WESOTERIC » I really can't take it.

Blogroll

Thus revealed, the creature buried its nose in the tire-tilled soil...

June 7, 2007

Excerpted from an AIM conversation today:

Me: man these old Boy Meets World episodes never fail to warm my heart
Person: but there's no black people... Boy Meets World doesn't get a token black character til WAAY later

And yes, that response came completely out of left field -- but wouldn't you know that not a single goddamned day goes by during which someone in my life does not say something along these lines. These people are supposed to be my friends and loved ones and so much -- so, so much -- of what comes out of their mouths or is conveyed by their fingertips causes my head to throb and my eyeballs to sting so intensely that I want to inhale carbon monoxide rather than endure the day after day after day after day after day of said pain that will inevitably follow. I don't even know why I'm posting about it here, since I don't really expect you to be able to offer any consolation or comforting words so much as I expect you to further compound my pain. All too frequently I voice my distress with a certain media development or personal incident only to be met with a non sequitur comment to the effect of "yeah, I know what you mean; if it were me, I would be embarrassed for my race too" or an equally insulting and ridiculous off-base or dismissive response, and I want to repeatedly bang my forehead against something very, very hard because oh. my. god. you. morons. just. don't. fucking. get. it. And I sincerely wonder if said parties ever could even if they lived to be 969 years old.

More and more I am becoming convinced that my relative lack of social interaction during my childhood and more recent formative years -- or something -- has placed me on a superior plane of social recognition, such that these others somehow represent, by comparison, lesser or inferior forms of life. I realize that sounds very, very weird, and of course I don't mean to suggest that my solitude has caused me to involve into some superior creature who is intrinsically more valuable or worthwhile than other, "normal" human beings. That would be crazy! (Though with the amount of intense headaches that my interactions with others cause me to suffer, insanity on my part would not be a surprising outcome.) But all too often it feels like I am dealing with intelligences on par with those of animals, where there are important things that I understand with little effort that they clearly will never be able to grasp.

For example: I like Bacardi a lot, but I could never sit down with him and make him understand Plato -- not that he needs to, because he is a dog. Rolling over and fetching his plush blue bone is sufficient. However, throughout all of my interactions with Bacardi, I have never become acutely aware that he is actively devaluing me as an individual with every other word. And what gets me regarding these other people is that they must be similarly devaluing others -- and oftentimes I am present during these very interactions -- so why am I the only person who realizes it? Why am I the only person offended? Are others so incapable of evaluating statements and drawing conclusions? Or are they just entirely unbothered -- or even amused -- when people mistreat them? Are they so shamefully lacking in individual pride and self-respect? If the latter, it could explain why people are so quick to seek pride elsewhere -- and perhaps why I am so frequently and so grossly misunderstood.

More and more I am finding this life to be unbearable.

-posted by Wes | 5:29 pm | Comments (13)

13 Comments »

the Jax says:

June 8, 2007 at 7:26 pm

Yeah, it's hard to know what to say to that...I guess you just have the luck to interact with tons of people for whom "race" is an acceptable way of classifying people. Around here, everywhere one looks it's "National Hispanic University" and "Celebrate Asian-Pacific History Month". Yet I'm continually shocked by encountering the "diversity challenged" in cosmopolitan San Jose--"damn Asian drivers! And why isn't the sign on their damn restaurant in English only!"
I partially agree with your past assertion that some of those who "celebrate their heritage" only help to perpetuate the social relevance of race. Should it be relevant? No. At best, it can help you vaguely describe the physical appearance of a person. "Female. Short. Plump. Caucasian." No assumptions about character, likes & dislikes, or aptitudes should follow.
You're an unusually intelligent person, Wes. It's hard for you to accept that others seem incapable of reason and common decency. By now, you should be used to other people's pride in their ignorance and antagonism. Not you, nor I, nor Professor X, can change that about most of the population. You can't stop the cattle from watching Oprah, neglecting to wear a seat belt, overdrawing a checking account to buy a $300 shirt, feeding their kids a Big Mac & supersized fries & Coke every night, or saying things like "Those Samoans sure are cheery fellows, but I wouldn't let them watch my purse" and "He must be a fag--just look at his haircut!"
Yes, there is something wrong with society. But I think it will get gradually better--VERY gradually. Within 300 years, I think humanity will look back in astonishment that in the 21st century, people thought skin color and sexual orientation actually mattered. They will also be appalled that we even had religions, which of course led to nuclear war and the end of all life on Earth. (These future people dwell on Mars.)

