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| Property of Stormberry |
This month almost went by without me blogging, even though I was trying to blog at least twice a month. Who said that thing about words being wild things? Maybe I'm mixing up the quote and it goes more like "hearts are wild thing, which is why they are kept in cages". What a horrible idea. Wild things should be left free.
These past weeks have been crazy, as they usually are, but this time mostly in the sense that things seem to be unraveling at work. It's like a giant, long Mercury Retrograde has been shadowing everything, or maybe as if we were experiencing a particularly nasty epidemic of "stupid". When so many people around me behaves or speaks in such insanely stupid ways, I always find myself questioning myself about whether it's not me, that people can't be that stupid, nor is it statistically possible that so many people, being so stupid could be gathered in such a small space. Many years ago I had a nervous breakdown for this very same reason: I was overworked and it felt like no matter what I did, it never got ahead because everybody around me kept doing stupid things.
Back then I've got sick, and I remember my psychiatrist telling me "yes, all of them are stupid". Oddly, that wasn't reassuring, because if it would have been all in my head, I could work on it, but I can't work on curing other people from "stupid".
With time I realized that there was a reason why people were stupid around me, and the truth was worse: many people either had accepted jobs they were not prepared for, and so they were filling a position in which they had no idea what should they really be doing, which led to either micromanaging or to making things up. Others had accepted jobs they were originally prepared for, but then felt no need to refresh their knowledge and by then all they had of their knowledge was a diploma. And finally, some were there because they wanted to use their position to advance their personal agenda and couldn't care less about what happened to others or the company itself.
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| Source: magyarno.com |
These days are threatening, and things have happened that shake the unsteady ground on which the spurious fortunes of many have been built. This isn't necessarily good for those who have worked honestly for what they have achieved, but it's certainly shaking a lot of people. Well, these past weeks have been like life had dealt the Tower Card over and over and over for these people. Sure, from time to time I have decided not to hold my tongue - like the time someone tried to claim credit on a work fo mine, saying we had done it together and I disabused the person of that notion, in front of everybody telling her that no, that work was entirely mine and her "contributions" were not in it, and as a matter of fact, I had received no contribution from her or anybody else. Oh, right, because I'm now such a meanie that I don't consider a "Yes, I agree" as a contribution for the analysis of a 200+ page document.
And so, as the year slides on, and I grow older and wiser (and "wiser" in me might look mean to some, but then again, witches have always been considered mean by those who feel threatened by a free thinking person willing to standup for themselves), and it seems that the Tower energy is also sliding in, showing posers the extent of their lies.
You learn in society to mind your words, to be careful, to measure what you say, and often you wonder why so many people tend to avoid confrontation. I am one to avoid conflict. But then, if words can be accepted as wild things, and we are also encouraged to write and journal and express ourselves, I think we should also stand up and speak out. There is a difference between insulting and telling the truth, between being mean and telling your opinion. Some people might take the truth as an insult, but that only reflects on how they see what they do, and show that maybe they lie to themselves in order to pretend that their bad actions are actually "smart" or "strategical". It might also reflect how some people are afraid of the thoughts of others when they can't tolerate other people's opinions.
But also, insulting isn't telling the truth: insulting is insulting. Being mean isn't having an opinion, it's being mean. Truth is easily proved by confrontation: show facts, show data. Opinions - when you really have them - can be explained and shown how you've got there. And also, an opinion is a thought, not an imposition on others. Opinions are not threatened by the opinions of others.
Words are wild things, but they are not to be caged, they are not to be repressed, but they are to be considered, thought well and understood.
