Ok, talking about motives. Going after one preference over another means that someone would be making the selection because of getting a certain payoff from it, right? No matter what the payoff, correct? The payoff could be a paragon of personal martrydom or another one of the rainbow of motives. It's whatever gets you off, so to speak. Different strokes for different folks. The payoff is still some sort of a motive that drives the definition of value of making the selection.
To be honestly self-referent, the payoff I get from writing about thinking is immense, actually. I don't know why this is true, but it motivated me to learn to write in order to do this very thing I'm doing now.
The medium is important, not the massage, ah..er.. the message. The WAY something is done is often overlooked. If I wanted to pound in a message the way DonL likes to pound in his message of how arrogant and self-deceptive the "I" "I" "I" "I" "I" action is, it would be that one. But I don't like to pound, because I regard repetition as a disrespectful tactic of advertising. Guess that is also why I find it distasteful to "sell" what I feel is valuable.
Why can't people just GET that these things are valuable and take the value of what I have to offer them? Why do I have to SELL what I feel is valuable? Why don't people just look at me and figure out they could be as deliriously happy as me if they'd just...
I guess because people would never otherwise have a clue that the value even exists.
The connection between the medium being congruent with the message defines the level of effectiveness. If they match, the message is related in a much more powerful fashion. (This is, in a nutshell, what is the defintion of ART for me.) The way the selection process is communicated (or imposed on others) is important - not the content of the selected value.
Gawd, I feel like a salesperson sometimes when I write this stuff.
For me, putting "I" before something or using qualifiers such as IMHO, etc. means that it's coming from just little old me. That what is being said not the BIG TRUTH with a CAPITOL "T" - I'm not puffed up into wanting to define the nature of life, the universe and everything.
Funny, huh? I regard the use of "I" to indicate a directly opposite evidence that of how DonL regards it. Don believes that writing without the "I" is evidence of less egotism. For me, the humble use of "I" implies a lack of arrogance, a lone voice in the wilderness speaking from the point of view of one person's experience - one person who speaks only for themselves and not the Royal WE of those who have empowered me to represent them.
Because one person talking doesn't imply the puffed-up importance of defining the absolute FACT of The Way Things Are. That's how it comes across to me when the "I" is left out of what is being expressed. I think that it deceptively hides the content as if it is "fact" when it is only merely someone's opinion.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Why Did I Do That?
Do people do things for negative reasons?
I used to imagine they do. I used to think I did. But now as I have come to watch myself and others, I don't think that is the case.
What someone chooses to do, their choices may have negative consequences. It can be argued in many cases that people are a product of their conditioning - their own, environmental and parental, etc. So they don't really have a choice. But, (as far as I can tell,) everyone chooses an action (or lack of it) because of its positive aspects, not the negative ones.
Often the choice is not so wise, or the selection doesn't take crucial things into account that should have been obvious to the person. Even more commonly, the person feels as if they "must" make the choice for various justified points that they are aware are negative. Such as choosing between two evils, such as what we have to do so often when we vote. Sometimes people are aware of the negative aspects, but they decide the costs are "worth it," possibly because sometimes the costs are deferred until "later." Some people like to gamble and play the odds, imagining they won't be the one to suffer the common consequences.
I quipped lately, when in the presence of a friend of mine who is a confirmed drinker, (alcoholics go to meetings) that has more time than a smoker to change her ways, because drinkers live much longer than drinkers who smoke.
Most often, I think what happens when people make what later turns out to be a "negative" choice -- it's that their priorities changed somewhere along the line. They got trapped. Sometimes they forgot to consult all the priorities, or to even realize they might have had priorities at all.
It's as though, sometimes, we are a multitude of shifting priority. Not every priority is present at every moment. So it's possible to make a decision that caters and answers to one particular member of the multitude of priorities, and forget a crucial one that got left out. Guess this is where the ideas of the subconscious came from.
Some of the time, nobody can anticipate the sum total of how things will turn out. So it's not possible sometimes to know how a particular choice will affect things on down the line. You just have to find out, and change things as you go.
I used to imagine they do. I used to think I did. But now as I have come to watch myself and others, I don't think that is the case.
What someone chooses to do, their choices may have negative consequences. It can be argued in many cases that people are a product of their conditioning - their own, environmental and parental, etc. So they don't really have a choice. But, (as far as I can tell,) everyone chooses an action (or lack of it) because of its positive aspects, not the negative ones.
Often the choice is not so wise, or the selection doesn't take crucial things into account that should have been obvious to the person. Even more commonly, the person feels as if they "must" make the choice for various justified points that they are aware are negative. Such as choosing between two evils, such as what we have to do so often when we vote. Sometimes people are aware of the negative aspects, but they decide the costs are "worth it," possibly because sometimes the costs are deferred until "later." Some people like to gamble and play the odds, imagining they won't be the one to suffer the common consequences.
I quipped lately, when in the presence of a friend of mine who is a confirmed drinker, (alcoholics go to meetings) that has more time than a smoker to change her ways, because drinkers live much longer than drinkers who smoke.
Most often, I think what happens when people make what later turns out to be a "negative" choice -- it's that their priorities changed somewhere along the line. They got trapped. Sometimes they forgot to consult all the priorities, or to even realize they might have had priorities at all.
It's as though, sometimes, we are a multitude of shifting priority. Not every priority is present at every moment. So it's possible to make a decision that caters and answers to one particular member of the multitude of priorities, and forget a crucial one that got left out. Guess this is where the ideas of the subconscious came from.
Some of the time, nobody can anticipate the sum total of how things will turn out. So it's not possible sometimes to know how a particular choice will affect things on down the line. You just have to find out, and change things as you go.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Advice for Problem Solving
Had an ex who tended to add up his distresses that separately were merely a little annoying and together turned into a landslide. In typical Drama Queen style, he would use the process to completely re-evaluate his life, and jump immediately to make the changes, usually to its detriment. Although your problems are more serious than contrived, when things that are bothering you begin to pile up, it's very tempting to add them together - and then your mind ranges from thing to thing in a horrendous circle of "Queen for a Day" sort of way.
Things have a way of working themselves out in the wash. What will happen, happens - and then you can decide what you are going to do about them. I would want to plan the whole thing ahead of time, but sometimes you need to act to get somewhere before you can stand on the previous steps to see the step ahead. Now for myself, I have come to regard worrying as a signal that I need to goad myself to act in some way - that I really care about outcomes and I'm not doing anything about them. Also realize that it's a significant challenge to come up with creative solutions when you are thinking in terms of survival issues.
