internet. Me, you and everyone else are just disembodied posters on faceless media. Enunciation, elocution, articulation, although nice to have, tells us precious little about the person punching the keyboard. I try and keep things in perspective, no one can know if I'm truthful or not, one simply has to make that decision based on what they read. To a fault I tend to look at the internet with amusement and find it highly entertaining.

[Secular Sanity]

Then again, this is the internet. Me, you and everyone else are just disembodied posters on faceless media. Enunciation, elocution, articulation, although nice to have, tells us precious little about the person punching the keyboard. I try and keep things in perspective, no one can know if I'm truthful or not, one simply has to make that decision based on what they read. To a fault I tend to look at the internet with amusement and find it highly entertaining.

I think that sometimes you can tell when someone is lying in a forum. You can comb through their posting history. They’ll use uncharacteristic language, avoid the word "I", or skip sensory details, but the main give away is when they feel the need to reinforce it. They’ll usually come back to it and add sensory details at a later time.