Everyone in this world is just trying to get by.
Remember that next time someone is an asshole to you or does something selfish that affects you. Everybody is just trying to get by in their own way: Some people find careers, some people delve in to their hobbies, some people study a lot and some people party too much.
This is hard to remember when someone ’causes’ you pain. It’s hard because at the same time, you’re just trying to get by as well and being selfish is the most normal way of doing so. When you want to relate to someone else or get to know someone else it’s important to have this in your mind. Everybody is human and they’re all going through the same things you go through.
Side story that is semi-related:
For months and months, I’ve been avoiding watching chinese TV because I think it’s crap. The technology in production is years behind the technology of western media and I just get this general ‘lame’ feeling about it. But tonight, I sat down for dinner while some show was on and something just clicked in my mind and my perspective changed.
This show is about these guys with super powers defeating these other people with super powers while flying around and shooting different forms of energy beams at each other. As I mentioned before, the technology they used in these films is bad so it’s obvious there’s plenty of strings and post-production use of MSPaint or something similar. I don’t know much about the story-line but I’ll assume it’s moderately passable.
So I’m sitting here thinking this show is incredibly lame until I realised: Wait one second! My favourite show is Heroes! What happens in Heroes? Dudes with super powers go after other dudes with super powers and have super power fights. Despite the fact that the technology used in production is a lot better, the concepts are still the same.
Then I realised I probably shouldn’t think that people who like chinese TV dramas etc are lame because in reality, we’re probably watching the same things in slightly different lights. Having this frame of mind when relating to other people probably helps a lot in understanding them.
All very zen.
A final point that I’m going to make here, and it’s exclusively for the boys. Girls can read it too if you want to feel all warm and fuzzy… or damp.
There’s a theory that flies around in dark places that to even start talking to the most beautiful of girls, you need to ‘bring them down to your level’ through statements that lower their perceived social value. While I do see a use for it (mainly if you’re not very cool), I think it’s stupid.
Girls spend hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours… you get the point. They spend so much time trying to look good. And for what?
To look good?
Why do they want to look good?
So guys will like her?
To quote Nate, “So that guys will pick her over OTHER girls… VALIDATION. She needs to know that she’s a good girl, she needs to know that she’s not broken… that guys find her attractive… that she won’t end up alone… that other girls are not prettier than she is. She needs to hear that voice of encouragement. She needs verbal hugs as well as physical ones. She needs to know that SHE is special not ordinary… ordinary sucks… Everything she does screams, “Please love me”.
So she gets waxed, tanned, she spends hours on a stair climber trying to fix her perfect ass that is so insecure about ’cause she thinks its either too big or too small… she gets fake boobs to get an edge on other girls… she gets fake nails, her hair highlighted.
How wonderful must it feel to have a random stranger say, “Good job… you look great… to me you are perfect. Thank you for making me enjoy the fact that I’m a guy who gets to look at your beauty”???”
Food for thought.
- Matt