Today has been a hot day, and not a "hot day" in a good way, or "hot" in a figurative way, but rather in the "For fuck's sake, someone turn the heat off" kind of way. Well, at least my contact lenses, and therefore my eyes didn't suffer. The sad thing was that I ran out of coke, which is something very, very bad, particularly in such a sufocating day. In moments like these the expression "last coke in the dessert" takes a whole new aproach.
Aside from this, I've found myself some work, which is awesome. I'm working on the checking over of the Roaming Out fees, which some major jackass scrambled in here pretty (in)decently. Then again, that's what happens when you leave the job to ignorants and show offs. You can either aly back and comfortably comment that "people should be ashamed" or "that's what happens in the Public Sector", or "it's due to all that influence traffic and connections and friends-of-the-right-people" and so on. However I believe there's also more, at least a metaphore. After all, what happens in the job-sphere is not so different from what happens in the social familiar or even personal sphere. The thought came to me when I was thinking about the tendency of some people I happen to know to "imagine" someone and living out of that rather than knowing that person.
Of course, a lot of people get to a job or a position because they have performed certain favors, or because someone wants them to keep their trap about some secrets (position as payment), or simply on buddy-buddy bases, regardless of whether said person is good for the position given to him or her. Well, now think about your friends: there are people who are not trustworthy, who would betray you at the first available moment, who badmouths you behind your back, who ridicules you, mistreats you, steals from you, and either you up up with is or work around it, but you don't cut said person out of your life because he or she's so funny, is part of the group, everybody likes him/her...
Lemme tell you a small story of my life about this: when I was in the University, I had a group of friends: Lau, Mile, Iva and I. The four of us were always together, sat together and did all studying and team work together. Mile, Lau and I worked our asses off, but Iva always lagged. Either she worked some, and all she did was copy from the boosk, so one of us was always stuck with redoing her part, or she "dictated". I disliked Iva a lot, particularly because she constantly tried to get things out of us, and I felt like she didn't see us as friends but rather as pockets for her to pick. By the end we managed to shake her off (basically by me starting the "revolution" and picking Adry to a group rather than Iva, and Mile and Lau quickly backing me up). Years later, as I got paird up with Mile again for our never-ending-never-advancing thesis, we both realized that each of us thought that Iva came with one of the other two, and so we put up with her, while in real life, she sneaked into our group and pretended to be a friend. She was one we tolerated for wrong reasons.
Do you have people like this in your life? I bet you do.
But then, aside from the people we tolerate because they have one good quality we like, or because we think they do, there's the people we keep because we imagine them to be something and never really bother to check whether the actual person is like we imagine them to be. Interestingly, the less confident someone is, the less someone believes in him or herself, the more prone it is to fall into this trap. Why? Because people with little self-confidence, little self-esteem, tend to pull away from reality, and that makes them invent a world where even people is invented. This is the case many abused wifes who don't see their husbands for what they are, but they imagine them loving and sweet and concerned. Other typical cases are when someone picks a lover based on some feature: beauty, wealth, wit, sexual skills, connections, party spirit, fun, popularity, and then imagine all the features he or she would like to see in that person and ignore what the person really is.
The girl who imagines her funny, laughing boyfriend to be educated, classy and kind, ignoring he's coward, drunken and trecherous. The boy who imagines his busty, popular girlfriend to be clever, loving, freethingking, independent, witty and ignores she's a liar, clingy and a golddigger. I know it's so sweet to live in a fantasy, but not facing reality is an entreprise bound to be destroyed. Whether people like it or not, face it or not, reality always catches up, but if you don't face it you'll be bound to fall over and over into the same mistake, suffer it over and over reopening the same wounds on your soul until they get infected and kill your spirit.
People who imagine their lovers instead of loving them are the ones who wake up one day next to a stranger. That's the day reality catches up with them. Happens also with friends, when you want a friend to have you back, to share the same taste, like the same things, but it happens that you are only acquintaces and you want so much to find a friend taht shares you likings that you are willing to fabricate it, and pour it into the shell of any person willing to stay with you long enough. Reality catches up when the differences become abysmal and you feel betrayed by the other person. But who betrayed who? The person who didn't keep the charade or the one that set it up? Funnily many people say that the one breaking the spell in the one that "lied and pretended to be something he or she's not". But did said person lied or did we lied when we set up the illusion?
Each time reality catches up, provoques deception in the person who's fantasy has been broken. Lovers, somehow do not hurt as deep as a friend, since the lifetime of a friendship is usually longer than that of a relationship, but when the imagined person is one's family, deception can be devastating. However, there's one other person people can imagine: themselves. This is the people who don't see themselves, are afraid of who they really are, and so they invent this fantasy about them being beautiful, successful, loved, popular, smart, classy... There would be things these people could actually do, but they either are too lazy, forget how to do it, or deep down don't think they are capable of. People who imagine they have a model-like body, but do nothing to get their body in shape. People who think they are oh-so smart and educated, but never do anything to actually be it, people who pretend to be popular and loved but never move a finger to be so. People who constantly imagine to be younger, leaving behind all those years they will claim to be later on. People who don't own up to what they are.
These people are submerged in constant failure, broken dreams, desappointment, depression. It becomes heavier and heavier, weighting upon them until it kills them. This is the one lie, the one spell you may find harder to escape, specially because as you get older you feel more and more engaged, more and more tied up to your lie, you feel like you have invested so much in it, and you can't start all over again. After a life of lies, who can you start clean suddenly, and explain to everbody that "that wasn't you"?
Whether people lie to themselves, or for others or if it is a complex composed thing of lying for oneself and for others, I won't get there. I'll leave that question open for everybody to mull over it. My final thought for this topic is: Reality catches up, and though dreaming and fantasizing makes our life rich, we shouldn't live in them, nor force others to live in them... including ourselves. Reality can be harsh, bugt in the end is more benign that fantasies, because you can actually work with it and make it better.