Reply
Wes says:

June 8, 2007 at 8:05 pm

I'm not sure how far along I was before, but I'm now at the point where all of the people "celebrating their (ethnic) heritage" are helping to perpetuate the social emphasis on "race". Cultural heritage can be problematic too, but until a clear distinction is drawn between culture and race -- which people are decidedly not doing, instead preferring to insist that there is a necessary connection between them -- "celebrating" any of them is not helping in the least.

It's not so much hard for me to "accept" it as it is for me to cope with the analogous treatment that I receive -- which in short equates to the kind of life that I am doomed to live, should I continue living. It is all very well and good to jokingly suggest that these problems will be solved in 300 years, but right now they are causing me to have debilitating headaches and be unable or unwilling to rise from bed on a daily basis.

How does one cope when apparently even one's most casual and mundane statements must be run through some weird cognitive filter so that the listeners (or readers) can reconcile them to the color of the speaker's (or writer's) skin? That is what I need to know. Because life as it is is exceedingly maddening, and I daily grow closer to mixing up a potassium cyanide cocktail or chopping everyone who crosses my path into groundchuck. I cannot exist in this world and retain my sanity -- or what remains of it -- for very much longer.

Reply
Walt says:

June 9, 2007 at 9:25 pm

Much like Lee and Jackson, you are a chivalrous Southern gentleman.
Your culture is of the finest of nobel traditions. http://www.revisionisthistory......rates.html

Reply
Wes says:

June 10, 2007 at 2:19 am

Thanks for joining the list of people who spew moronic and offensive shit at me, Walt.

Reply
the Jax says:

June 11, 2007 at 12:32 am

Wes, I'm not belittling your emotions, but why do you let these encounters debilitate you so? Were you bedridden after clicking Walt's provoking link? Why not just say, "Oh, another ignorant ass crosses my path," and not dwell on it to the point of fearing for your sanity? I don't know why you meet so many people who have the urge to put you into a box that fits their prejudices, maybe it has to do with where you live, but that doesn't explain the online harassment.
Easier said then done, but it is possible to brush away shocks and disappointments of social intercourse like so much mooing and oinking. Why let these dumb animals have so much power over us? Allow these people (and the systems that perpetuate their views) to stir up such anger and turmoil, and your life comes to halt as they "live in your head rent-free". They make fantastically poor tenants.
I'm sure I speak for many readers: you deserve to be happy, healthy, and free. We don't want to see you driven to violence or despair by others' malicious idiocy. Since the social environment is unlikely to change overnight, the will to thrive despite it all must lie within yourself. Don't your philosophers have something bolstering to say about it?
I didn't start out to joke about the future centuries; I really do believe that all these "-isms" will come to an end, unless civilization does first. Please be well.

Reply
Wes says:

June 11, 2007 at 2:00 pm

Wes, I'm not belittling your emotions, but why do you let these encounters debilitate you so? ... I don't know why you meet so many people who have the urge to put you into a box that fits their prejudices... but that doesn't explain the online harassment.

They debilitate me so because I'm rapidly concluding that it's everyone. Real life, online, in the United States, overseas -- everywhere. Try imagining that to everything you ever say, people respond to you with a statement along the lines of "aardvarks eat peppermint patties" -- something so ridiculous that you immediately become patently aware that the person not only is not listening to you at all (or is hearing other words that significantly alter the content of your speech), but is utterly incapable of truly understanding even the most mundane of the words you say. And given the rarity of the 0.03% of instances where someone doesn't respond to you in that fashion, you question whether the person didn't say it simply because he/she thought it was understood.

Or maybe it would be easier to understand if we tried a slightly more realistic example. Suppose that, owing to your sex, every comment you made was dismissed with a rejoinder to the effect of "whatever, go put on a frilly dress." Imagine how upset that might make you if you heard it even three times a day. Now imagine that during the whole of your life, you have never heard anything else. Just imagine.

