To me, my family often feels unbelievably stubborn. Each individual never backs down, never apologizes sincerely. The power dynamic is the only thing that keeps things running. In a very dysfunctional kind of way. Sometimes, I wonder how I didn’t end up just like them.
I’ve put my bags down, taken out the relevant things, settled into a comfortable position on the hotel. I’m just about to start doing my things when I hear the “CAN YOU COME HERE?”. I grumble a bit before acquiescing, relinquishing the rare moment I have to myself during family vacations. Of course, it’s my sister asking me to help her operate the shower.
Operating a foreign shower might seem like a daunting task at first. Sometimes the indications for hot and cold are missing. Or maybe it’s marked such that whatever you do might be the exact opposite of what you intended. Or maybe there are simply too many handles and it’s all a bit confusing.
But, at the end of the day, you have a finite number of options, probably under ten. So what exactly do you mean when you can’t possibly figure it out? The worst thing that could happen is, you turn on the hot water, don’t test it, and burn yourself a little. But that’s pretty unlikely (or silly of you for not testing the water).
I never do anything particularly ingenious when helping my family fix their technological issues, or help my sister operate a shower. The technology is somewhat excusable – maybe the space of possibilities is unclear due to the foreign nature of the interface. But the hotel shower? Before you start bothering people and complaining it’s impossible (and even insisting you simply couldn’t no matter how hard you try), maybe you should actually give it an honest attempt.
Click click click press ‘a’ click click…pause. Hm. Pause again. Maybe there aren’t any sets? Press ‘v’. Set exists, the screen tells me. Fine. I’ll keep looking.
Maybe thirty more seconds pass. I start looking at individual cards, tunnel-visioning. I sort into color, or shape – where is this thing? But I don’t see it. What, so it’s not there? snarks a voice in my head. I press ‘v’ again.
Set Exists. Hm. Well, I go through the cards in order this time, clicking each one and seeing if my brain fills in the rest. Er, no, it seems I’ve found nothing. I press ‘v’ again.
Set Exists. No, it doesn’t! The thought pops up in my head before I tell myself that, obviously, the application here simply won’t be wrong. But what if it is? – there’s always that very very quiet lingering voice that knows (in a system 2 way) it’ll end up being wrong. But system 1 dares to disagree. So I start mashing ‘v’, annoyed at myself for being so blind.
Set Exists. Set Exists. Set Exists. It floods across my screen. Well, a voice detached from the game says, aren’t you being very silly? Insisting you’re right when all the evidence is against you? At that, I feel kind of bad and stop mashing. Eventually, I find the it and the game moves on.
Still, I’m not very happy about it. Not for being blind at this point, but for being so stubborn and having such unwanted thoughts. If everything tells me I’m wrong, I would like to imagine I’d not just keep insisting “No, I’m right”. Ever since changing my mind on voting in a very, very slow and stubborn way, I’ve had the sinking realization that I’m probably just as pig-headed as the rest – maybe I just have fewer things I’m strongly opinionated on.
That’s something, I guess. I try to only form strong opinions when I’ve heard both sides, as opposed to going off (and sticking to) my instinct. The voting issue was an area where I wasn’t particularly well-informed, so I did repeatedly say I was open to having my mind changed. But perhaps I didn’t really mean it fully – it was ultimately an instinct on my part – so I felt pretty defensive when everyone was giving me (often very stupid) reasons to convince me. I hooked onto the terrible ones and didn’t consider the better ones carefully enough. Still…in general, I aim to be careful and moderate in my stances, when there’s any decent case for either side.
I don’t understand how people can be angry.
False. No. That’s not what I mean. I fully understand people’s anger, and don’t look down on it in any way. (I maybe just get scared of it for a moment.)
Generally, I can’t bring myself to be angry, especially at others.
Anger goes a step beyond frustration. It’s not just, wow, you and I disagree and I can’t get you to change your mind despite good evidence to the contrary. …Hm, I’m trying to now structure a similar sentence for anger but I realize I’m not actually sure about the thing that’s different. The two seem quite similar, when considering the definitions. Maybe it’s something like, it’s, wow, you and I disagree, you won’t change your mind despite the evidence, and I don’t understand how you could possibly be this way so I’m going to take it personally and let my system one out on you.(?)
I don’t know. I get frustrated sometimes. But the frustration is somehow milder than my conception of anger. Anger seems…very stubborn. Or prideful, depending on the situation. It feels like a stronger assertion of, my point of view is right, and you disagreeing or disobeying is reason for me to be upset with you as a person. I can’t bring myself to be so assured, imposing my will upon others in such a personal or painful fashion. Even if right and wrong have nothing to do with it – for instance, personal affronts – I can usually put myself into the other person’s shoes and realize: given everything, they probably didn’t know better; their intent was probably not harmful. If it was, though, or if they should have known better – that would be a different story. (This is also a pretty strong statement though – imposing ‘shoulds’ on other people. It would probably take quite a bit for me to say that about someone.)
Of course, not everyone sees it this way. Anger can be a good way to let off steam for some. Actually, I’m sure there are tons of reasons people have for getting angry. And perhaps most don’t view it as nearly so extreme an emotion – it’s just another natural reaction for them. And again, I don’t condemn the anger of others at all. That’s just not what it means for me, personally, to get angry.