May 12

 Still cruising along relatively ok. A couple of times the grimdark has threatened to intrude, but I've backed it off. Mostly to do with loss. Health. Ares. Don't get me wrong. There's still no hope, little joy, life is shit. I'm just doing better at handling it at the moment.

Achieved some nice things at work. Lovely. Mechanically beautiful. Crunchily technical. Satisfying. Which is a nice change from the of late rampant shit shovelling and running around with hair on fire. Andy has backed the hell off. I think it has slowly percolated through that he has been fucking shit up royally. So we have a new employee on the way. And another part timer possibly on the back of that one too. And he has quit, for the moment, just transferring anxiety about the place. As a direct result. Work has got better. I have felt better about work. No surprises. But it does make you realise just what an enormous part of the problem he has been. Eh well. He does his best. Unlike what your mom always told you however, doing your best is sometimes not good enough. There are at times very definite lines in the sand of which below means failure and above means success. Trying hard and not getting over the line, whilst, on some level, perhaps noble, or admirable, or whatever, is still, in these things, an abject failure. Please get off the bus. Reality can be brutal like that. I don't like it. But I don't make the rules. Where the rubber hits the road, there are no trophies for participation. You either make the jump across the chasm, or you plummet to your death as you scream I did my besttttttt.

In a lot of life circumstances, doing your best is all that matters. And is very important to remember that.

Computers. Like flying a plane. Or building a bridge. Or heart surgery. Are alas not one of those circumstances. Do, or do not. There is no try. As Yoda said.

I have an appointment for my butt next week. A short chat with One Of The Surgery Dudes. But not the main surgery dude I saw before. I expect it will be similar to last time. A quick discussion. A finger up my butt. And then put on an interminable waiting list for surgery.

I'm not super looking forward to it. I'm not dreading it. But at the same time. I can be doing without hauling my ass to hospital, waiting around, having a 15 minute stupid chat, then driving home and yada blah. Just to get put on a waiting list. It is, in the greater scope of things, shit. Still. Like an abused spouse. Be thankful for the small mercies. Of actually getting seen at all.

I've been ruminating on late on the gap between carrot and stick approaches for when someone falls. In the past. When someone struggled. Failed. Needed help. Couldn't cope. Was wounded. Or hit some other thing in life that meant they could do with help. More often than not the old school approach was to apply A Stick. IE. Beat them. Kick them. Abuse them. Berate them. Are you crying ? I'll give you something to cry about ! Smack. You fell down ? What are you, weak ? You're pathetic.

Which taught generations of people to get up, dust themselves down, shove down their emotions, shove down empathy and just get on with it. And then treat everyone else in the same brutal way. And desperately hide any sign of actual breakdown. There is always random violence to fill in the coping gap. Lash out at friends. Your kids. Your spouse ! Throwing punches, takes some of the pain away.

The other end of the spectrum is the carrot.

When someone falls down, you go to help them back up. When someone is hurt, you ask them what you can do to aid them.

This tends to be more of a modern, more touchy feely approach.

Which one is right ?

Both can work. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. And to this day there are proponents of both.

Still. To me. The whole thing about basically abusing someone until they either get better, or get better at hiding their pain, or break, is sociopathic. Cruel. And ultimately self defeating. Stiff upper lip, ignore the pain, carry on.

Pain responses. Emotions. Yada. Are there for a reason. They are telling you something. Just like your nose tells you of smells. And your ears tell you of sounds. Pain responses tell you of ouch.

Ignoring those. And continuing blithely on is just fucking stupid. And also. Piling that onto others as an example. By inflicting abuse on them. Is fucked up.

Can humans cope with this ? Yeah. Sticks work pretty well with people. Can you actually make some people, sometimes, shrug it off and get through it and be ballpark productive. Sure. Overall is it useful ? Very debatable. You switch one problem for another. At the very least. People are strong and adaptable and can cope with being abused. To a point.

Is it good for them ? Does it make them thrive ? I'd say, absolutely not. It encodes a way of behaviour that damages them, and like all good abuse, is then carried on through to those around them, particularly those close to them. Monkey see. Monkey do. The abused become the abusers.

Then again. We can often find ourselves having to shape the uncontrolled tantrums and rages of children not by love, but by authority. Until they have grown up enough not to be such an asshat. Indeed part of childhood is learning how far of an asshat you can be, before someone pushes back against you and says, fuck off.

But then. By the same token. The murderous among us are imprisoned. The dangerous among us are medicated, or instituionalised. But we don't put everyone in a prison. There are lines. And when some of those lines are crossed there are consequences.

But that does not then mean that a one size fits all, let's just treat everyone with contempt when they need help is great.

I often find myself showing disdain to those, that when seeing someone need help, their first instinct is to attack that person. Belittle them. Add to their problems. Rather than going to help. I find it's like watching someone drown, and rather than finding a way to help, those kind of people stand on the shoreline and shout at the drowning person that they are weak and deserve to die.

The really grim thing is. Those people are often very happy with themselves about their approach. They take a certain satisfaction and glee about kicking people when they are down.

Perverse. In my humble opinion.

Sure. You can get into a situation where you help those that are addicted to being helped. Those that would exploit a situation. But that's all aspects of life. No matter what you do or where you go, there is always the potential of someone abusing it. Phone scams. Con men. Snake oil. Those that feign weakness to get aid is just another con.