Taking a cue from the example of the ex, creative solutions come to me easier if I address the fact that I'm upset first and do things that I know will spell effective indulgence and "mini-vacations" for me personally. Once I'm in a much better state - fed, watered, pain-free, comforted, bathed, calm, etc. then I think of my "problems" with a pen in hand and a big piece of paper for a "mind-map" to get everything out. Writing for me helps with stopping the cycling around over and over of the same issues in my brain. Then once they are out on paper, I can stop thinking about them incessantly. It may be another activity besides writing that allows you to "clear your mind" and see the situation with a more objective eye - but perhaps you can make this approach work for you.
Without committing myself to a course of action, also you might do some research about ways that other people have dealt with the same problems. You might access others who seem to have some creative ideas about your issues at http://globalideasbank.org/site/home/ which is a website with interesting ideas about how to solve social problems.
Perhaps check out Edward de Bono's creative thinking techniques outlined in his books.
For instance, if it's a decision such as "do I move to where my parent is, or do I move my parent in with me?" - might do a Consequences PMI - make separate lists for the positive, negative and Interesting parts of what could happen, given however many certain possible circumstances.
Anyway - my intent here is just to open up possible solutions for you that you can do for yourself. From what I'm reading, it sounds as if you are allowing the circumstances to run you around instead of exploring how you may be able to influence them. There's sometimes only so much that you can do about certain situations, and then your only option is to wait and ask yourself if there will be consequences to putting off making decisions once the outcomes are there. Helps to be able to anticipate the point of no return when the decision will be made for you unless you act, so you know when your options are closing down.
Good luck!
Things have a way of working themselves out in the wash. What will happen, happens - and then you can decide what you are going to do about them. I would want to plan the whole thing ahead of time, but sometimes you need to act to get somewhere before you can stand on the previous steps to see the step ahead. Now for myself, I have come to regard worrying as a signal that I need to goad myself to act in some way - that I really care about outcomes and I'm not doing anything about them. Also realize that it's a significant challenge to come up with creative solutions when you are thinking in terms of survival issues.
Taking a cue from the example of the ex, creative solutions come to me easier if I address the fact that I'm upset first and do things that I know will spell effective indulgence and "mini-vacations" for me personally. Once I'm in a much better state - fed, watered, pain-free, comforted, bathed, calm, etc. then I think of my "problems" with a pen in hand and a big piece of paper for a "mind-map" to get everything out. Writing for me helps with stopping the cycling around over and over of the same issues in my brain. Then once they are out on paper, I can stop thinking about them incessantly. It may be another activity besides writing that allows you to "clear your mind" and see the situation with a more objective eye - but perhaps you can make this approach work for you.
Without committing myself to a course of action, also you might do some research about ways that other people have dealt with the same problems. You might access others who seem to have some creative ideas about your issues at http://globalideasbank.org/site/home/ which is a website with interesting ideas about how to solve social problems.
Perhaps check out Edward de Bono's creative thinking techniques outlined in his books.
For instance, if it's a decision such as "do I move to where my parent is, or do I move my parent in with me?" - might do a Consequences PMI - make separate lists for the positive, negative and Interesting parts of what could happen, given however many certain possible circumstances.
Anyway - my intent here is just to open up possible solutions for you that you can do for yourself. From what I'm reading, it sounds as if you are allowing the circumstances to run you around instead of exploring how you may be able to influence them. There's sometimes only so much that you can do about certain situations, and then your only option is to wait and ask yourself if there will be consequences to putting off making decisions once the outcomes are there. Helps to be able to anticipate the point of no return when the decision will be made for you unless you act, so you know when your options are closing down.
Good luck!
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Fostering Acquaintanceships
I'm not a loner.I meet so many people that I want to stay in touch for some reason or another. Have learned that I MUST keep track of this reason, or I will lose the thread that connects me to them. So have learned to write down with their contact information what it is that we talked about or why I should get back in touch with them again.
Great relationships are made and not found. For me, finding people is somewhat like thrift store shopping in that you meet the person and then find a use for them in your life or visa versa. For me, the essence of relationships is reciprocal - doing something for people and accepting what people have to offer me.
Have a sense that the world is filled with people who have something to offer me, and lately more often, the other way - I have something to offer them. So, the trouble is finding out what this offering is, exactly, in the time we have to spend together.
Sometimes, find myself rising to the occasion using an unreliable brand of psychic ability and guessing. It works amazingly well. Somehow I can establish rapport with quite a few people in the world as I run into them, even though people can be so unique and nobody seems to take the time in this era to develop relationships with people.
I think there is a big need for lots of new words describing relationships. There are so many unique relationships in the world that are lumped together under the heading of "friendships, " or "lover-ships," or "acquaintanceships." The traditional words don't really describe the rainbow of subtlety that is there in all those categories.
More on this later....
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Ego and Making Art
My personal experience as a young person was of being someone who had very little identity or ego. I seemed to not be able to put aside my ego/identity because it wasn't formed enough yet to purposefully influence. For me it was almost as if giving up ego was so natural and irresistible, that I was not in control of purposefully suspending it or using my ego - there wasn't much difference I could sense between one action and its "opposite". It wasn't until I could sense what "I" wanted as a separate ability as I gradually developed a sense of self - that I was able to put this ego sense of self aside purposefully.
I believe that, as an artist, suspension of ego "just happens" in the process of being the conduit to the image coming through. Art was my first ability that I spent quite a bit of time doing, so this is probably partly why I had a natural talent to merge and blend and give up ego.
What made it imperative that I develop an ego was to be able to communicate in relationships with people. Previous to that ability being developed, I was very successful in guessing what people wanted me to do and doing it before I realized I was responding to someone else's desires or goals for me. Strangely enough, I would experience their desire as my own - but I was "shape-shifting" as I later decided to call it.
This ability of mine was so exaggerated that it was almost to the point of freaking people out. Because I would "read their mind" successfully without being told in an eerie psychic fashion, showing up at their doorstep unannounced when needed with the right stuff in my hands for helping them, and so forth.
Wow - it's really raining here right now. Sounds like I'm right next to a stream.
In the late seventies, Psychology Today, (an American magazine which is still published) did a survey to find out if the training and schooling that psychologists were getting was actually resulting in "good psychologists." Recent graduates from various programs and universities were interviewed by top psychologists and evaluated for their suitability for the field. Turns out that those people who were trained in art were considered to make the best psychologists by this study.
