Yeah, quietly tolerating that kind of shit from family or otherwise, when the only thing you're rewarded with is some crappy company, is literally volunteering for abuse. That's a seriously self-destructive or self-harming choice to be making.
That said... I'm starting to learn that this is one of the problems with assholes who are left unchallenged; they generally keep on being assholes until they get called on it, or otherwise realize it. Often, I think people just don't know any better until someone speaks up in a way they understand; deep down people just want acceptance, which often means fitting in with the group or doing whatever they think is appropriate for the situation or crowd. If the group have built douchy habits, all anyone can do is work to challenge and dismantle the habits directly until it shifts the tone of the group. One doesn't have to stay at all; we can pick our associations, and can figure out the costs and benefits for ourselves. Still, for me I feel a sense of duty to try to make a bad situation better if I think I can.
I have unpleasant relations with my unpleasant relations too, but there's other options than caching in and leaving the table. I generally interact with them in a pretty shallow way when we get together, but I'll speak out when it's important to me, when people are being particularly bigoted or ignorant, or when someone's behavior falls below a minimum-decency threshold toward me, toward the group, or toward people I care about. I didn't always speak up- used to volunteer for that kind of abuse myself- but speaking out and standing up against a group when it's important (and when the group, it turns out, is mostly just bullshitting assent and groupthink as a way of bonding and filling the silence), that seems to have started to make things better. Not much better, but at least when I'm around they know how I feel, leave me more room to be me in the conversation, and we understand one another better and actually grow closer. Despite everything, my family will be there for one another however we can be when the bad times hit, and that's enough reason for me to maintain at least that basic bond.
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How would you define 'like' in this context, though?
Hmm. I don't think that Friendship or "Liking" someone is a different thing than Love. Rather, I think "Like" is a word for Anxious Love, or what happens to Love when paired with or overpowered by Fear. We "Like" art or people or things that we care about and would like to celebrate, and which we don't presently trust for whatever reason. That could be from fear of rejection or disappointment, uncertainty about the nature of the loved thing, bad past experiences with similar media/things/folks, or any other reason one might feel that sort of anxiety.
It's just another half-baked attempt to simplify a category of emotions, but hopefully it makes some kind of sense?
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9763448 times)