Am I overthinking this?

Affable

I have a fear of being homely.
We all want to be charismatic right? We all want a slight edge, danger, even a tad of vulgarity. Just not being boring I guess. I can be when I don't analyse. But am I right in that it's all a fallacy and a construct at times?
Do the most homely and proper and even sentimental have more power?
Do they make all our performances seem futile? This is waht I feel when I come across them-I can be so absorbed in other ways of being,, that when I come across them I come back down to earth and am reduced to being more impotent. It would be rather soul destroying that all the competitive, cultural, vibrant, edgy exciting things in society and our own lives were all rendered a pretense and irelevance by the homely and the proper.
I want a journey into the unkown some excitment, but then I meet someone too familiar, proper who brings me down to homely level and de-empowers me? I want to run from it, I think we all do. Just becaus eit has a certain power doesn't make it legitimate. But it's weird how as a teen I could do clubs and stuff just for the fun, not to be a rebel, but when I meet someon who sees the proper in me, and shows exasperation at me being in a club, I feel so reduced and homely. Same with seeing my patrician, proper shrink a few times. So am I just making too much of this, I can be very charismatic so I'm told, so is this just a case of me over-worrying? Do we all just have different modes and selves and accept this as part of our authentic make-up? Or is the power of proprierty and homeliness telling us a home truth about our ultimate self? ie we say its boring but it it is irrefutably powerful? Kindness, civlity, gentiltiy, dissaprovalk of vulgarity, aggression or even distance or mental anbstraction..reducing everything to the most-'nice' and emtoionally close terms. Maybe I over complicate, I exaggerate slightly but I do feel its power more then when I'm away from it I fee liberated. Maybe respectability and even too much transprency, kindness and similarity to ourselves kills us in a way, maybe people being too nice to us kills us in a way. I don't think it's THAT bad in me, but I was thiniing whether anyone else noticed it. Perhaps the people that rail against it most are the ones most fearful of succumbing to it.

I do get hassle or piss taking for language, but please don't-just trying to express it as genuine as I can. These thoughts came to me on reflection this morning.

I actually figure it's the people who seem to run from it who are the most scared of that and pretending, if you embrace it you can simultaeneuously reject it to a degree.

MrStuffins

Affable wrote: »

Am I overthinking this?

Yes

Affable

MrStuffins wrote: »

Yes

I knew I'd get that-can't change the thraed title now but it wans't really the point of it

caff

Sounds like you're worrying too much about what you second guess others opinions of you are.


Also your language is fine though the punctuation doesn't read so easily

Affable

caff wrote: »

Sounds like you're worrying too much about what you second guess others opinions of you are.


Also your language is fine though the punctuation doesn't read so easily

Ok, let me try and reduce the question a bit. Do you think that the ultimate power is kindness, sentimentality, gentility, proporiety, dissaporval of vulgarity, dingity, decorrum etc? Does all of that triumph over the opposite? If so, that renders all our cultural vibraqncy, big ideas, and sense of a journey out of life. It makes competive spirit irrelevant. It means we should just succumb to easily earnt feelings and kindness. If so then surely it should be despised by lover sof liberation and freedom? Wahts the point in life if we are just like people sat in a field, reduced to the most base emotional state, where what we achive or creat and get passionate about means nothign, and we succumb to the most primal, sentimental emotion, and people can't be roused out of gentility? Shouldnt it be regarded with contempt? If evertyhings just you and someone sat down in a room, your souls are the same, and you have to succumb to that most sentimental of emotion and all your fight and passion is negated by cilvity, that renders life pointless, surely.

Or am I just exagerrating it's power in my mind becaus eI value the reverse?

caff

I don't think of ultimate power, to think of power is futile in my mind. If you triumph over an opposite what remians, just you? There is no reason to reduce people to emotional states, people are vibrant and distinct and change as they are exposed to new ideas that challenge their preconcived notions. To analyze and reduce them to a few choice terms and pidgeon hole them is a bit shallow.

Affable

caff wrote: »

I don't think of ultimate power, to think of power is futile in my mind. If you triumph over an opposite what remians, just you? There is no reason to reduce people to emotional states, people are vibrant and distinct and change as they are exposed to new ideas that challenge their preconcived notions. To analyze and reduce them to a few choice terms and pidgeon hole them is a bit shallow.

Yes I'm not being lucid I know. But do you ever feel that 'wildness/abandon/vibrancy' can feel authentic and meaningful but is reduced to insignifcance by someone of intellect, propriety, refinment, or someone homely?

To me, yes we can accept is a different part of our selves, as we have multiple selves,and it's just a different part of our experience under different conditions, but I suppose it's a question of whether we make a calculated decision to avodi the influence which steer us toward propriety if they are the most powerful ones, because whilst appearing inoffensive they may actually be killing and repressing us, like, eg, killing somone with kindness as the saying goes?

caff

So you're asking if one might purposefully avoid someone if their powerful personality would be seen as possibly affecting our own, that would depend on the person whether they are submissive or dominant and whether they felt threathened by a more powerful personality.

