Makko
Iä!
- Jan 17, 2021
- 2,430
Got randomly called up by a cousin today. I haven't talked to her in many years, but I guess word of conflict gets around and now people will bother me.
The conversation was mostly her chastising me, from a pretty strange angle. My big problem is apparently that I've made "unfeminine life choices". I haven't thought about it from that perspective before, but it's true. I have an extremely masculine biography. I've rejected family, security and support in the name of freedom. I've abandoned everything familiar and embraced the unknown. Instead of cooperating, I competed. Where I could have compromised, I confronted. I've broken a lot of social rules and let down important expectations -- expectations that would have brought big rewards should they have been fulfilled. It's like I've been given a set of materials to build a house to live in, but instead I build a makeshift airplane and try to fly off a cliff with it. Even if it could work, it's just not something you ought to do.
Nonstandard choices are not necessarily bad, but they usher you into an unlit darkness, where you're not supposed to be, not expected, not accommodated for. When you stray a certain distance from the beaten path, it begins to cast doubt on your sanity. No adequate person would have done things this way. It's still hard to grasp just how bizarre my situation is, and just how much cruel and unusual trouble I've put myself in.
It's one thing to feel cornered because of forces obviously outside of your control. It's another thing to feel that way because of choices you've made, and you can trace your circumstances to those choices. But if I were to choose again, I wouldn't have chosen differently. How much of it is free will? How much of it is actually choice? Do I actually have any more control over the guiding voices in my head than real chizophrenics have over their hallucinations? Am I any less screwed?
The conversation was mostly her chastising me, from a pretty strange angle. My big problem is apparently that I've made "unfeminine life choices". I haven't thought about it from that perspective before, but it's true. I have an extremely masculine biography. I've rejected family, security and support in the name of freedom. I've abandoned everything familiar and embraced the unknown. Instead of cooperating, I competed. Where I could have compromised, I confronted. I've broken a lot of social rules and let down important expectations -- expectations that would have brought big rewards should they have been fulfilled. It's like I've been given a set of materials to build a house to live in, but instead I build a makeshift airplane and try to fly off a cliff with it. Even if it could work, it's just not something you ought to do.
Nonstandard choices are not necessarily bad, but they usher you into an unlit darkness, where you're not supposed to be, not expected, not accommodated for. When you stray a certain distance from the beaten path, it begins to cast doubt on your sanity. No adequate person would have done things this way. It's still hard to grasp just how bizarre my situation is, and just how much cruel and unusual trouble I've put myself in.
It's one thing to feel cornered because of forces obviously outside of your control. It's another thing to feel that way because of choices you've made, and you can trace your circumstances to those choices. But if I were to choose again, I wouldn't have chosen differently. How much of it is free will? How much of it is actually choice? Do I actually have any more control over the guiding voices in my head than real chizophrenics have over their hallucinations? Am I any less screwed?