I'm not aware of any philosophers who said anything encouraging on this subject -- likely because there is nothing encouraging to be said, but also because philosophers tend to expect that they have an audience capable of understanding the complex suggestions and theories they put forth. If they didn't, they likely wouldn't continue writing at all. This could explain the rather high number of suicides among philosophers.

But whereas I imagine it would be rather discouraging for a philosopher to find that his audience is unable to grasp his/her more complex ideas, I can't even reasonably expect others to understand me when I put forth even the most mundane and obvious of observances. Is it even clear why the quoted AIM excerpt -- and the numerous similar comments I hear on a regular basis -- is so insulting? I regard it as being obvious -- hence my failure to fully explain its flaws in the post itself -- but I do wonder if anyone else grasps the import of it. Certainly Walt didn't.

I really don't expect anyone to have any answers here, Jax -- I don't think there are any. I don't even expect anyone to understand what I'm trying to convey here. So I am going to stop now.

Reply
Reader says:

June 11, 2007 at 8:57 pm

HERACLEITOS
THE PATH OF INVESTIGATION
1. Although this Logos is eternally valid, yet men are (unable to understand it) -- not only before hearing it, but even after they have heard it for the first time. That is to say, although all things come to pass in accordance with this Logos, men seem to be quite without any experience of it - at least if they are judged in the light of such words and deeds as I am here setting forth.

1a.. (cited as part of the above...) My own method is to distinguish each thing according to its nature, and to specify how it behaves; other men, on the contrary, are as neglectful of what they do when awake as they are when asleep. (1)

2. We should let ourselves be guided by what is common to all. Yet, although the Logos is common to all, most men live as if each of them had a private intelligence of his own. (2)

3. Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars. (35)

4. Seekers after gold dig up much earth and find little. (22)

5. Let us not make arbitrary conjectures about the greatest matters. (47)

6. Much learning does not teach understanding, otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Hecataeus. (40)

7. Of those whose discourses I have heard there is not one who attains to the realization that wisdom stands apart from all else. (108)

8.. I have searched myself. (101)

9. It pertains to all men to know themselves and to be temperate. (116)

10. To be temperate is the greatest virtue. Wisdom consists in speaking and acting the truth, giving heed to the nature of things. (112)

11.. The things of which there can be sight, hearing, and learning ---- these are what I especially prize. (55)

12. Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears. (101a)

13. Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men having barbarian souls. (107)

14. One should not act or speak as if he were asleep. (73)

15. The waking have one world. in common, whereas each sleeper turns away to a private world of his own. (89)

16. Whatever we see when awake is death; when asleep, dreams. (21)

17. Nature loves to hide itself (123)

18. The lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither speaks nor conceals, but gives signs. (93)

19. Unless you expect the unexpected you will never find truth, for it is hard to discover and hard to attain. (18)

THE IDEA OF THE CONTINUUM
20. Everything flows and nothing abides;. Everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.

Reply
dave says:

June 25, 2007 at 4:46 am

If the Doctor didn't consider skin color important, he might have mistakenly given the Black Guardian the key to time, because he might not have differentiated between him and the White Guardian, and thus subjected us all to a continuation of that assinine series of episodes as he tried to get it back!

Sorry if that's a moronic comment, but it's the best I can summon after watching Key to Time.

...is the Doctor's name "Theta Sigma" and is he just a pompus ass with a PhD who insists on being called "Doctor" as the last episode of Key to Time suggests?

Reply
Reader says:

June 25, 2007 at 12:53 pm

I understand why your AIM friend's comment was offensive to you, but keep in mind that that person probably was trying to kid around and take your side by complaining that there was no one black on the show. yes, I know you hate being identified that way, or for people to feel they have to make a comment like that to you, but at least they have (i think) good intentions. I've heard white people complain about the lack of minorities on "Friends" without there needing to be another minority in the room to say it - they mean no harm. Try to separate friend from foe, even though there are similarities.