Just because that exists, doesn't mean you then stop helping everyone. That's fucked up. The decision that people make to exploit a situation is on them. That makes them a not so great person. Fuck them. But don't let the bad penny then spoil everyone else, because everyone then takes the lesson, fine, I won't help then, and then I can't be taken advantage of. In that way. The few damaged people have had an enormous effect on everyone else by infecting the group as a whole with a dysfunctional approach.

Bottom line. I'd rather help and be taken advantage of. Than not help and let someone genuinely drown. The former is on them. The latter would be on me. And hopefully. The former can't get away with it too long before being called on it.

A lot of my family were old school like that. Default reaction. Kick someone when they are down until they get up again.

I abhorred this. And when I was an adult called them on their behaviour. Fuck you. Stop it. You are terrible people.

It can be a subtle thing though. As good as her intentions are. I know my Sister still does it from time to time. And. When stressed. On a bad day. My brother does it too. You basically get the response of. Just get on with it. "People don't want to hear it" - as my brother brutally said to me in the car being at one of the lowest points in my life. Have you tried just shutting up about it.

I did, indeed, at that point, shut up about it. I know. He cares. And tries. But still. Those words he said. Are burned into my brain. I can't forget them. It's not cool.

Last year my Sister was confused about why, kind of, by and large, all her kids tend to bottle up their responses and not talk to her about it. This was upsetting to her. She had tried to be open and a good listener with them. But they all seemed to have learned a lesson to shut up about it.

On thinking about it, I've realised it's the subtle messages she gives out, and her inability to properly deal with awful things. Push them away. Move on. Don't dwell. Shut up about it.

So her kids have done just that.

Shut up about it.

But it hasn't gone away. It's there. They're just alone with it. And in some cases when I've approached them. And actually talked to them about shit. And been willing to get into the dark weeds. They talk to me about it. And open up. And are full of anxieties.

It is of course my parents hand. Their own teachings. Shut up. Get on with it. Very much my parents way of doing things. You Don't Talk About Shit. Ever.

My father has run suicidal for many years. Would tell my mom that maybe today would be the day he would commit suicide. And then go to work. But he wouldn't talk to anyone about it. Or admit it - other than the blurts to my mom. Bottle it up. Carry on.

Guaranteed to solve nothing.

And then later in life, both were aggrieved at the lack of care and empathy shown them. You reap as you sow my dudes. This is the lesson you taught your kids.

It is more subtle and complicated than that. My sister tries. And is upset that she can't quite connect. She is not 100% adamantly fuck you. A complex swirl of grey rather than black or white. And running away from her own anxieties about dealing with emotions and difficult situations. But still. The lessons are ingrained in there.

And as for my dad. Look at his peak worst behaviour. Kicking my mom when she could no longer get up. Quintessential kick them when they are down until they get up again. Or don't. Literally. Kicking her when she was down.

At that point. At some very real and scared level in the aftermath. He knew it was wrong. And he had fucked up. But that is where his own wisdom and behaviour had lead him. The ultimate destination of the stick mentality. Fuck em up. Leave em behind bleeding in the dirt.

Brutal.

I have also encountered the behavior in soldiers. Who are, when you take 1 second to think about it, indoctrinated to be unthinking, uncaring followers of orders and to kill on command. To do that. You have to strip a certain level of thinking and empathy away from someone. All the marching around and exhausting excercise is not about fitness. It's about mental conditioning. Don't question. Just do. Also. Stick all the way. Keep on. Until you can't. In fact. Keep on, even if you die, so long as you don't break rank. No time for pain. Or emotions. Do a job. Go where someone wants you to go. Kill people that someone wants you to kill. Done.

And then they come home with that indoctrination in their head. And can often live a stick life. Kick them. Until they get up. That's the way you get shit done.

And also riddled with PTSD, trauma and a massive struggle to re-integrate into society.

You cannot. Ever. Push shit down far enough that it will never come back up again. Bottling stuff up. Pushing it down. Will just force it out in a different way, and or at a later date. It doesn't go away. Often it comes out as anger and violence. Depression. Suicide. Misery. A breakdown. It always outs. One way or another. There is no escape from it. There is only a choice in how you deal with it.

Or as the saying goes, choose a way to deal with it. Or. Be forced to a way that it deals with you. Master it. Or it will be your master.

No matter how macho or bullshit you are.

Truth outs.

Our quiet sub conscious doesn't let it happen any other way.

So. Carrot or stick ?

Carrot. And if you're a lover of the stick. You're one fucked up individual imho. 

Also. A relevant aside. I remember as a kid I got sick with something. Don't know what it was. But I was bedridden for 48 hours. Properly. Bed ridden. And throwing up. Feverish. Really, up there with bad shit. And after 48 hours. My parents told me to get out of bed. And I couldn't stand up. My legs were jelly, and I collapsed. I wasn't faking it. The idea of faking anything hadn't ever crossed my mind. My legs did not work.

My parents response was to of course tell me off. Punish me.

For the sin of not having working legs.

I tried my best, eventually they gave up verbally abusing me and I went back to bed.

Next day I was up and about albeit shaky.

But yeah. Fuck me I guess.

10/10. Excellent parenting.

At the time I shrugged it off. Just part of my childhood experience. Life was not fair. And your parents were dangerous animals you had to be wary of.

Which also explains why I am a people pleaser now.

Sigh.