Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ratbastid
Let's not worry about that just now.
Instead, can you see that if there are no rules or scripts, you're totally free? That also means there are no consequences for "messing it up". You're free to color outside the lines--just like you did with that little girl you posted about. Can you see that, if you could stand there, you wouldn't need to worry about what you're "supposed to do"?
|
I grant you that
if there are no rules or scripts, that would make me free and would mean no consequences. That's a really, really big if, though.
Even people like Sissy and Grace operate using basic scripts and do so within the basic rules of interaction. The difference is that they're able to deal with it when the interaction goes off script, and that's what I want to be able to do.
Quote:
|
You should ONLY think about that if you're interested in not being stiff and boring with other people. The rules make you stiff and boring. The rules were made up by that mind of yours, the one that wants you staying at Point A, where it's nice and safe and comfortable, even though you're trapped and miserable a lot of the time. The rules ARE Point A, and that mind is NOT your friend.
|
Well, first, stiff and boring is an easy one. That's just who I am, and I'm just fortunate that my family doesn't care that that's how I am and it doesn't detract from my job performance. I mean, it takes a boring person to write a paper called "Minority Representation Threshold Impact on Self-Conceptualization and the Metaphorical Other in Pictorial and Emergent Children's Literature" (my doctoral dissertation). And yes, the whole thing sounds like that. My students really don't seem to mind, which is probably because the subject matter is so interesting in and of itself that I don't have to be. I'm a good enough teacher that I don't have to be entertaining.
How do I differentiate between the rules of society and the rules I've imposed on myself from within? I know, that seems a simple, obvious question. Grace and Sissy do it without thinking, most people probably do.
Quote:
This is worth noting: where you are is no fun, right? Yet it's way safer and more comfortable than shifting to anything else. AND it's perfectly all right to stay right where you are--nobody's going to make you change. Hell, nobody COULD ever make you change even if they wanted to.
Somewhere, there's a conscious choice waiting for you to make it. A choice to get out beyond how you know yourself and other people and the world, or to BE the introvert you are for yourself. A choice between giving up everything you think you know in exchange for what might be possible if you gave it up, OR staying exactly where you are, comfortable in the knowledge that you "are" shy, and accepting all the negative stuff that comes with that. In short, a choice between freedom and safety.
Either one is fine, once you choose it. All that's going on here is, either you haven't made that choice yet, or you have, and you're not telling the truth to yourself about it.
|
Isn't there some in-between area? I mean, a place where I can stay in my safe place at home and at work and in my classroom, and when I'm out with Grace, but where I have access to the tools to deal with an unexpected situation or a situation that requires more assertiveness, or a conversation that goes off the rails?
I mean, I was watching Grace at the party--everyone watches Grace at a party, it's like there's a spotlight following her around--and I could see that she was enjoying herself, and that the other people were enjoying her, and I want to be able to do that. Not the part where everyone is watching me, good grief I don't want that, but I want to be able to enjoy myself at a party, or know when it's time to get up and leave the restaurant and not get upset because I wasn't served, or be able to ask where the vitamins are without being embarrassed about it.
Gilda