A situation happened recently that caused me to think about the inherent tension between the psychological need for intimacy, and the psychological need for boundaries. It's a subject close to my heart because I'm a big believer in boundaries. Ask anyone who knows me, they'll tell you I have strong boundaries (some might say 'walls'), and as for intimacy--well--I love having people around that I know well and who know me and accept me as I am.
But it seems to me there are a lot of people who are very reckless with boundaries--always asking very pointed questions about one's personal life, or giving advice on subjects so intimate they have no right treading there. Or else, they're telling you things that are way, way too much information to know about them. Or using your things in a 'what's yours is mine' sort of way. We all know the type, people who are in a big rush to be familiar when you don't know them very well. I really hate that--I hate being in the position of having to find a way to back off--and I hate feeling guilty about doing so.
Maybe it's me.
If you mention the idea of 'boundaries' these people will look at you like they've never heard of the concept before. Especially people in large families, they are so used to having people in their bubble, in their face, about every little thing that the idea of drawing boundaries seems cold and unfriendly, even hostile. Some families operate on the idea that familiarity gives them the right to intrude in almost any area of your life, and when faced with the outside world where boundaries are the order of the day, they find themselves feeling shut out and resentful, when they should feel respectful and appreciative at being informed of the limits of ongoing relationships.
I was one of those kids in kindergarten who had 'shares well with others' written on my report cards constantly. But at home, a different standard applies. My home is my castle, my fortress, my sanctuary. I am jealous of everything in it, its peace, its quiet, and its order, and I don't like people making themselves too much at home there. And the closer you get to my bedroom--the inner sanctum--the more those rules apply.
Yes, I realize there is a metaphor there. You can draw your own conclusions.
But I also believe that my fondness for drawing boundaries makes for easier, long-term relationships. You always know how far you can go, with me, and if you go further, rest assured you will be told so. Conversely, I am always on guard against transgressing anyone else's boundaries, and if I step across, you can be sure that I will have re-assessed the situation shortly, and won't do it again. This is how I am. I make no apologies for it.
But all this watching and reinforcing of boundaries takes a lot of energy, and I often wish I didn't have to do it. However, the way of the world is such that boundaries must guarded--fortresses must be protected.
On the other hand, I might just be overthinking the whole thing.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
MySpace, Facebook, & Twitter--Social Networking for What Purpose?
I have yet to discover what good comes of social networking sites. So far, these sites have been time-suckers of major proportion to me. Maybe it’s a generational thing, and young people need a different technology than the one older people have managed to figure out, so that they can feel younger, hipper and more cutting edge. I don’t know.
I do know they use these sites to tell about themselves, express themselves, post outlandish pictures of themselves as if to prove that yes, they DO in fact exist and are having a wonderful time at it, too, thank you very much. Personally, I don’t want that much information about myself floating around the internet. I’m certain that my face will end up on a fabricated body on some porn site. Or I will earn myself a deranged stalker who will for some reason take a dislike to my dog and my cat, and I’ll find the poor creatures trussed up and baked on a platter on my back porch. Seriously, I worry about these things. The whole ‘opening oneself up’ is clearly inadvisable in these times. Just read the news.
Then, there’s the whole political whacko issue you have to worry about. I intend to keep speaking my mind on various venues, and you don’t know what kind of religious and/or political retribution you might incur from some zealot. That’s not paranoia—it’s realistic care, if you know something about those people.
The whole idea of a million degrees of online separation seems bizarre, too. I am connected with people everyone else knows, and everyone they know. The sheer statistics of the occurrence of psychosis in any given society makes this a bad idea at its core. What are we thinking?
And yet, if you have anything to sell, anything to promote, it’s advised that you get on Facebook or MySpace. The risks of rubbing shoulders (no matter how remotely) with unwashed masses have always come in second to the prospect of making money. So I’m out there. In a limited way. Expecting chaos the whole time.
That’s the lure of technology, isn’t it? You just can’t NOT do it when you know it’s out there. It’s the thing that keeps Microsoft pumping out operating platforms that don’t particularly work. It’s the thing that keeps McCain hiring staffers to twitter for him (and yes, we do know McCain and others do NOT send tweets themselves—that strains credulity a little too much). It’s the thing that makes us spend hours hunched over a keyboard trying to download programs, endlessly writing profiles, and keeping secret logbooks of our online user names and passwords.
What hath God wrought? To coin a phrase.
The best that can be expressed about these new ways of interacting was said by a family member, when I asked her what these social networking sites were for. She answered, “I think they’re just another way to send email.”
