Yeah, but what are we actually doing here?

Over time, my desire to record my observations has waxed and waned.  I've come to a point where I genuinely wonder what the point is, and I have an increasing sense that exposing my opinions is actually somewhat hazardous.  The feverish appetite for bad faith takes is epidemic in our culture, and I think it's going to get worse before it gets better.  It's also just a sad fact that unfamiliar people receive hostile opinions (you know, good-naturedly hostile opinions) in ways that are worse than one would typically imagine.  In fact, the number of people who appreciate good-natured hostility are almost definitely lower than I thought they were earlier in life.  Is everyone just inappropriately sincere, "goofy" and possessed of an unnuanced and uncreative sense of humor?  Pretty much!  

Still, writing things out is how I like to process information, and it's my preferred method of communication.  Verbal communication is something I only like to do with people inside my world, at which point the situation usually inverts and the higher quality is found in the verbal while the written gets reduced to familiar shorthand.  I don't like talking to people I don't know well or trust, and that is probably apparent from my silence, halting sentences or unfortunate word choices.  I'd rather avoid it, for everyone's benefit.  The only bad part is that written things last for a long time.  Long after you've changed.

There are lots of places this exploration can go: the social contagion of bad faith "gotcha" interactions, the mistrust between extroverts and introverts, the intentional concealment of one's true personality from certain types of people, and the originating causes for that.  

The bad faith thing is such a serious problem, and it needs to be argued like a legal case (apparently).  I can't tell you how many people pooh-pooh the existence of this, like it's only being perpetuated by a few bad actors.  That's how it spreads, my friend.  Even my closest ideological allies take this view right now, creating recurrent arguments between us.  The description of this phenomenon requires the compilation of thousands of literal, real-life examples that happen every year, and that is just not my job.  Even though I have all the capacity for such a painful passion project, the brain-atrophying effects of (I guess) social media and our anti-intellectual culture, plus the unending quantity of information to process, have made me apathetic and lazy when it comes to info gathering.  Plus, better people are already on the job.  A smart friend with mutual interests recently suggested we start a podcast together, and I stopped him immediately: "Do you realize the amount of research and vetting we'd have to do about every single thing we said?"  When you're creating an artifact like that, you can't just bullshit, especially if you're talking about something like the topics we were discussing, which are all enmeshed with culture and history.  I can't just talk about things the way I remember them, the way we do for fun in person.  "Oh, shit, that's true..." he said.  Hasn't come up again.  Unfortunate, but that's the way it's gotta be.  I wouldn't have said that five or ten years ago, but I also would have been more willing to wing facts and manipulate information to make my points, and after seeing what happens when journalists do that, I just can't.  I'm not a journalist and no one is informing their choices by what I say, but the disingenuous ones have ruined everything for everyone.  Like I said: bad faith.  I can't stand myself if I misrepresent facts even if all we're talking about is Ann Richards' favorite restaurant.  Or maybe that is something I could talk about...

The mistrust between introverts/extroverts is a flawed conversation too, because these descriptions are now being used with such authority, like either group is a known quantity with all of the same characteristics.  They're not, but you know what I mean when I describe that poor communication.  Everyone does, on both sides of the coin.  I've experienced it many times in my life, and I usually feel totally disconnected from the unfolding situation, watching like an observer.  Before I learned to pantomime a kind of breezy good-naturedness in unknown situations, like a psychopath, my demeanor was usually interpreted as a rude attempt at superiority.  This shocked me, shocked me, because it happened when I was a kid, a teen at my first job even, and often it was grown adults who interpreted my behavior that way.  That says more about them than anything, because I was just shy and awkward and they were seeing all of their prior negative experiences with other people in our innocuous exchanges.  And although I am much more comfortable with people now, and the fake sophisticated good-natured presentation is often even sincere, I am so tired of this type of conflict now.  For a long time, I've seen it as something that can't be helped.  If I care, I'll try to fix it if I've been misinterpreted, but I usually just leave it.

There are so many reasons why communicating thoughts and opinions is risky.  I've come to accept and believe that I'll be misunderstood at least as much as I'm understood, and that is something that matters less and less to me with each year.  The only part of that dynamic that I'm interested in is how differently the same person can interpret you before they know you, and after they know you.  In my experience, I've been treated with so much suspicion followed with overwhelming enthusiasm after someone has accepted my personality that I've stopped overthinking it all.  If it takes, it does, and if it doesn't, who can care?  There's a risk inherent in all interactions that will always exist.  Let it go is the mantra of life. 

The real challenge is letting go with people who are inextricably in your life, like family.  I used to require that my extended family didn't misinterpret or judge me, because they actually are superior assholes, and predisposed to seeing other people in remarkably uncharitable ways.  This goes for the sweetest aunt all the way down to the drug addict cousin.  Once upon a time, I couldn't have that - couldn't have it recorded in anyone's social family memory that I wasn't as smart or formidable as they were.  Of course, now that I've experienced them all on the flattened playing field of adulthood, I'm no longer worried about it.  As time passes and dynamics change, I'm finding myself transferred to a more authoritative role, which feels weird yet appropriate.  I see the old family bosses defer decisions to me, even the scariest non-parental members, and I'm finally old enough to accept that.  It is the way of time.  Plus I do know more.

And in work situations, I've learned to handle this scenario down when it comes to direct reports who have to deal with me whether they want to or not.  I've tried to make those interactions as transparent and pleasurable as they can be, knowing that the true opinions of people subject to my decisions are likely to be forever unknown to me.  Managing other people is the hardest part of any job and despite my initial  protestations, I've found myself to be surprisingly up to the task.  The best thing you can do in that role is to allow people to manage up, and influence you by creating a, dare I say it, safe space for them to be honest with you.  "Let me be frank." "No, I want to be Frank."  Terrible 90s goth joke.  

One of the few ways I've been able to remain on good terms with people in my life who have radically differing views is by identifying the things we agree on.  It's so simple, but feels like a revelation every time it happens.  Usually those things are totally apolitical, which is fine, but it's felt something like a cop out on my part.  It's the only option, though.  And I can feel closer to those people than I do with the ideologically-aligned who happen to live their lives in ways that I don't understand.  I'm capable of resenting those people in ways I never could a similar person with wildly different views.  What did Chaucer say?

Any opportunity to share Rowland.

Ultimately, I'd prefer to create a well resourced and fenced enough status for myself in which the honest transmission of hot takes and opinions is safe, no matter how evolving or formative (antisocial) those views are.  We're not there yet, though, and in the meantime, I'll keep deciding if the sharing of any opinions continues to be valuable.  It's going to be a while before that feels fruitful again.  I feel like I'm perceiving this society's next storm before/as it hits, and as much as I'd hate to be right, I think there's a good chance of it.