All Good

I wished A.A. a happy birthday, as his upcoming birthday looms near. He expressed mild displeasure at having to witness yet another birthday, to which I responded he'd done some great things, and he would continue to great things even after the passage of this day, and that everything would turn out OK. It helped him deal with the birthday.

Ultimately, people want me to tell them that "everything will be OK." I didn't learn this lesson for a long time. Growing up, I thought they wanted me to tell them what to do, or how to resolve their problems. And still, some people want that, but mostly, they turn to me because they want to know they're not alone, and that they'll get past X, where X equals whatever their problem is. And a lot of people would get mad at me for "not listening" to them, to the point where it became obvious it didn't matter what I said, so long as it was "everything will be OK."

This was not an easy lesson to learn. I am like a mule, stubborn as all hell. It goes against my natural instinct to solve a problem. My legal training taught me to apply the law to a fact pattern, i.e. solving a problem. My job requires me often to solve problems. I played a lot of Tetris growing, up, i.e. solving a problem. See a problem, solve a problem. That works for objects and situations. It generally fails with people. As I've learned, you can't help people unless they want help. Why fix what's working? Accept it for what it is, accept them for who they are, help only when they need it, not when you think they need it.

That is part of why you cannot solve people's problems for them. Oftentimes, they don't want you to solve the problem. They may know what the solution is already, in which case they wouldn't need your help in implementing, or they are denying what they need to do, and just want some reassurance that (all together now) everything will be OK. It can be rough watching people make their mistakes on their own, or so I have been told when people watch me stumble and fall all too often. However, you need to let them make a lot of mistakes, learn from them, become better people. Otherwise, you get this current generation of entitlement and expectation the world is handed to you on a platter.

It isn't difficult to listen to people. There's a very simple list of requirements that works for me. Sit down next to them, or stand if they prefer. Look them in the eye every once in a while, if they're not crying. If they are, put your hand on their shoulder. Shut your mouth. Make them believe that, at that moment, they are the most important person in the world. Fake it if you don't believe it. Stop thinking about what you're going to say when they stop talking. Listen to them. Listen to them some more. Listen to them until the silence becomes too unbearable for them after they stop talking. Listen to what they're not saying, as well as what they're saying. Remember what they said. Make them believe that what they're saying is important. Fake it if you don't believe it. Don't tell them what you'd do, unless they explicitly ask it, and then make sure they want to hear it. Finally, tell them you're sorry to hear it, that the situation sucks, and that eventually, everything will be OK. Simple, right?

Oftentimes, it's the same thing with people that have legal questions. The answer can almost be secondary. The basic point, that everything will be OK, that there is a course of action sustainable under the law that won't result in a judgment posted against them, or a prison term. Note that this applies more to civil questions than criminal questions, but can be applied to both in certain situations. It is just law, but because it's the law, people tend to get frightened, because of everything that can go wrong. I'm a wizened shaman, sans beard, and I know the magic incantation (all together now): everything will be OK.

You can get a sense of a person, and who they are, just be what they do when you talk to them. Take my aunt and uncle, very different people. She was trained as a teacher, he is a computer developer. She hears what I have to say. He hears I'm not doing the right thing. For him, it goes back to the issue of problem solving. Here's a problem. Solve it. For her, it's a case of teaching. Listen and hear, suggest if you need to, otherwise just listen. I like them both, but guess to which I respond more favorably.

***

I love telling stories. Two thousand years ago, I would have been the tribe's scribe or oral historian. Nowadays, I'm just a compulsive liar because I need to tell people stories. I love storytelling so much I have been working on a novel that, chances are, no one will really ever see because I just had to tell the story. Of course, every story needs at minimum one to tell it, and one to hear it, and for right now, I fulfill both roles. But still, I want someday for someone not me to hear the story.

All at once, storytelling is both wildly important and simply frivolous. Let's start with the latter. Few people make their livings off storytelling. Ours is not a society that can sustain that. With the ever-increasing role technology plays, needs must reward those that can advance our technology, or better weave it into our lives. Storytelling becomes a diversion, but does not truly make our lives better.

Yet stories fuel our dreams, and it is through our dreams that we make the world a better place. By imagining what might become, we're all forced to explore those possibilities, somehow make the intangible tangible. I think of it as the father's role in the son's accomplishments. The son did all the grunt work, but who nurtured the son in the first place?

Withholding Information

Writing comprises a significant aspect of my job (and my life), but if I had lived six hundred years ago, it is possible that I would not have been allowed the privilege of learning to write. Before Gutenberg's printing press, books were rare and limited to the upper classes. Once printing made books widely accessible, more people were able to learn to read and write. Resistance arose from those who had that privilege, trying to keep the information from spreading to those without that privilege. The haves wanted to keep the have nots down. Ultimately, the fact that I can type this, post this freely to the web, and others can read it without a second thought shows who won.