Having been to art school myself, I can see how this happened. Art makes a person more sane, partly because of a suspended "ego-less" sort of conduit sensation that people commonly experience while making art.
Historic Egolessness Related to Shape-shifting
My personal experience of being someone who had very little identity or ego as a young person. I seemed to not be able to put aside my ego/identity because it wasn't formed enough yet to purposefully influence. For me
it was almost as if giving up ego was so natural and irresistible, that I was not in control of purposefully suspending it or using my ego - there wasn't much difference I could sense between one action and its "opposite". It wasn't until I could sense what "I" wanted as a separate ability as I gradually developed a sense of self - that I was able to put this ego sense of self aside purposefully.
I believe that, as an artist, suspension of ego "just happens" in the process of being the conduit to the image coming through. Art was my first ability that I spent quite a bit of time doing, so this is probably partly why I had a natural talent to merge and blend and give up ego.
What made it imperative that I develop an ego was to be able to communicate in relationships with people. Previous to that ability being developed, I was very successful in guessing what people wanted me to do and doing it before I realized I was responding to someone else's desires or goals for me. Strangely enough, I would experience their desire as my own - but I was "shape-shifting" as I later decided to call it. This ability of mine was so exaggerated that it was almost to the point of freaking people out. Because I would "read their mind" successfully without being told in an eerie psychic fashion, showing up at their doorstep unannounced when needed with the right stuff in my hands for helping them, and so forth.
it was almost as if giving up ego was so natural and irresistible, that I was not in control of purposefully suspending it or using my ego - there wasn't much difference I could sense between one action and its "opposite". It wasn't until I could sense what "I" wanted as a separate ability as I gradually developed a sense of self - that I was able to put this ego sense of self aside purposefully.
I believe that, as an artist, suspension of ego "just happens" in the process of being the conduit to the image coming through. Art was my first ability that I spent quite a bit of time doing, so this is probably partly why I had a natural talent to merge and blend and give up ego.
What made it imperative that I develop an ego was to be able to communicate in relationships with people. Previous to that ability being developed, I was very successful in guessing what people wanted me to do and doing it before I realized I was responding to someone else's desires or goals for me. Strangely enough, I would experience their desire as my own - but I was "shape-shifting" as I later decided to call it. This ability of mine was so exaggerated that it was almost to the point of freaking people out. Because I would "read their mind" successfully without being told in an eerie psychic fashion, showing up at their doorstep unannounced when needed with the right stuff in my hands for helping them, and so forth.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Now That I'm Situated...
Got a sweet place to live in Honoka'a, which is on the north end of the Big Island - away from the dreadful VOG that is haunting most of the south coast. A really nice person shares the house. There's even a breezy ocean view through the ohia, banana and the Autograph tree!Hope some of my friends come and visit, now that I have a guest room for them... So - c'mon, fly to Hawaii this summer! Bring a top-sheet or light blanket, it's about 80 degrees daytime, 70 degrees at night...we have a double futon, a massage table or camp cot reserved for you. The house is only a block and a half from "Honoka'a town," which is about the size of Stinson Beach and Bolinas combined. The butcher shop is superb. So is the Farmer's fresh food stand and the Asian food store and the Market. There are two world-class restaurant and a bargain one. A library, a movie theater, a pharmacy, a credit union and bank...and a pool - are all within five blocks from home base. So far I think it's a great place.
Managed to buy a '91 4WD Subaru Legacy station wagon with only 120,000 miles on it for only $1200, which was less than it would have cost to ship and register my own car. Fixed up a free ancient Toshiba laptop so it's functional to get back online by buying some cheap RAM. Got the DSL turned on and it's only a little slower than cable. Ordered the refills for the color printer. Teaching some private lessons in Alexander Technique to nearby astute students. Looking for more work...a "good enough" job would be great.
There's a ten year old "Tortie" kitty Diva who already lives on the property. Her name is "Bizkits" - because her favorite thing to do is to sit in your lap and paw you while she's purring and padding. Kitties aren't allowed inside our house because our landlady is allergic to kitties and has provided these beautiful rugs for us to use. So the cat has learned already to jump up onto this outside porch, sitting and waiting politely for me to come out and pet her each evening when she hears our voices. She is an amazingly sweet kitty who doesn't even call out to announce herself, just waits for me to notice her.
Am about to learn how to SKYPE with the Magic Jack, so I'll let you know about that when I get enough savvy to call you - wherever in the world you are... So let me know your phone number so I can call you for free! You don't even need a SKYPE account - I'll be able to call land lines and even some mobile phones.
Let me know you're there! I'm sort of lonely these days because I don't have many friends yet in Honoka'a.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Writing As You Think
Not all of us think exactly as we write! I write very differently than I speak, actually. I suspect that phenomena is more common than some people's extraordinary ability to write exactly as they speak.
For me, it's a factor that I must slow down my thinking in order to have the flow of words keeping up with my ability to type - which is only 40 wpm or so. This rate is still much faster than I originally had to do in longhand. So I think that if someone had learned to type, they would be better at writing as they speak than I was. I had to learn to put my thoughts in words first in long-hand - difficult. Can remember when I used to write everything out, then take the sissors to what I'd written, and then put what was better related together and totally rewrite it again. Decades ago. I'm so happy I can type now.
I also discovered that when I write, I tended to intermix my prepositions. This expressed my ability to recombine elements and come up with new direction, but it confused people when I wrote in this way. I tended to naturally speak in hugely dependent clauses - which people understand while speaking, but in writing, this style of talking this is awful to follow. Sometimes when talking, I'll be referring to three or four different points, perhaps unrelated, all at once. It's completely bizzarely confusing to be writing in that manner. I do find people who are capable of talking that way much more commonly. Women in particular can follow me just fine.
Enjoyed turning on the tape recorder while I was having an interesting conversation with a musicologist and then transcribed it. At the time, I thought it was an interesting conversation that expressed the unique
thinking patterns of the person being interviewed. Others found it disgusting to follow our multiple trains of thought going all at the same time. Some people could keep up with it, but most who read the transcript
were completely mortified and accused us of nonsensical rambling and ranting. Probably I still have the transcription somewhere as an example if anyone is interested.
For me, it's a factor that I must slow down my thinking in order to have the flow of words keeping up with my ability to type - which is only 40 wpm or so. This rate is still much faster than I originally had to do in longhand. So I think that if someone had learned to type, they would be better at writing as they speak than I was. I had to learn to put my thoughts in words first in long-hand - difficult. Can remember when I used to write everything out, then take the sissors to what I'd written, and then put what was better related together and totally rewrite it again. Decades ago. I'm so happy I can type now.
