Green Room - Week 5 - Day 2

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Good morning.

There was a Write-off that happened last night, sort of - http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/968834.html

(at any rate, a tie was broken)

Your topic for the week - http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/968050.html
and there are some great conversations happening with this week's Mentor in the Work Room: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/968415.html She's a fantastic resource! I'd highly recommend picking her brain!

***

Yesterday, at work, I was reminded about intention and how little it matters. What matters is how people *interpret* actions. Even if those interpretations are completely from left field.

People often mentally compose their version of reality from these mistaken interpretations - which form their view of you, and often, the world itself.

Which makes life interesting - because I (or the universal "you" in this case) are most likely doing the same damn thing. And people wonder why they have so much trouble communicating with each other...

Comments

[rayaso.livejournal.com]

First! If you want communication problems, try talking to a teenage boy fully fluent not only in standard teen slang but also knows internet slang. Plus, at times he seems to be speaking caveman. It could be much worse, however. He could not talk at all.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

Now that's a comic strip I'd actually read!

[ryl.livejournal.com]

People often mentally compose their version of reality from these mistaken interpretations - which form their view of you, and often, the world itself.
That reminds me of the Adam Savage quote: "I reject your reality and substitute my own." Which is funny until you realize how often it happens.

[tijuanagringo.livejournal.com]

Yes. We interpret, misinterpret, disinterpret, and then re derp it.

My coffee is perking now. Feel free to pour yourselves a cup "by the time you read this message . . . "

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Being misinterpreted, purposefully or ignorantly, can be such a debilitating experience. We all rail against it and hence seem to be forever in search of our "tribe".

Don't let it undermine your intentions.

“I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.” ― Abraham Lincoln

[reckless-blues.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking a lot about this because I have to move five thousand miles this weekend and I have no idea how to be polite five thousand miles away. New Englanders aren't rude, it's just that we have a different culture that evolved from English culture and we have something resembling English standards of politeness rather than mainstream American ones, which is you honor and respect people by pretending that everybody is inside their own little privacy bubble and while they're in that bubble they don't exist. We try not to make eye contact with strangers, we don't do things like greet the bus driver, because the bus driver is in her bubble and if we popped that bubble just to say "Hi!" and force her to acknowledge us that's invasive and selfish and impolite. Like, I am not so important that I have to interrupt her private thoughts or her texting or whatever and it would be rude for me to ask the driver to act as if I am. And if you have to burst that bubble by getting a salesperson to help you, or whatever, you honor and respect a person by getting in and out as quickly as possible. Smoothness and efficiency are displays of respect. (Working class men in particular - especially because our working class culture is strongly influenced by Slavic culture in my part of the state - also don't smile too much and show respect by frowning and making concerned faces while we're being spoken to. I respect this person so much that even though they popped my bubble, they have my complete attention and I am devoting all my mental processes to listening to them and solving their problem! And it's also sort of a contrite face when you're bothering a cashier or whatever. Like, "I've really been puzzling over how to solve this on my own, but...")

Meanwhile in the rest of the country I'm a huge asshole who just marches right up to salespeople glaring at them, barks "heycouldyoushowmethethingIwantthanks", and then turns around and leaves without another word. (If I didn't preface my request with "hey" and end with "thanks" it would be considered rude in New England, and there's a polite tone of voice we use, so that would be considered perfectly acceptable so long as I had both.) If I'm visiting down south or something I know I have to make small talk with waitstaff or whatever and I do that to the best of my ability because I want to show respect, but...I feel like I'm being INCREDIBLY rude. Here's a person who's on the clock, they have no idea who I am, and here I am forcing them to stand there smiling and nodding and asking me stupid questions about where I'm from, monopolizing their time and keeping them from doing their job. Unacceptable up here unless you're in certain small towns and then it depends, it's complicated.

(That and I have autism so I come off as rude and standoffish sometimes no matter what I do. It's painful to me when I accidentally say or do something hurtful and I really have no idea how they could have taken it that way.)

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

Communication. It's at the heart of most every human interaction problem in the history of the species. If people had the right information, if they knew what the other person intended, if they understood what was desired of them, things likely would have gone much more smoothly.

But we don't want to be forthright because that's a risk. We would rather not be direct because that could be rude. We don't want to talk when we can just avoid.

And what if you know that neither side is going to renounce their beliefs or even attempt to see things from the opposite point of view? Bombs away! After all, might makes right, or so we were previously told.