That, at least, I can grasp.
If anyone out there has found a good use for social networking sites beyond that, please let me know. Until then, it’s out there, and I use it.
I have no choice.
I do know they use these sites to tell about themselves, express themselves, post outlandish pictures of themselves as if to prove that yes, they DO in fact exist and are having a wonderful time at it, too, thank you very much. Personally, I don’t want that much information about myself floating around the internet. I’m certain that my face will end up on a fabricated body on some porn site. Or I will earn myself a deranged stalker who will for some reason take a dislike to my dog and my cat, and I’ll find the poor creatures trussed up and baked on a platter on my back porch. Seriously, I worry about these things. The whole ‘opening oneself up’ is clearly inadvisable in these times. Just read the news.
Then, there’s the whole political whacko issue you have to worry about. I intend to keep speaking my mind on various venues, and you don’t know what kind of religious and/or political retribution you might incur from some zealot. That’s not paranoia—it’s realistic care, if you know something about those people.
The whole idea of a million degrees of online separation seems bizarre, too. I am connected with people everyone else knows, and everyone they know. The sheer statistics of the occurrence of psychosis in any given society makes this a bad idea at its core. What are we thinking?
And yet, if you have anything to sell, anything to promote, it’s advised that you get on Facebook or MySpace. The risks of rubbing shoulders (no matter how remotely) with unwashed masses have always come in second to the prospect of making money. So I’m out there. In a limited way. Expecting chaos the whole time.
That’s the lure of technology, isn’t it? You just can’t NOT do it when you know it’s out there. It’s the thing that keeps Microsoft pumping out operating platforms that don’t particularly work. It’s the thing that keeps McCain hiring staffers to twitter for him (and yes, we do know McCain and others do NOT send tweets themselves—that strains credulity a little too much). It’s the thing that makes us spend hours hunched over a keyboard trying to download programs, endlessly writing profiles, and keeping secret logbooks of our online user names and passwords.
What hath God wrought? To coin a phrase.
The best that can be expressed about these new ways of interacting was said by a family member, when I asked her what these social networking sites were for. She answered, “I think they’re just another way to send email.”
That, at least, I can grasp.
If anyone out there has found a good use for social networking sites beyond that, please let me know. Until then, it’s out there, and I use it.
I have no choice.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
What Is This Thing Called 'Conservative'?
Okay, it has come to my attention that people are throwing the word ‘conservative’ around with abandon lately. I hate when people start throwing words around with abandon, without any respect to what the word means at its heart, in its beginnings, and without any care as to what other people mean when they apply it in actual use. It’s too easy to be dishonest with words—they are often slippery things—and I respect the power of words so much it really rubs me the wrong way when the use of words is used to drive people into misconceptions about themselves.
We are told often that most Americans consider themselves ‘conservative.’ Now, what are we to presume that means? That they wholeheartedly subscribe to the Conservative Agenda as currently stated by the far-right-driven Republican Party? I think not. ‘Conservative’ has a more subtle meaning in the minds of the bulk of the American public. It means ‘not going overboard.’ It means ‘spending money where it counts for the good of ALL citizens.’ It means ‘thinking carefully before taking action.’ It means ‘deeply considering facts before applying policy.’ It does NOT mean ‘blindly following a particular set of ideological points.’ Nor does it mean ‘promoting religious principles through legislation.’ Nor does it mean, ‘ignoring the poor of our country as if they are inherently unworthy.’
If anyone out there has a different idea of what MOST Americans think they are saying when they state they are ‘conservative,’ I’d really like to hear it. I get the feeling Republicans think that this is the handle they have on the public, this ‘conservative’ thing. They think it automatically means THEIR brand of ‘conservatism.’ And they carry on as if they can drive the public into being on their side by simply wielding the word ‘conservative,’ as if that alone can create the voting fervor needed to push their policies through. And in fact, that has worked to some extent in the past decade. That ‘driving the public’ put George Bush into office, and gave him a Republican congress, and the okay to appoint ideological judges to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, this Republican brand of ‘conservatism’ has served the American public so badly that voters are wondering, themselves, what they mean by being ‘conservative.’
So Republicans just change the position of the goalposts. “Oh, it’s not THAT kind of conservative that we meant—that was just a mistake—a fluke of personnel—we meant this OTHER kind of conservative. The kind you really like—you know—like Reagan, for instance—he was nice—you liked him, right? Yeah, we meant to be THAT kind of conservative.”