I also discovered that when I write, I tended to intermix my prepositions. This expressed my ability to recombine elements and come up with new direction, but it confused people when I wrote in this way. I tended to naturally speak in hugely dependent clauses - which people understand while speaking, but in writing, this style of talking this is awful to follow. Sometimes when talking, I'll be referring to three or four different points, perhaps unrelated, all at once. It's completely bizzarely confusing to be writing in that manner. I do find people who are capable of talking that way much more commonly. Women in particular can follow me just fine.
Enjoyed turning on the tape recorder while I was having an interesting conversation with a musicologist and then transcribed it. At the time, I thought it was an interesting conversation that expressed the unique
thinking patterns of the person being interviewed. Others found it disgusting to follow our multiple trains of thought going all at the same time. Some people could keep up with it, but most who read the transcript
were completely mortified and accused us of nonsensical rambling and ranting. Probably I still have the transcription somewhere as an example if anyone is interested.
Monday, April 28, 2008
What I've Been Up To Lately
Well, I'm just packing up leaving another successful house sitting gig. This time it was for two friends of mine who are moving from Oakland to go "back to the land" in rural Oregon. It's sort of exciting to watch them get six hives of bees, etc. as well as some land to do gardening and be caretakers for six months or so. They own a really fine kitty, actually, he probably thinks that he owns them - a hugely perfect sweet jet-black shorthair named "Shakti." We made famous friends and understood each other perfectly, except when he wanted me to wake up this morning at 7:30 and feed him. Was cute though - he plopped himself right down next to my head, purred and made me wonder if his claws were going to go through the sheets to puncture the air bed. Very effective to make me wake up to shoo him away - a smart kitty.
I'm slogging away at completing another edition of the 868-Directory. This time I was able to sort out over computer problems how to do the billing yet again. I can't wait until I can afford to get a "newer" old laptop to consolidate the contents of two ancient computers, but I'll have to wait until people pay their bills to know if I'll have any extra after paying the printer bill. A new version of Ubuntu Linux is coming out that I'm going to do a dual boot on...or maybe I'll do a more "modern" routine where I can run Windows through Linux if I have enough RAM. We'll see how it turns out with the machine I end up getting. I can't wait to not be wondering if my computers are going to crap out when I need them to work the most.
I'm hoping that I haven't set my sights too high to have a car in Hawaii, a newer laptop and enough to do the first and last on a house when I return. Chris thinks I should ship my little car - but at $1300. for shipping, tax and license I could surely find a pretty good car in Hawaii and not be worried about shipping it back if I want to come back. I still haven't bought my air ticket yet; I think I'm going to have to be reduced to using AirTech yet again; even though last year they made me wait almost a whole month until I could get a flight when my departure window was supposed to be three days!
Airfare I guess will just go up, like the price of gas. Who knows which side of the Pacific I'll be on when the shit hits the fan. I'm beginning to realize that I may have to choose at some point and that my lifestyle of coming back and forth to do my work will get to be non-sensical as the prices of air fare go sky high, along with gas prices.
My sweet friend Janet bought me a really cool book as a present - World Changing. I'll tell you more about it as I read it again.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Ways I've Made Money When There's No Money Coming Anytime Soon
Tonight I'm staying at a friend of mine's house who is hosting a couch surfer down on his luck who has been unsuccessful looking for a job. He has been encouraging me to lately reflect the many ways I've made money when faced with destitution.
I guess that sign painting has always saved my butt when times got unpredictable, but being a sign painter usually required having a vehicle. When stranded without a vehicle, I had to rely on my other resources to imagine what it was I could do to make immediate money. These resources involved imagining how to do something for others without bulky tools to carry around. Some of the things that I have done for people without having a vehicle is to babysit, do massage or bodywork, cut hair, be a tutor for various subjects such as beginning computer access, do home organizing or drive them around in their car. I have also painted pictures of their pets or washed their dishes.
One of the ways that I have done that is to be constantly thinking like an entrepreneur instead of thinking like a wage slave and imagining the answer would be having a job. When faced with a time of no money, I would look for possibilities that could be turned into a situation for money coming to me where there were none now. Today we were at an "Everything is a Dollar" store when I saw these little boxes designed to be decorated with crafty stuff. I imagined one of these things turned into a glue and paper covered purse...
This reminded me of the time I hitched to Lincoln, NE to attend an Alexander Technique workshop without knowing how I was going to get home or eat. I had fifty bucks in my pocket when I arrived, so I figured that gave me around a week I had to come up with something. It was easy to find a free place to stay there with someone who lived there at the location of the workshop. Fortunately, that person had a sewing machine that was OK for me to use. So I went shopping at the thrift store to imagine what I could make to turn into money. Somehow, I spotted some upholstery pieces for a song that made me decide on making juggling balls. Sold around thirty sets to people in the workshop without a problem. Even my teacher bought a set from me. When it came time to find a way back to CA I was offered a ride, but there was no room in the vehicle for me. Somehow, I managed to spot a roof rack while walking by a machine shop in Lincoln that fit on top of the possible car so there was room for me to catch a ride across country back to were I lived in CA. So it all worked out for me that time.
I guess that sign painting has always saved my butt when times got unpredictable, but being a sign painter usually required having a vehicle. When stranded without a vehicle, I had to rely on my other resources to imagine what it was I could do to make immediate money. These resources involved imagining how to do something for others without bulky tools to carry around. Some of the things that I have done for people without having a vehicle is to babysit, do massage or bodywork, cut hair, be a tutor for various subjects such as beginning computer access, do home organizing or drive them around in their car. I have also painted pictures of their pets or washed their dishes.
Wonder now that maybe what made it so easy for me to get out of compromising situations where I could have been desperate, is that people around me seemed to want to have me do something for me to make myself useful in order to help me, just as much as they wanted the thing I might be offering. To a large extent, I noticed that people would buy things from me because they wanted to support my efforts to support myself.
I guess in that way, the money you spend everywhere counts by supporting a particular someone whom you pay for services.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Green-eyed Monster
In my distant past, I discovered that jealousy (for me) was made up of a catch-22 between a desire for privacy/autonomy and a fear of being left out/loneliness. There was nothing I could do about making either choice because it precluded the other. But there was a third emotion in there that I could do something about - competition. As I stopped my competitive urges in the moments of feeling envy - (which was really an insecurity comparing myself to this other woman because I didn't really know what made me attractive to the guy I was with,) it disassembled the whole jealousy thing for me. It made me invite the person to be closer to me as well as him; the girl I was jealous of felt the shift and disappeared, because being close to both of us was too wierd for her. Was a very interesting experience.