At work, we had a discussion about writing technical documentation, one that reoccurs. Some feel that my job is extraneous, as the computer code is self-documenting. If you want to know what it does, you should be able to open the files and read it yourself. Though this is not necessarily a case of rarity, it is a case of the haves against the haves not. However, now the disparity results from knowledge scarcity, not necessarily resource scarcity. Also, reading code is not as important as reading a written language. Code is a much more limited subset of language, and some would even argue that code doesn't convey information in the same way that a language does.

The base issue remains, that people don't want to share. Not a blanket statement, but true more often than not. Look at toddlers playing. Up until they were playing together, they were the focus of their worlds, and when their worlds collide, they are forced to learn how to share. They resist, and many will do it because they have to get along, but given the choice, they will not share. Hell, I hate sharing my food. L.C. one time forked some food off my plate, and I almost flipped out because she did it without asking. I am highly territorial with my food, for some unknown reason. Probably a dirty residual effect of being an only child.

Barter systems and monetary systems only work because the two parties (in the simplest example) require more than they can generate on their own. If one party could grow the wheat and raise the goat, they wouldn't need to trade for either, they could be self-sufficient and live on their own. What it boils down to, that need forces us to live as a social species, even though our technological innovations are making it more and more possible (though not entirely likely) to live a solitary life. As we go on, and we are raised more and more with technology as the intermediary for our interaction with others, we come more and more to shun that human interaction, in favor of the technological.

My hatred of how pervasive technology has become is more because of how it is changing our society, not necessarily for the better. However, am I no better than all those nobles that argued the common man should not be allowed to read, because it would irrevocably change our society? I can't predict the future, and oftentimes I feel like I'm trapped between two worlds, the humane and the technical. The world keeps moving towards the technical, we are integrating it more into our lives, and I am part of a rapidly falling group of holdouts. All this coming from someone who couldn't go through a day without touching a computer.

***

The large-scale and small-scale can be in opposition to each other. Let me give you an example. I think that in the long term, "everything will be OK." However, in the short term, everything sucks. Similarly, I do not believe in the goodness of humanity at large, but I do believe in individuals being good. It's just that the mass of humanity drowns out those good people.

I also believe that we don't have a set identity, that our surroundings are just an important factor as to who we are as much as our personality. You act slightly differently around your family, your friends, your coworkers, your acquaintances, strangers, etc. I don't know how much variation is possible, but I think it could be very significant.

What does this all mean? I think people can be good, on the whole, yet be bad on the small scale, to certain individuals. Which is fine, unless you happen to be on the receiving end of the badness. Thanks much, E.S., if nothing else, you've reinforced that I need to be ever vigilant in my life against mean people, and that I need to really stop being so trusting and accepting of people.

For a fair amount of people, I am more valuable to them based on what I can do, as opposed to who I am. I mistake their overtures of friendship, take them at face value, and invariably get hurt when I realize the truth. Don't get me wrong, I'll still help my friends. The difference there is that they're, you know, friends. We don't interact only when they want to. There's a baseline level of respect, and all that jazz.

Thankfully, I never told E.S. about this blog. That would be fun, and I say that in a sarcastic manner. I have to wonder if people realize what they're doing, and if they rationalize it by saying it's OK because I either don't realize it, or haven't called them out on it. Or, even worse, I wonder if they just don't care, and want to see how far they can take it.

It's strange, I have met enough people that have used me that you would think it would sour my outlook on people, and that's not really the case at all. Despite me saying I don't believe in the goodness of humanity at large, I secretly do, deep down, and just don't want to admit it. Part of my problem is that I hope for the best, that people really are my friend, and these rose-colored glasses keep dooming me.

Yet I keep on meeting people, and I don't keep my guard up around them, and I end up going out of my way to do something to make their lives better and mine worse. If any of you wonder why I loathe giving out my perspective on a legal situation, this is the reason. Don't get me wrong, when it's important, I'll do it. That's the other secret, I'll help when it's important. It's just that most of the problems people throw at me are ridiculous and selfish. I make it clear it's not something I want to do, but if you come to me and ask about the nature of your non-compete agreement with your workplace because you want to quit your job, then you're not a friend, you just want free legal advice.

I suppose that it's a bit of a compliment, in a way. That I am a good enough human that you want my help. You just also happen to want nothing else to do with me, and that's fine, you could just tell me up front and we could keep things on a solely business level. I would prefer this. There are a lot of assholes I know that I like because they don't try to hide it. They're comfortable enough with who they are that they can be free to be it, and I respect that. Tell me what you want, and I'll assist you as best I can. But, please, don't keep up the pretense of trying to be friendly with me to make yourself feel better. Just take what you want, and then leave me alone. Let me spend my time and energy on the people that are actually important to me.

Of course, it suddenly occurs to me that it's necessary to keep up that pretense if you want to keep coming back to the well to get more water. If you have to resort to that, I guess I can only feel bad for you, after feeling bad for myself. You need to go meet more people.