Aside from this, I've found myself some work, which is awesome. I'm working on the checking over of the Roaming Out fees, which some major jackass scrambled in here pretty (in)decently. Then again, that's what happens when you leave the job to ignorants and show offs. You can either aly back and comfortably comment that "people should be ashamed" or "that's what happens in the Public Sector", or "it's due to all that influence traffic and connections and friends-of-the-right-people" and so on. However I believe there's also more, at least a metaphore. After all, what happens in the job-sphere is not so different from what happens in the social familiar or even personal sphere. The thought came to me when I was thinking about the tendency of some people I happen to know to "imagine" someone and living out of that rather than knowing that person.
Of course, a lot of people get to a job or a position because they have performed certain favors, or because someone wants them to keep their trap about some secrets (position as payment), or simply on buddy-buddy bases, regardless of whether said person is good for the position given to him or her. Well, now think about your friends: there are people who are not trustworthy, who would betray you at the first available moment, who badmouths you behind your back, who ridicules you, mistreats you, steals from you, and either you up up with is or work around it, but you don't cut said person out of your life because he or she's so funny, is part of the group, everybody likes him/her...
Lemme tell you a small story of my life about this: when I was in the University, I had a group of friends: Lau, Mile, Iva and I. The four of us were always together, sat together and did all studying and team work together. Mile, Lau and I worked our asses off, but Iva always lagged. Either she worked some, and all she did was copy from the boosk, so one of us was always stuck with redoing her part, or she "dictated". I disliked Iva a lot, particularly because she constantly tried to get things out of us, and I felt like she didn't see us as friends but rather as pockets for her to pick. By the end we managed to shake her off (basically by me starting the "revolution" and picking Adry to a group rather than Iva, and Mile and Lau quickly backing me up). Years later, as I got paird up with Mile again for our never-ending-never-advancing thesis, we both realized that each of us thought that Iva came with one of the other two, and so we put up with her, while in real life, she sneaked into our group and pretended to be a friend. She was one we tolerated for wrong reasons.
Do you have people like this in your life? I bet you do.
But then, aside from the people we tolerate because they have one good quality we like, or because we think they do, there's the people we keep because we imagine them to be something and never really bother to check whether the actual person is like we imagine them to be. Interestingly, the less confident someone is, the less someone believes in him or herself, the more prone it is to fall into this trap. Why? Because people with little self-confidence, little self-esteem, tend to pull away from reality, and that makes them invent a world where even people is invented. This is the case many abused wifes who don't see their husbands for what they are, but they imagine them loving and sweet and concerned. Other typical cases are when someone picks a lover based on some feature: beauty, wealth, wit, sexual skills, connections, party spirit, fun, popularity, and then imagine all the features he or she would like to see in that person and ignore what the person really is.
The girl who imagines her funny, laughing boyfriend to be educated, classy and kind, ignoring he's coward, drunken and trecherous. The boy who imagines his busty, popular girlfriend to be clever, loving, freethingking, independent, witty and ignores she's a liar, clingy and a golddigger. I know it's so sweet to live in a fantasy, but not facing reality is an entreprise bound to be destroyed. Whether people like it or not, face it or not, reality always catches up, but if you don't face it you'll be bound to fall over and over into the same mistake, suffer it over and over reopening the same wounds on your soul until they get infected and kill your spirit.
People who imagine their lovers instead of loving them are the ones who wake up one day next to a stranger. That's the day reality catches up with them. Happens also with friends, when you want a friend to have you back, to share the same taste, like the same things, but it happens that you are only acquintaces and you want so much to find a friend taht shares you likings that you are willing to fabricate it, and pour it into the shell of any person willing to stay with you long enough. Reality catches up when the differences become abysmal and you feel betrayed by the other person. But who betrayed who? The person who didn't keep the charade or the one that set it up? Funnily many people say that the one breaking the spell in the one that "lied and pretended to be something he or she's not". But did said person lied or did we lied when we set up the illusion?
Each time reality catches up, provoques deception in the person who's fantasy has been broken. Lovers, somehow do not hurt as deep as a friend, since the lifetime of a friendship is usually longer than that of a relationship, but when the imagined person is one's family, deception can be devastating. However, there's one other person people can imagine: themselves. This is the people who don't see themselves, are afraid of who they really are, and so they invent this fantasy about them being beautiful, successful, loved, popular, smart, classy... There would be things these people could actually do, but they either are too lazy, forget how to do it, or deep down don't think they are capable of. People who imagine they have a model-like body, but do nothing to get their body in shape. People who think they are oh-so smart and educated, but never do anything to actually be it, people who pretend to be popular and loved but never move a finger to be so. People who constantly imagine to be younger, leaving behind all those years they will claim to be later on. People who don't own up to what they are.
These people are submerged in constant failure, broken dreams, desappointment, depression. It becomes heavier and heavier, weighting upon them until it kills them. This is the one lie, the one spell you may find harder to escape, specially because as you get older you feel more and more engaged, more and more tied up to your lie, you feel like you have invested so much in it, and you can't start all over again. After a life of lies, who can you start clean suddenly, and explain to everbody that "that wasn't you"?
Whether people lie to themselves, or for others or if it is a complex composed thing of lying for oneself and for others, I won't get there. I'll leave that question open for everybody to mull over it. My final thought for this topic is: Reality catches up, and though dreaming and fantasizing makes our life rich, we shouldn't live in them, nor force others to live in them... including ourselves. Reality can be harsh, bugt in the end is more benign that fantasies, because you can actually work with it and make it better.
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