Lately experienced other people expecting me to be jealous. A regular friend of my boyfriend tried to "diss" me by dis-inviting me on a camping trip, and a few other events. She attempted to redefine my role in my relationship with my boyfriend as "mothering. " Perhaps she didn't know that his relationship with his mother really sucked - and that he really needed the "mothering." For some reason, she regarded our ongoing relationship as "dependent" without knowing much about it. Obviously, she didn't have much of a clue about the sort of relationship we were having.
But at the time, it really confused her how I was reacted to her, because I think that I was supposed to get jealous and forbid him to be able to see her, or I was supposed to break up with him - or something like that. He finally admitted to me that he'd been in love with her for awhile. I replied, "Of course you'd be in love with the person who makes music with you; music opens up your heart. Doing something you love makes you grateful to the people who do it with you. " This was not what he expected to hear.
I pointed out that although he had thought about how much he loved her, he didn't break our monogamy agreement. He pointed out that the reason he didn't was because she wasn't interested in him, particularly. I pointed out that she was getting all the advantages of being in a relationship without "putting out" anyway, and that if he did get involved with her, she'd shelve him after a couple of weeks as we had watched her do to the last five men who had courted her... except for the guy who had other "regular" sometimes women like her. She came back to this guy pretty regularly every four months in between the other guys.
I could totally see how and why my boyfriend liked her so much. She was a blast to hang out with, never a dull moment. We would laugh and make up songs and giggle some more in slumber party mode until we were so drunk with connections. She had a wonderful way with her kids that made them into great people. But she was also dangerously reactive and defensive and had a habit of voting with her feet. It made her quite a natural gypsy.
I'm actually writing this post after the fact, but I'm putting a date on it at the time it was happening. I don't really like drama, so I tend not to write about such things in my blog until after they aren't happening.
Later she decided to avoid me entirely. Perhaps it was because she finally decided to take my boyfriend for a spin after I'd moved out and I guess she was afraid I'd bite after that. Although I had a great relationship with her daughter that I would have liked to continue, she said I was "weird" to a friend of ours. When grilled exactly how I was so weird, she replied, "I dunno, just ...weird." I didn't react the way she imagined women should react - be defensive, back-stabbing, catty and competitive. Go figure.
She back on the island now after declaring she was moving to the mainland. But, since I decided to forgo bringing people into my life who are difficult to deal with, I guess that I'm going to forgo helping her out - although I know she needs a footing. Which is too bad, because I really enjoyed her daughter's art connection with me, and it was really fun updating her blog with her daughter when she came over to play with me. It was such a pleasure to spend time with a very dedicated artist; even if she was only nine years old. I'll miss her. It's too bad her mom thinks I'm weird.
Lately experienced other people expecting me to be jealous. A regular friend of my boyfriend tried to "diss" me by dis-inviting me on a camping trip, and a few other events. She attempted to redefine my role in my relationship with my boyfriend as "mothering. " Perhaps she didn't know that his relationship with his mother really sucked - and that he really needed the "mothering." For some reason, she regarded our ongoing relationship as "dependent" without knowing much about it. Obviously, she didn't have much of a clue about the sort of relationship we were having.
But at the time, it really confused her how I was reacted to her, because I think that I was supposed to get jealous and forbid him to be able to see her, or I was supposed to break up with him - or something like that. He finally admitted to me that he'd been in love with her for awhile. I replied, "Of course you'd be in love with the person who makes music with you; music opens up your heart. Doing something you love makes you grateful to the people who do it with you. " This was not what he expected to hear.
I pointed out that although he had thought about how much he loved her, he didn't break our monogamy agreement. He pointed out that the reason he didn't was because she wasn't interested in him, particularly. I pointed out that she was getting all the advantages of being in a relationship without "putting out" anyway, and that if he did get involved with her, she'd shelve him after a couple of weeks as we had watched her do to the last five men who had courted her... except for the guy who had other "regular" sometimes women like her. She came back to this guy pretty regularly every four months in between the other guys.
I could totally see how and why my boyfriend liked her so much. She was a blast to hang out with, never a dull moment. We would laugh and make up songs and giggle some more in slumber party mode until we were so drunk with connections. She had a wonderful way with her kids that made them into great people. But she was also dangerously reactive and defensive and had a habit of voting with her feet. It made her quite a natural gypsy.
I'm actually writing this post after the fact, but I'm putting a date on it at the time it was happening. I don't really like drama, so I tend not to write about such things in my blog until after they aren't happening.
Later she decided to avoid me entirely. Perhaps it was because she finally decided to take my boyfriend for a spin after I'd moved out and I guess she was afraid I'd bite after that. Although I had a great relationship with her daughter that I would have liked to continue, she said I was "weird" to a friend of ours. When grilled exactly how I was so weird, she replied, "I dunno, just ...weird." I didn't react the way she imagined women should react - be defensive, back-stabbing, catty and competitive. Go figure.
She back on the island now after declaring she was moving to the mainland. But, since I decided to forgo bringing people into my life who are difficult to deal with, I guess that I'm going to forgo helping her out - although I know she needs a footing. Which is too bad, because I really enjoyed her daughter's art connection with me, and it was really fun updating her blog with her daughter when she came over to play with me. It was such a pleasure to spend time with a very dedicated artist; even if she was only nine years old. I'll miss her. It's too bad her mom thinks I'm weird.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Yesterday's Swimming Adventures
As a reward for finally getting my errands done today, I went snorkling yesterday at an old cane field dock camp, called "Mahu Kona." It's usually got fascinating junk in the usually clear water, with lots of fish - in the past I've seen octopus and other interesting sea life. In the last few months, a new ladder has been installed at this old dock that was much lower to make getting out of the water easier.
The wave action was higher than usual, about four foot waves that periodically were sloshing over the surface of the swim dock about every fifteen minutes. There was nobody else in the water swimming when I first got there, so I watched the ocean for about twenty minutes before I decided I could handle getting in and out even at its worst. This is usually a very clear snorkling area, but with the wave action I was going to have to swim pretty far out to be able to see any sea life. While I was waiting, I talked to a local to check that the area I had the idea to swim into didn't have strong currents. So I got trussed up in my full wetsuit and both my fins to give me more time being in the water without getting chilled. It was my maiden voyage on my slightly dicey formerly sprained ankle I've been babying that I thought was OK now, so I wanted to be able to take it easy.
