Hello, I blog!
I share all my sporadic and toilet thoughts in here, because I am random like that.
Humankind – Eet ees doomed!
A best girlfriend has summarized what I generally feel about humankind oh so beautifully in her blog.
life is unfair, and that is personally a huge problem area, as i, for the life of me, cannot stand injustice – and day after day, i see things, hear things and read things which enrage me. things showcasing the hard fact that people are cruel, selfish, inconsiderate and evil, that they love stereotyping, gossiping, slandering, elevating themselves and putting others down; that people continuously repay good with evil and i remember asking c. in tears and consternation, “how can people be like that? why are people like that?†and i repeatedly asked where human decency was. (source)
I too, find myself asking the same question time and time again.
Even though I’ve long accepted the fact several years ago that the human race is doomed, I still find myself getting shell-shocked (which later leads to extreme fury) at the many injustices that human beings do to one another.
The prevalence of the internet only makes it all worse. The cloak of anonymity further releases one’s inhibitions, leading human beings to do further wrongs to one another without fear of reparation – although that is a separate issue altogether.
It was only today I discovered that – while I always thought I was a realist – there are several aspects in which I am more of an idealist than a realist. Human behaviour is one of these aspects.
Then again, who am I to judge? I have been dealt with much shit from some people around (which too, made me yell “why the fuck are people like that?”). But likewise, I have also been dishing out my fair amount of shit to other people. So all’s fair and square I guess. For now.
I still cling on to the hope that somehow, someday things may change.
That people will act with more consideration for other people, to pay more attention to others’ feelings, to learn to see things from other peoples’ point of view, to think more logically than emotionally, and for people to be more aware of what they are doing (perceptual salience of oneself leads to one’s conscious attempt to portray oneself more favourably).
But yeah, too lofty hopes up there.
Meanwhile, I’ll just live my own life and not let any of the shit get me down, or get in my way. When it comes to creating my own happiness, I will have to take charge – because the world is too screwed up to derive happiness from any other source. Not to mention how I have awesome friends for support. (And them, likewise!)
Grey areas in perception
So, apparently I’ve been taking waaay too much chocolate during the last few days in Vancouver – no thanks to my aunt’s seemingly endless chocolate supply and not to mention how chocolate is really, really cheap here.
It was during two of these chocolate-gobbling sessions where I noticed that there are many ways I can perceive situations, especially concerning other people’s intentions.
Scenario 1
En route to Whistler Mountains with the rest of the family in a rented jeep, my aunt was passing chocolate supplies around as she normally would during a long road trip.
I received a packet of Maltesers (mmm, one of my favourites). In front of me, the younger cousin had just received a bar of Lindt 70% dark chocolate.
A coupla’ seconds later, the younger cousin turned around and offered to trade his chocolate with me.
“Brenda, you want?” he asked, holding out the Lindt bar. “I know that you love dark chocolate!”
I was really, really touched at first – because he remembered that I love dark chocolate more than any other types. (And men in general are really good at forgetting these things.) So I accepted the Lindt bar and began chomping gleefully.
Nomming my chocolate bar and gazing out at the scenery outside, it suddenly struck me that I had conveniently overlooked one fact – that the younger cousin hated dark chocolate, but also loved Maltesers … quite possibly more than I do.
So, there are two ways of looking at this.
A. The younger cousin offered his dark chocolate to me because he knows that I love dark chocolate and that I would definitely enjoy it more than he would.
B. He offered to trade his dark chocolate only because he himself hated it, and wanted Maltesers instead.
Mmm, something to think about.
Scenario 2
A continuation of Scenario 1. So, I’ve finished gobbling up the last bit of the Lindt bar just as the jeep pulled into the petrol station for a gas top-up.
As the younger cousin hopped off the jeep to the convenience store at the gas station for a top-up of munchies, I requested that he help me get another Lindt bar. Ten minutes later, he returned and passed me an extra-large bar of Lindt 70% dark chocolate, two times the size of the standard bar I was munching on before.
So I expressed shock, because I definitely couldn’t finish all of it. “It’s okay, eat it slowly,” was his reply.
Again, there are two ways of looking at it.
A. He bought the extra-large chocolate bar because he knows I love dark chocolate (as in, seriously!) and so, decided to get me a supply that can last me a couple of days at least.
B. He bought the extra-large chocolate bar because it was much cheaper to buy in bulk (or larger sizes), rather than a single, standard-size Lindt bar. So he saves money that way, just in case I end up asking him for even more Lindt bars.
If the above scenarios happened to you, which one would you choose?
For me, I chose option A for both – because despite how the younger cousin has his share of annoying (and occasionally, selfish – but who doesn’t?) moments, I know he really, really, really cares for me a lot and would basically go out of his way to make me happy.
If he is in the mood to, at least. Heh.
It’s a judgmental world!
One thing I really do not regret is taking up two psychology-related elective modules despite doing a technology-related degree – ‘Introduction to Psychology’ in Spring 2008 and ‘Social Psychology’ in Fall 2008.
Psychology is a really awesome discipline. It looks deep into the human psyche, and the takeaways from the modules I took were largely relevant in real life. It enabled me to better understand the behavour and thought processes of the people around, and got me in touch with the inner-workings of my mind.
I still have the textbooks from both courses. Despite it being almost two years ago, I can still vividly recall how I could practically devour several chapters of the textbook in one sitting, even going to the point of reading the entire textbook despite several chapters being ‘not in the syllabus’.
Needless to say, I aced both courses. Fun stuff, really. (;
It was also through Psychology where I realized that there are many flaws in the way human beings reason. It remains a fact that the world is a judgmental place, and the bulk of it is the result of these flaws in reasoning.
Human beings do make use of a lot of ‘shortcuts’ methodologies when perceiving things around them. These shortcuts ARE useful – they do save us a lot of brain energy, and we come to conclusions much faster when using these shortcuts.
However, these shortcuts are often derived from the general ‘norms’ or typical observations of people – which often do not apply to all. Most of us make use of shortcuts so regularly to an extent we fail to realize that human beings are a broad, complex species with a myriad of values, mindsets and behavioral patterns that cannot be fitted into moulds.
Lemme’ share some of the most common reasoning errors!
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