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Rotting Tree - Being unaffected by evil

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iouswuoibev

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By fault I mean who's responsibility was it. I'll frame it in human terms: if someone puts pressure on you or interferes with you, and does everything short of physical force to get in your way, is it your fault if you get affected by it (you let it affect you, you failed to use your mind which is your only defense), or is it the fault of the person interfering?

There's something I was thinking about recently: whether anyone can really be verbally bullied. Because I used to experience this a lot when I was at school, growing up as a child. Everyone disliked me and did everything they could to let me know it. And this made me terribly upset. It was only once I accepted that I chose to be upset about it, and took charge of my mind, that their barbs ceased to have any affect on me.

Now when I see people who whine that they are being given a hard time at work or such, I feel contempt for them and think that it was their own fault for not doing the necessary thinking that would give them the self-respect to deal with it. So I'm asking, do you agree with this attitude?

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Firstly, the blame is not either/or. If someone intentionally insults me, I blame him, for starters.

There may still be some "blame" for me, if I over-react to his insults. Are you suggesting that any reaction (even, say, mild irritation) in the face of someone's insults is a sign of weakness?

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No. There certainly are reactions that I would consider appropriate. It's not the reaction but the mental state that causes it that I was thinking of. Hence the "rotting tree". I'm not sure precisely what demarks the differences, but basically, to use the metaphor again, if the tree gets destroyed then a question of blame is involved, but if it is unscathed (and I would say that being mildly irritated by an insult is certainly unscathed) then there is no question of blame involved.

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Great. From your own experiences of being verbally-bullied in school, were there some topics or bullies that were particularly irritating? If so, what was it about them that made them so?

Sometimes victims can be upset because they accept the premise of their bullies and think that the bully is naming a truth about which they are ashamed. If the premise is mistaken in the first place, and if they ought not to be ashamed of whatever it is, then they can learn and change. I think, in doing so, they will be less upset by what's said, even if they're irritated by the rudeness.

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Great. From your own experiences of being verbally-bullied in school, were there some topics or bullies that were particularly irritating? If so, what was it about them that made them so?

The only ones that stand out in my mind were the one's that were physically violent. Otherwise no.

Sometimes victims can be upset because they accept the premise of their bullies and think that the bully is naming a truth about which they are ashamed. If the premise is mistaken in the first place, and if they ought not to be ashamed of whatever it is, then they can learn and change. I think, in doing so, they will be less upset by what's said, even if they're irritated by the rudeness.

One thing that springs to mind here is that I focused on the fact that I was easily intimidated, and hated myself for that, and that made me all the more easy to intimidate. It was a viscious circle.

Anyway, I agree with you.

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I posted something on the topic of 'getting offended' in my blog once:

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I’ve never really understood how people can ‘get offended’. As far as I can see, there are two classes of comments that people get offended at:

1. Derogatory / slanderous / untruthful comments. E.g. Someone coming up to me and saying something to the effect of “You are worthless because you are ”. Such comments SHOULD be easy to dismiss straight away, if the person who they are being directed towards has a firm grasp of reality. Anything that is untrue in the world should be easy to dismiss. If I were faced with this situation, I would simply roll my eyes and keep walking. I know that something as trivial as my race has no effect at all on my value as a human being. Of course I would never in my life choose to interact with a person that makes such a comment – not because I feel hurt, but because that person is clearly an irrational idiot. But often people get offended when someone makes a comment of this sort. And I can only conclude that it is because they have their own insecurities about their self worth based on things such as race or gender, and thus such a comment ‘hits a nerve’.

2. True comments. For example, let’s take the classic cliché of a woman going into a clothing store with her partner. She tries on an article of clothing and asks something to the effect of “Do I look fat in this?” Her partner realizes that yes, she has indeed put on some weight and replies saying that yes, she does look fat in it. She of course chucks a tantrum, has a rant about how her partner is an insensitive prick and bitches to all her friends about it. All her friends then shake their heads in agreement that her partner is indeed some sort of monster. This is clearly another case of a person who is in denial of reality. She cannot accept the reality of her weight gain and looks for reassurance from others to tell her that her denial is in fact OK. Of course what she should actually do is accept that she has gained weight and if it really bothers her that much, work at losing it. Getting upset at her partner for stating a truth is just ridiculous.

Personally, I constantly get told that I am 'too honest' by certain people. This is intended to be a negative comment. By saying that someone is too honest as a negative indicates two very concerning things about that person.

A. They acknowledge that what is being said is in fact true, and

B. That they are trying to deny this truth.

Unfortunately for them, such a comment says a lot more about the sad state of their psychology than it does about me.