I made it out without running into surge. Another young woman jumped in the water five minutes after me who was a really great swimmer. Since we were the only two people swimming, we partnered up to make it safer while we were keeping away from the wave action close to shore. Her name turned out to be George. We decided to head out parallell to where dolphins sometimes are sighted where the water was likely to be more clear and we could see some fishies - about a mile swim 200 ft. offshore. Without fins, this girl swam about as fast as I could with fins! Wow, it was fun to have her as a swim partner. We stayed out for a little more than an hour, and did find a place where the water was clear enough to see some fish and coral heads. I particularly enjoyed a whole school of forty or so Sargent Majors, Yellow Tang and Butterfly fish.
Getting out was a little dicey for me. A set of waves happen to come along just as I had gotten my fins off and tossed them onto the dock, so I had to launch back off the swim ladder at the last moment to avoid getting schmushed into it by one of the sloshing big ones. Then there were the three waves after that that almost tossed me onto the rocks. But George, (she had said that she had lifesaving qualification,) was standing there on the dock watching me in case I hit my head or really couldn't make it. So I mustered the courage and timing to paddle back up to get out between waves all right, even though I was worn out from the swim. I know that I would have been much more careful about waiting for a wave set to have passed if I was swimming alone. It was exciting, even though not exactly the sort of excitement I would choose!
It made me feel young at heart again to have dared and won and not gotten hurt after all. Also enjoyed hanging out with George and her girlfriend watching the sunset and cooking over the fire later, even though they're both traveling gypsy-camping girls that I'll probably never see again. A really fun adventure.
The wave action was higher than usual, about four foot waves that periodically were sloshing over the surface of the swim dock about every fifteen minutes. There was nobody else in the water swimming when I first got there, so I watched the ocean for about twenty minutes before I decided I could handle getting in and out even at its worst. This is usually a very clear snorkling area, but with the wave action I was going to have to swim pretty far out to be able to see any sea life. While I was waiting, I talked to a local to check that the area I had the idea to swim into didn't have strong currents. So I got trussed up in my full wetsuit and both my fins to give me more time being in the water without getting chilled. It was my maiden voyage on my slightly dicey formerly sprained ankle I've been babying that I thought was OK now, so I wanted to be able to take it easy.
I made it out without running into surge. Another young woman jumped in the water five minutes after me who was a really great swimmer. Since we were the only two people swimming, we partnered up to make it safer while we were keeping away from the wave action close to shore. Her name turned out to be George. We decided to head out parallell to where dolphins sometimes are sighted where the water was likely to be more clear and we could see some fishies - about a mile swim 200 ft. offshore. Without fins, this girl swam about as fast as I could with fins! Wow, it was fun to have her as a swim partner. We stayed out for a little more than an hour, and did find a place where the water was clear enough to see some fish and coral heads. I particularly enjoyed a whole school of forty or so Sargent Majors, Yellow Tang and Butterfly fish.
Getting out was a little dicey for me. A set of waves happen to come along just as I had gotten my fins off and tossed them onto the dock, so I had to launch back off the swim ladder at the last moment to avoid getting schmushed into it by one of the sloshing big ones. Then there were the three waves after that that almost tossed me onto the rocks. But George, (she had said that she had lifesaving qualification,) was standing there on the dock watching me in case I hit my head or really couldn't make it. So I mustered the courage and timing to paddle back up to get out between waves all right, even though I was worn out from the swim. I know that I would have been much more careful about waiting for a wave set to have passed if I was swimming alone. It was exciting, even though not exactly the sort of excitement I would choose!
It made me feel young at heart again to have dared and won and not gotten hurt after all. Also enjoyed hanging out with George and her girlfriend watching the sunset and cooking over the fire later, even though they're both traveling gypsy-camping girls that I'll probably never see again. A really fun adventure.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Respectful Advice
I realize that my current and historical ways of delivering or brainstorming information needs updating to become more effective and to be received in the ways that I intend. Essentially, I need to ask more questions while I'm communicating or teaching, generating or sharing ideas. Being both a rebellious and tolerant person who has had to resist over-control by others, let me share with you some of these questions I have learned to ask myself. They are often about how I might determine if or how much I should trust or suspect another person's motives who is offering me suggestions.
Please feel that it's perfectly OK for you to ask me about it if you suspect I have a distasteful agenda to push onto you. In my better moments, I have gleefully practiced suspending my own personally defensive reactions to others who question my motives. In my past I have been so often misunderstood that I do not mind doing the work to establish further trust and understanding. Instead I happily consider it to be an investment in our relationship - or at least practice of a skill that can be used with people are are increasingly different from myself, (thus having complimentary skills.)
Usually, I don't have much specific personal interest of gaining or losing something for myself concerning the specific issue, although it may seem like I'm blowing up the issue beyond all proportion because nobody else would bother to articulate it unless they did passionately care. This is a point I ask myself about others to find out if they have something to gain by convincing me or changing my behavior toward them. I regard working such things out between people as a long term investment in bonding and trust that I'm more than willing to make with you... If the issue is a pattern of mine, there will be people like you in my future.
My motives and priorities are often intended to help people use forethought & to think for themselves. I know that I also assign a high priority to justice and fair treatment, and that I feel compassion and understanding are important. My obvious talent (or obcession) to make fine distinctions in order to note and reveal differences doesn't necessarily imply that I'm assigning a value or judging another person's actions to be wanting because they don't match my own. I tend to prefer to contrast in order to reveal missing differences and to not be so concerned about mis-matches. A basic strategy of others that I know is quite different from mine is to seek for matches that reveal and look for similarities.
Innately, my being with others brings out ways in which I feel similar to them to start with, so I find it more useful to seek for differences to establish my own autonomy and stop the need to second-guess what they think of me. Usually it doesn't make much difference to me whether MY choice or points are the ones chosen. This was a feature so often that I would get lost in decision-making with too many options that are equally attractive or are canceling out each other. In my past I often needed to physically get away from others so I could determine my own thoughts on matters, because I was "too" compassionate.
Offering possible alternatives or giving out some more choices isn't perfect as a strategy, but people who get to know me usually understand my motives of why I'm saying such things. Now that I use contrasting to reveal differences, it works so well for me - so much that now I have become the one who seems imposing or threatening!