Overheal

gentility

I learned a new word \o/

<snip>

Or maybe I just really dont understand this PI at all. In which event my brain will self destruct in 3...2...1...

edit: <yes, I totally screwed the pooch on my first try to understand this one. Read on.>

Affable

caff wrote: »

So you're asking if one might purposefully avoid someone if their powerful personality would be seen as possibly affecting our own, that would depend on the person whether they are submissive or dominant and whether they felt threathened by a more powerful personality.

To me it is legitimate to avoid influences. To sometimes override our basest emotions so that we can have a richer more mysterious experience elsewhere(don't laugh). Not necessarily powerful thoug, to answer your question-I'm just asking do you feel that propriety, dissaproval of vulgarity and overt competiton, gentility, refinement, kindness, couthiness, sentimentality, or homeliness(select some or all of those but you get my drift if you can think of people as an example) actually has more power than the vibrant and edgy aspect of our society that have created some of the best culture, music, intellectual ideas, economic competion, techonogly etc? Do you think it's actually repressive and should be avoided? Do you hold it in contempt? Do you think many of us consciously or subconsciously run from it because we want to have an edge and we are anxious it will hold us in sway? Or do some people really just have no trouble rejecting it and cutting through it ruthlessly with no concern, just autmoatically regarding it as boring and leaving it behind without feeling it's power?

caff

I think what you're referring to with you're above list of character traits are ones designed by society to allow people with widely disstinct views and personalities to interact. Think of it as a common language used by a mass of people to level the playing field, in their own groups they may be "edgy" but when the distinct groups interact they conform to societies norms. Think of the acts and rituals you go through when meeting a new person before you figure out who they really are, its a safety net of sorts to prevent offence.

Affable

Overheal wrote: »

I l

Also I'm not really sure what you mean by Homely. I think we can pull 2 definitions here because both of them seem to fit in this case:

# Lacking elegance or refinement.
# Of a simple or unpretentious nature; plain: homely truths.

You seem to be taking Homely and Homely people in the context that because they speak plainly, they are somehow dragging you down in some way.



Theres more to language and communication than having a big vocabulary. You seem to have this idea stuck in your head that if you use big words it makes you appear much smarter and more attractive, or somehow superior to others.

..

I don't mean plain speaking in homely, or unpretentious. I mean, 'nice' as in tender, proper, veering towards the sentimental, love of cosy things and the cosy life, and cosy ideas. Lacking edge. Thats how they drag me down, emotionally not intellectually.

Re-Language, you are wrong. I'm not trying to appear anything, I'm trying to convey what I feel and articulate problems that are perplexing and hard to grasp for me.

Affable

caff wrote: »

I think what you're referring to with you're above list of character traits are ones designed by society to allow people with widely disstinct views and personalities to interact. Think of it as a common language used by a mass of people to level the playing field, in their own groups they may be "edgy" but when the distinct groups interact they conform to societies norms. Think of the acts and rituals you go through when meeting a new person before you figure out who they really are, its a safety net of sorts to prevent offence.

I think you are referring more to civility there. I just think that cheaper more 'nice' values may have more power and be stifling. If its so then theres a futiltiy to what we do. The best way I can explain it is if all our dream, passions and visions in other circumstances are reduced to an irrelevance when we sit down with a person in a room, simply because of their tenderness, the uncomfrtably close link between our two souls, theri 'niceness', then that renders one quite pathetic and impotent(not literal).

We shouldt be confronted with someone too similar, it's emotionally uncomfortable.

Overheal

Affable wrote: »

Re-Language, you are wrong. I'm not trying to appear anything, I'm trying to convey what I feel and articulate problems that are perplexing and hard to grasp for me.

Oh right. Well I can deal, if its hard to articulate and im sorry if i offended. The Homely term really was a big piece of the puzzle in your OP.

Whats the point in life if we are just like people sat in a field, reduced to the most base emotional state, where what we achieve or create and get passionate about means nothing, and we succumb to the most primal, sentimental emotion, and people can't be roused out of gentility? Shouldn't it be regarded with contempt? If everything is just you and someone sat down in a room, your souls are the same, and you have to succumb to that most sentimental of emotion and all your fight and passion is negated by civility, that renders life pointless, surely.

I've had to re-read but this seems to be your train of thought right here.

I think thats an oversimplification of human nature. We get comfortable, we get bored and we go out and accomplish goals in strides. Its just part of the life cycle to be perfectly honest. If we were like ants, constantly working the extent of our lives would we be any happier? Similarly if as you say we were like Cows in a pasture, would that really satisfy us?

I think not. And yet at the same time both seem to be part of what we are. Its all in the Sense of Purpose. And thats what drives us forward to do things, like build societies, and such (in the same way the Ant does). But at that same time theres always the "Theres More to Life" Sentiment, and thats hence why sometimes we stop, and take in the scenery, and sit down, and commune, and laugh.

You appear to have over analyzed the human race down to the point of dumbfoundness But fortunately human is a far more complex animal than you give it credit for. We arent Roombas. We dont shut down when our wheel gets stuck on the rug. We arent a computer program that gets stuck in a loop. We are perfectly capable as individuals to rouse ourselves out of that gentility when it is appropriate.