Edited by Ranil
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2. True comments. For example, let’s take the classic cliché of a woman going into a clothing store with her partner. She tries on an article of clothing and asks something to the effect of “Do I look fat in this?” Her partner realizes that yes, she has indeed put on some weight and replies saying that yes, she does look fat in it. She of course chucks a tantrum, has a rant about how her partner is an insensitive prick and bitches to all her friends about it. All her friends then shake their heads in agreement that her partner is indeed some sort of monster. This is clearly another case of a person who is in denial of reality. She cannot accept the reality of her weight gain and looks for reassurance from others to tell her that her denial is in fact OK. Of course what she should actually do is accept that she has gained weight and if it really bothers her that much, work at losing it. Getting upset at her partner for stating a truth is just ridiculous.

Personally, I constantly get told that I am 'too honest' by certain people. This is intended to be a negative comment. By saying that someone is too honest as a negative indicates two very concerning things about that person.

A. They acknowledge that what is being said is in fact true, and

B. That they are trying to deny this truth.

Unfortunately for them, such a comment says a lot more about the sad state of their psychology than it does about me.

In regards to the dress scenario: some women would admire a man's honesty here: and if you say it a deadpan tone ("Do I look fat in this?" "Yes you do.") it can sound funny.

I had already concluded what I thought about this issue when I started the thread. I sum it up with one sentence "Hold people accountable for their own minds". This goes for every area of life and every single thing a person is capable of thinking or feeling or doing.

I had a great deal of difficulty accepting this in the beginning; not because I was mentally incapable of adopting this attitude, but because I'd become one of the people I resented.

I didn't (and don't) want to hurt people's feelings - surely a noble intention? But if you avoid triggering certain emotions in people, then you become dependant on them, since what they happen to feel is out of your hands. You end up defining your behaviour by who they are.

A lesser error is to say that some emotions are reasonable and some are not, or that emotions are always reasonable in certain contexts. This is lazy over-generalising. You're more likely to be just than the person who simply avoids triggering any negative emotion in people all the time, but doing justice will mostly be a coincidence.

The right way to go about it is to only respect a person's thought (which requires that you respect your own thought), since that is what determines their emotional responses. You can't be accountable for anything they've written into their subconscious, no matter how small and innocent, or how big and monstrous. You can only deal with their thought. Your only concern is: is this rational? Is this in accordance with reality or opposed to it? Because that's the only thing that can be answered by your reason.

People who are in charge of their own minds don't hold back anything in expressing themselves, and I used to be afraid of them sometimes. Let me tell you something: if you get hurt by anyone mentally, it is your own fault.

What about people who betray your trust or lie to you? It's your own fault. Denying fault is tantamount to saying you can't correct it. Saying "it's your fault" does not mean, "I'm responsible for that person's wrongdoing." but, "I am responsible for trusting that person, and that trust was an error, and it is my responsibility to rectify that error."

Pronounce judgement on people as absolutely and firmly as you would on any inanimate thing. But, be prepared to revise your decision. On any judgement you make of another person, tag a silent sentence on the end: "In accordance with who I know you to be at the present." Yes, even with murderers and sex offenders (on principle). Doing this puts you in a mind where your mind is open to the fact that people can change, or realise they did wrong. I used to make the error of wanting to put people in a box permenantly. Again, a result of lazy thinking, of not wanting to have to do the necessary work required to stay rational and objective.

If I say "I'm never going to speak to you again", I mean "I'm never going to speak to you again - in accordance with who I know you to be at the present." If I say "I love you", I mean "I love you, in accordance with who I know you to be at the present."

None of this means that you can't permenantly keep someone in a certain place in your mind - it means that on principle, you accept the reality of volition. Nor should it blunt the absolutism of your judgement. There are some people who can't redeem themselves (e.g. murderers and sex offenders), but it's still not an error to say "In accordance with who I know you to be at the present". Implicitly, when necessary, it will include the whole future as well.

Have you ever heard the philosophical statement that the only thing that gives us morality is our emotions or instincts, and we'd be rampant sociopaths if we didn't feel any social pressures? Surely you've heard something along these lines. The greatest ommissions here are volition and reason. It's reason that limits us, always. The "social pressures" we feel are just a shortcut from thinking.

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If a bully walked up to you and accused you of not having any legs, then started to laugh histerically, you would probably shrug it off as nonsense. The ammount of truth in an insult, and your attitude toward that truth affects your reaction. If you are "insulted" for a quality that you are proud of (selfishness, for example) again, you shrug it off contemptuously.

When you have a character empty of elements you feel less than proud of, you are immune to any insult.

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