Also, I have come to appreciate how others in my subculture wouldn't as a rule bother to spell out what is so personal in so much detail, if they did not personally care about it. So that's why my motives of why be talking about assumptions is often misunderstood. Others have often reacted like I'm blowing up the issue beyond all proportion or prematurely bringing up issues that seem petty or don't have enough reason to change now. I bring things up like this because I have come to appreciate how long it takes to change a significant character feature or thinking strategy.
Can you and I find a way around this issue of advice/respect between us, even if we are both willing? I'm willing and, I think, able to change myself to accommodate communication in this case, but I might not be able to deliver in the limited time we have together. As a rule of thumb, I want to start working on changing it long before it becomes a problem. You may not feel it's worth it. So, let me know and I'll be happy to just avoid or mitigate the issue in the future as well as I can. But it's not in my nature to ignore such a thing without having agreed to do so. I really hate it when the tacit agreement seems to be "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than agreement."
Sometimes I do have something to gain for which I am negotiating. Especially when others are going to be giving up something for me to be involved, I want to offer a benefit to them and find out if it's worth it to them to get or have what I'm offering. It is OK with me that they would that your needs be put first - it's not "selfish" because we spell out and agree with the priority applied. There are usually other options that can accommodate everyone's needs by compensating for arrival time rather than simultaneous fulfillment. I don't mind waiting my turn so I can get exactly what I want at some point. Who gets whose way and how long they must wait is a basic relationship ground rule to establish, according to me.
I'd love your suggestions and examples about how I could word what I mean to say in a way that is easier for you to recieve. I do know that I obviously need to work on finding more tactful ways to deliver information (to not just you) about ways to do stuff easier and how to remind in a way that would help people remember points that I can tell are missing.
In the meantime, please try to take the benefit of what I say without being defensive about how I'm saying it. Please don't become more touchy about this as I get more skillful and tactful and start to improve too gradually after you've gotten to the end of your rope, OK?
- Do my advisors just seem to have their own priorities, preferences and agenda to push on me that I might not agree with?
- How often are they making attempts to find out and take my special criterias, needs and requirements into consideration above their own?
- How do they receive it if I fill them in on the fly as I notice possible missing elements or points?
Please feel that it's perfectly OK for you to ask me about it if you suspect I have a distasteful agenda to push onto you. In my better moments, I have gleefully practiced suspending my own personally defensive reactions to others who question my motives. In my past I have been so often misunderstood that I do not mind doing the work to establish further trust and understanding. Instead I happily consider it to be an investment in our relationship - or at least practice of a skill that can be used with people are are increasingly different from myself, (thus having complimentary skills.)
Usually, I don't have much specific personal interest of gaining or losing something for myself concerning the specific issue, although it may seem like I'm blowing up the issue beyond all proportion because nobody else would bother to articulate it unless they did passionately care. This is a point I ask myself about others to find out if they have something to gain by convincing me or changing my behavior toward them. I regard working such things out between people as a long term investment in bonding and trust that I'm more than willing to make with you... If the issue is a pattern of mine, there will be people like you in my future.
My motives and priorities are often intended to help people use forethought & to think for themselves. I know that I also assign a high priority to justice and fair treatment, and that I feel compassion and understanding are important. My obvious talent (or obcession) to make fine distinctions in order to note and reveal differences doesn't necessarily imply that I'm assigning a value or judging another person's actions to be wanting because they don't match my own. I tend to prefer to contrast in order to reveal missing differences and to not be so concerned about mis-matches. A basic strategy of others that I know is quite different from mine is to seek for matches that reveal and look for similarities.
Innately, my being with others brings out ways in which I feel similar to them to start with, so I find it more useful to seek for differences to establish my own autonomy and stop the need to second-guess what they think of me. Usually it doesn't make much difference to me whether MY choice or points are the ones chosen. This was a feature so often that I would get lost in decision-making with too many options that are equally attractive or are canceling out each other. In my past I often needed to physically get away from others so I could determine my own thoughts on matters, because I was "too" compassionate.
Offering possible alternatives or giving out some more choices isn't perfect as a strategy, but people who get to know me usually understand my motives of why I'm saying such things. Now that I use contrasting to reveal differences, it works so well for me - so much that now I have become the one who seems imposing or threatening!
Also, I have come to appreciate how others in my subculture wouldn't as a rule bother to spell out what is so personal in so much detail, if they did not personally care about it. So that's why my motives of why be talking about assumptions is often misunderstood. Others have often reacted like I'm blowing up the issue beyond all proportion or prematurely bringing up issues that seem petty or don't have enough reason to change now. I bring things up like this because I have come to appreciate how long it takes to change a significant character feature or thinking strategy.
Can you and I find a way around this issue of advice/respect between us, even if we are both willing? I'm willing and, I think, able to change myself to accommodate communication in this case, but I might not be able to deliver in the limited time we have together. As a rule of thumb, I want to start working on changing it long before it becomes a problem. You may not feel it's worth it. So, let me know and I'll be happy to just avoid or mitigate the issue in the future as well as I can. But it's not in my nature to ignore such a thing without having agreed to do so. I really hate it when the tacit agreement seems to be "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than agreement."
Sometimes I do have something to gain for which I am negotiating. Especially when others are going to be giving up something for me to be involved, I want to offer a benefit to them and find out if it's worth it to them to get or have what I'm offering. It is OK with me that they would that your needs be put first - it's not "selfish" because we spell out and agree with the priority applied. There are usually other options that can accommodate everyone's needs by compensating for arrival time rather than simultaneous fulfillment. I don't mind waiting my turn so I can get exactly what I want at some point. Who gets whose way and how long they must wait is a basic relationship ground rule to establish, according to me.
I'd love your suggestions and examples about how I could word what I mean to say in a way that is easier for you to recieve. I do know that I obviously need to work on finding more tactful ways to deliver information (to not just you) about ways to do stuff easier and how to remind in a way that would help people remember points that I can tell are missing.
In the meantime, please try to take the benefit of what I say without being defensive about how I'm saying it. Please don't become more touchy about this as I get more skillful and tactful and start to improve too gradually after you've gotten to the end of your rope, OK?
Monday, January 28, 2008
Right Brain "Baby Mind" Learning
Definitely there are occasions in adult life where it is useful to go into "direct absorb" mode and not filter learning through language.
Take for instance learning any movement skill, such as juggling...playing on a pinball machine, pool, golf, the directing of Alexander Technique, or a skill that involves another language such as playing a musical instrument.