I hear a manipulation in that rhetoric. And that suspicion of manipulation is upheld by Republicans’ complete unwillingness to change any of the points in their agenda. That tells me they’re using the classic ‘bait and switch’ tactic. Promise them one thing—give them another.
Or we hear the even worse: “We must be MORE conservative. We should conservative the heck out of everything, go full-out, whole-hog conservative. THAT’S what we meant to do. THAT will solve all our problems!”
That, too is a manipulation. It implies that their policies would work better if only they were done right. And of course, you must keep voting them into office to try to get it right. I don’t think so. The very last thing Americans want is doing something to an extreme, and the second to the last thing they want is trusting Republicans again.
Until Republicans learn to play fair with the public, the public will continue to hold them in contempt and with suspicion. The ball is entirely in their court. I am not terribly hopeful about it at the moment.
I believe America is stronger with two viable parties in its political debate. But the parties have to play fair—keep it real—and not use duplicitous methods to get into office and then run roughshod over the needs of the people. This is the first duty of government—to serve the public—without that, its purpose becomes diffuse and, more often than not, corrupt.
Let’s watch and see what Republicans do. It could be they will ‘evolve’ though they don’t believe in evolution. Maybe that evolution will occur in spite of their belief—as it does in the natural world. We’ll just have to see. In the meantime, their rhetoric is just so much background noise behind a president and a populace trying to solve real problems in the real world.
We are told often that most Americans consider themselves ‘conservative.’ Now, what are we to presume that means? That they wholeheartedly subscribe to the Conservative Agenda as currently stated by the far-right-driven Republican Party? I think not. ‘Conservative’ has a more subtle meaning in the minds of the bulk of the American public. It means ‘not going overboard.’ It means ‘spending money where it counts for the good of ALL citizens.’ It means ‘thinking carefully before taking action.’ It means ‘deeply considering facts before applying policy.’ It does NOT mean ‘blindly following a particular set of ideological points.’ Nor does it mean ‘promoting religious principles through legislation.’ Nor does it mean, ‘ignoring the poor of our country as if they are inherently unworthy.’
If anyone out there has a different idea of what MOST Americans think they are saying when they state they are ‘conservative,’ I’d really like to hear it. I get the feeling Republicans think that this is the handle they have on the public, this ‘conservative’ thing. They think it automatically means THEIR brand of ‘conservatism.’ And they carry on as if they can drive the public into being on their side by simply wielding the word ‘conservative,’ as if that alone can create the voting fervor needed to push their policies through. And in fact, that has worked to some extent in the past decade. That ‘driving the public’ put George Bush into office, and gave him a Republican congress, and the okay to appoint ideological judges to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, this Republican brand of ‘conservatism’ has served the American public so badly that voters are wondering, themselves, what they mean by being ‘conservative.’
So Republicans just change the position of the goalposts. “Oh, it’s not THAT kind of conservative that we meant—that was just a mistake—a fluke of personnel—we meant this OTHER kind of conservative. The kind you really like—you know—like Reagan, for instance—he was nice—you liked him, right? Yeah, we meant to be THAT kind of conservative.”
I hear a manipulation in that rhetoric. And that suspicion of manipulation is upheld by Republicans’ complete unwillingness to change any of the points in their agenda. That tells me they’re using the classic ‘bait and switch’ tactic. Promise them one thing—give them another.
Or we hear the even worse: “We must be MORE conservative. We should conservative the heck out of everything, go full-out, whole-hog conservative. THAT’S what we meant to do. THAT will solve all our problems!”
That, too is a manipulation. It implies that their policies would work better if only they were done right. And of course, you must keep voting them into office to try to get it right. I don’t think so. The very last thing Americans want is doing something to an extreme, and the second to the last thing they want is trusting Republicans again.
Until Republicans learn to play fair with the public, the public will continue to hold them in contempt and with suspicion. The ball is entirely in their court. I am not terribly hopeful about it at the moment.
I believe America is stronger with two viable parties in its political debate. But the parties have to play fair—keep it real—and not use duplicitous methods to get into office and then run roughshod over the needs of the people. This is the first duty of government—to serve the public—without that, its purpose becomes diffuse and, more often than not, corrupt.
Let’s watch and see what Republicans do. It could be they will ‘evolve’ though they don’t believe in evolution. Maybe that evolution will occur in spite of their belief—as it does in the natural world. We’ll just have to see. In the meantime, their rhetoric is just so much background noise behind a president and a populace trying to solve real problems in the real world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