To answer your question: does gentility render ambition inert? No I dont think so. How could that be true? Yes, we spend a lot of our live's energy to stop and fall in love, raise 2.5 children and grow old. But we also accomplish a great many things in between all of that Stuff. Theres proof of that you know. If what you fear was true, then we would have never invented the wheel, son. But we did invent the wheel, and the engine, the rocket, the space station. These are all things that humans that have come and gone have accomplished and those achievements are still with us today.

The best way I can explain it is if all our dream, passions and visions in other circumstances are reduced to an irrelevance when we sit down with a person in a room, simply because of their tenderness, the uncomfrtably close link between our two souls, theri 'niceness', then that renders one quite pathetic and impotent(not literal).

We shouldt be confronted with someone too similar, it's emotionally uncomfortable.

so who is she

Affable

Overheal wrote: »

so who is she

Just someone whos' too close for comfort, uncomfortably close to readign me and my eyes and feelings, and who brigns out the homely wimp in me. That's what I mean, tenderness and wet niceness alwasys wins through, but we shouldn't trust it as it may be in a way cruel to us.

Overheal

Affable, you are precious.

Hell yes you should trust it! Thats what I'm saying! Its human nature! What do you want out of life? What do you really, really want out of life? Nothing says you can't cure cancer AND fall in love. You can still ride the Edge Up There and still be Homely In There.

Affable

Overheal wrote: »

Affable, you are precious.

Hell yes you should trust it! Thats what I'm saying! Its human nature! What do you want out of life? What do you really, really want out of life? Nothing says you can't cure cancer AND fall in love. You can still ride the Edge Up There and still be Homely In There.

I am indeed my own worst enemy sometimes. I get in a loop and actually negate my true personality, it's a cycle. not to exaggerate, but I genuinely feel tormented sometimes. It's like I should be someon elese but have gotten defined by this malginant thinking, I got in an obsessive introspective lonely loop as a teenmager because of problems and it has hindered me since, I get defien by thinks and it hampers my true self.

Affable

Overheal wrote: »

You can still ride the Edge Up There and still be Homely In There.

How do you mean?

Overheal

I mean if you're worried that somehow you can't be edgy/ambitious and homely at the same time its just not true. Up There, in your head. In there, your Heart. I mean, you shouldnt be afraid to pursue a romantic interest on the fear that its going to impede the rest of your life.

Affable

Overheal wrote: »

I mean if you're worried that somehow you can't be edgy/ambitious and homely at the same time its just not true. Up There, in your head. In there, your Heart. I mean, you shouldnt be afraid to pursue a romantic interest on the fear that its going to impede the rest of your life.

Well for me, I'm so in my own world that I would be oblivious to the control someone was having on my life. That's the trouble, I'm an extreme dreamer and not savvy at times. Oh, I don' think romatnic interests impede you, they can be inspiring. I jsut get intigued by different girls but fear I'll end up with someone too similar who feels the same too much and reads me to much and it'll be comfortably close and predictabela nd they will be just like the folks.
What about you, how do you feel? Had any homely realtionships? Had any uncomfortable closeness? How come you feel comfortable with it?

Am I just conveying that I'll end up with someone nice who has been rejected for being nice or sommat?

Overheal

"they will be just like the folks."

the folks?

Is the problem here you are worried that you will get bored in a relationship?

Affable

Overheal wrote: »

"they will be just like the folks."

the folks?

Is the problem here you are worried that you will get bored in a relationship?

No, just that I wont find one as fulfilling and enriiching and exciting that brings out the best in me, because I'll end up by force of my own emotions to succumb to someone too similar to me,my own mother, too homely too proper etc. What is most emotionally powerful is not necessarily best for us, but we feel like a liar not succumbing to it.

Overheal

Yea but you have no way of knowing whether or not that the person you eventualy find that you have a strong emotional connection with, doesnt bring out the best in you. Perhaps you are already emotionally and instinctively predisposed to be attracted to those that would bring out your greatest strengths. You don't know until you try. Its not something you only get one shot at, so don't be afraid to take chances. I haven't found that girl yet but I'm at least faithful at the prospect.

Affable

Overheal wrote: »

Yea but you have no way of knowing whether or not that the person you eventualy find that you have a strong emotional connection with, doesnt bring out the best in you. Perhaps you are already emotionally and instinctively predisposed to be attracted to those that would bring out your greatest strengths. You don't know until you try. Its not something you only get one shot at, so don't be afraid to take chances. I haven't found that girl yet but I'm at least faithful at the prospect.

Yeah, sure it can't be empty. But don't you think someone can be 'too close for comfort'-read you too much, be too like you parents, condmen you to a future that is too bound down and constricitve and like your parents and family home was. Ever met a women that was just like your mother, who you were attracted to? (not pervy, just true) Thats scary as ****.

That goes out to anyone btw, not just overheal.

Wibbs

Affable, you have been warned time and time again not to start threads of this nature in this forum and it's getting silly at this stage. You've also been asked to seek professional help as this musing clearly is doing nothing for you. If you want to randomly muse start a blog. Take a months leave. Next time you start a thread in this forum it will be a permanent ban. Closed.