What I prefer to determine, as an adult, is if this person I might be learning from is "worthy" to be absorbed in this completely open way. Then I deliberately open myself to them - as wide as possible and - take them and the skill in. There is no dividing line.
It actually happened not long ago for me. I was visiting a fellow collegue of Alexander Technique to trade work with him. He showed me this x-ray of his lower back; evidently four months previously, he had gotten into an unfortunate auto accident. The seat had come apart and crushed his tailbone so that it had to be removed. Usually when this must occur, the rest of the vertebrae above collapses into the empty space occupied by the tailbone. But here was the x-ray that showed this was not happening. He believed this condition of affairs reflected his discipline of deepening his work in Alexander Technique. I agreed. When he did table work with me, I was most happy to reinforce the sense he had of direction, as he encouraged me when it was my turn to move away from old patterns concerning how I had learned to walk from doing something funny to myself in the area of my hips. The effect was superb; for only the second time in my life I was able to completely move out of the twisted way I had learned to walk as a child.
Now I would say that my ability to absorb this information had to occur on a pre-verbal level, possibly because I had learned to walk incorrectly before I learned to talk. It's a common experience in learning Alexander Technique that the teacher will indicate a motion at odds with the student's established assumptions - and this was no different. It was such a surprising direction, which yielded an amazing result that I had to ask - what happened there? To which he replied - "think of that as dynamic opposition."
Anyway - in my life this "baby-mind" ability to absorb beyond language is still happily an occasional event.
Take for instance learning any movement skill, such as juggling...playing on a pinball machine, pool, golf, the directing of Alexander Technique, or a skill that involves another language such as playing a musical instrument.
What I prefer to determine, as an adult, is if this person I might be learning from is "worthy" to be absorbed in this completely open way. Then I deliberately open myself to them - as wide as possible and - take them and the skill in. There is no dividing line.
It actually happened not long ago for me. I was visiting a fellow collegue of Alexander Technique to trade work with him. He showed me this x-ray of his lower back; evidently four months previously, he had gotten into an unfortunate auto accident. The seat had come apart and crushed his tailbone so that it had to be removed. Usually when this must occur, the rest of the vertebrae above collapses into the empty space occupied by the tailbone. But here was the x-ray that showed this was not happening. He believed this condition of affairs reflected his discipline of deepening his work in Alexander Technique. I agreed. When he did table work with me, I was most happy to reinforce the sense he had of direction, as he encouraged me when it was my turn to move away from old patterns concerning how I had learned to walk from doing something funny to myself in the area of my hips. The effect was superb; for only the second time in my life I was able to completely move out of the twisted way I had learned to walk as a child.
Now I would say that my ability to absorb this information had to occur on a pre-verbal level, possibly because I had learned to walk incorrectly before I learned to talk. It's a common experience in learning Alexander Technique that the teacher will indicate a motion at odds with the student's established assumptions - and this was no different. It was such a surprising direction, which yielded an amazing result that I had to ask - what happened there? To which he replied - "think of that as dynamic opposition."
Anyway - in my life this "baby-mind" ability to absorb beyond language is still happily an occasional event.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Second-guessing
A good question came in as a comment in my last post...What makes the difference between "genuine shape-shifting" and "applying your own thought patterns to the assumed "other perspective"?I think what you're asking is how do you tell the difference between "shape shifting" and imposing a variation of your own ways that are really another brand of second-guessing?
The reason I would restate this question is I have gotten many benefits from checking out and clarifying meaning by communicating how I understand the other person who is responding to me. I might do that by asking questions or by responding to what I think they mean to check out if my guessing matches. I only learned to do this because my supposing was wrong! I also learned that, compared to shape shifting, it was a more respectful way of learning about a person's values - by asking.
People often tend to second-guess to address their own interests, so that's another main comparison between shape shifting and second-guessing. I would ask myself, does the motive for the guessing address an interest I have, and what is that interest? The answer usually is that almost every motive comes from some sort of self-interest. It's quite telling exactly what the motives are. Often there are many motives, and it's telling what order the hierarchy of this list might contain.
I first realized that my talent for shape-shifting originally came from a sincere desire for approval from others, coupled with not having any clue how to choose which one of the many codes of mannerly behavior I should be applying. So I would merely open myself and take away my own questions to experience what it would be like to actually be the other person.
As I suspended my desire for approval, I began to observe things about ways the other person felt about themselves and the world that went far beyond my own purposes. This is what allows me to emulate - essentially stand in another man's shoes for awhile.
I began to regard mannerliness as merely communicating a desire and intention to please - usually without the ability to actually do so because of an unfamiliarity with that person's unique values. So I assumed that it was more efficient to find a way to read or to directly absorb each person's unique values, rather than to merely be mannerly. Of course, when I eventually ran into some people who really did want mannerliness and felt there existed a code of how people "should" treat each other...I felt as if I was being held at arms' length!
The advantages are that you usually do have the other person present to ask and respond to what you do. But what you do usually isn't the point - it's how you read the way the other person interprets significance and meaning - which is usually different from the meanings that you would assign and sometimes wildly different. You can check out to see what your guessing means by asking the person. Or you can do whatever you are guessing at and note how they respond.
But all this is akin to conducting a scientific experiment and noting results in order to amass enough information to use. As a shape-shifter, I more often emulate what the other person seems to be doing, without question, to see where it takes me. I make observations what it is "like" to "be" the other person as I'm hanging out with them, while suspending my own goals and concerns.
The other means I use to enhance shape-shifting ability is to search for a positive motive of why another person acts the way they do. This can be a creative challenge. More commonly, when people confront a motive that doesn't make any sense to them, they are so quick to assign a negative motive to it. This is a clue that you are second-guessing and assigning your own values to another person's behavior, rather than shape shifting without value judgements being present. I believe that finding negative motives to explain other people's behavior usually comes from a reaction for self-protection.
Although there are many situations where the shit hits the fan in people's lives and leaves much to clean up later from their apparent purposeful behavior, I do not believe that anyone does anything for a negative reason. People merely can be terribly short-sighted and come up with some solutions to their concerns that have some serious drawbacks they did not count on or foresee. In some cases, people accept these choices come with these particular drawbacks and it doesn't even occur to them that there could be other ways or means that wouldn't include these problems that are occuring. I think that's where creative problem solving comes in. Finding out and agreeing on criteria is crucial in these situations. The ability to guess correctly the foundations of criteria will make you seem to another person as if you are reading their mind.
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