Reply
Nick says:

June 25, 2007 at 7:15 pm

Hey Wes, longtime reader. Well the thing is you are right; almost everyone does think this way. But I think you are attributing it to malice instead of basic human nature, which is what is causing to do be depressed. Human beings are master of analogy and generalization, it's part of what helped us evolve from the apes and it has some very unfortunate social side effects (especially for us black people in the US). I hate to sound like an apologist on the topic, but the older I get the more unfairness and hypocrisy I see in the word. At some point you have to decide to accept the cards you were dealt and just play the game. Anyway, I found this link you might find interesting and maybe it will cheer you up.

http://www.pointlesswasteoftim.....phere.html

Reply
Wes says:

June 26, 2007 at 12:23 pm

Reader: The problem, though, is that that kind of mentality precludes the possibility of genuine friendship: for all of their supposed good intentions, these persons cannot ever really be my friends because they are utterly incapable of recognizing me as being an individual. Conversely -- and I didn't go into this above, but it is worth considering -- the only people who could ever even possibly be my friends are the ones who vehemently despise me, because they do seem to recognize me as an individual (though they hate me for my individual behaviors, views, etc.). And when "friend" is inevitably foe and foe is as close to friend as one can get, the world is a very depressing place.

Nick: Attributing it to malice would be far less depressing than chalking it up to human nature, actually -- the wicked are (hopefully, in most cases) not incapable of changing and being redeemed, but human nature is a fairly immutable concept. You suggest that human beings, simply because of what they are, are utterly incapable of entering into remotely meaningful relationships with me (if not with everyone). Recognizing that -- and assuming that the most worthwhile things in life do, in fact, involve meaningful relationships with others -- what kind of cards do I have? How does one play that? Furthermore, treating individuals this way clearly is not in my nature, so what does that make me?

At any rate, in keeping with your analogy, there only seem to be three options: I can fold (that is, commit suicide), continue to lose ad infinitum (that is, go through life in perpetual misery, knowing that my situation will never improve because human nature renders people incapable of treating me any better), or assert my superiority by flipping over the card table and shoving the chips down the throats of the other players (that is, murder spree, which would bring me little joy but would nevertheless help to reduce the numbers of the inferior species that has made my ruined existence unbearable). I do not like any of these options.

The link is interesting, though.

Reply
dave says:

June 27, 2007 at 7:58 am

Wes, I think you're internalizing the behavior - not in yourself, but in them - in a not entirely accurate way.

People are repeating something they've heard somewhere else.

So people repeat whatever they've garnered from other conversations on the topic.
It's self perpetuating - since people talk about it or give it importance, people talk about it and give it importance.

I believe, in essence, it's no different from someone assuming they can engage in a conversation about the Yankees or American Idol with whoever's in the room (I use those as examples because I would never indicate that I have any interest in either). I don't even think it even means they themselves are fans, just that they're talking about what 'people talk about'. It's not even lack of depth on their part : They probably don't know you well in which case they're just running down the list of conversation topics that have worked for them in the past or they've seen work in the past.

There are people incapable of moving beyond platitudes in their conversation, but it's not everyone. Point is, if a particular topic of conversation has ever worked for them with anyone, there is no reason for them not to try it with you.

Reply
Nick says:

June 27, 2007 at 11:35 am

Wes, it is still possible to have meaningful relationships with people without their having to completely understand every facet of your being. Do some self-analysis. You have a particular fixation on not being identified through black stereotypes, and this pervades your interaction and understanding with everyone you meet. It's a sensitive spot for you, but no amount of depression or wishing that world will change will make you any less black and it will take Herculean effort to change the thoughts of billions of people who harbor the very sterotypes you loathe. The kind of people you'd like to make friends with do not exist in the grown-up world. They exist only in the all-accepting world of children who have not yet had time to absorb the stereotypes and generalizations that will ultimately be forced on them by society. You can either be depressed by this or realize that the people you are friends with have made an effort to look past stereotypes and spend the precious minutes of their life in your company. Accept that they, and you, and everyone on earth is flawed in some way and that is just the way the world is.

Having read your blog for a while, you often talk of suicide. Put simply, the world will not be better off without you. First, we needs idealists. Second, I'll miss your humor 🙂

Reply