Journaling project, Day 20

[drwex]

When someone upsets us, this is often because they aren’t behaving according to our fantasy of how they “should” behave. The frustration, then, stems not from their behavior but from how their behavior differs from our fantasy. Let’s not get carried away. Remember, calmness is a superpower.

How can you let calmness be your superpower today, instead?

Since it was pointed out that I kind of failed to answer yesterday's prompt question (true, and I will get to it... someday) I'll start off by answering this one: calmness is my superpower when I know it'll piss off the other party. I can be infuriating in all kinds of ways, one of which is by not getting upset when people think they're upsetting me. It's kind of fun to watch other people blow a gasket, sometimes.

The other way is by doing what I call "going meta". When my mother used to go off on me (late in her life, when I was an adult and had a lot more skills, distance, and cope) I would say, "Why are we having this argument?" Usually the correct answer was because she was having a bad day, or mad at my father or brother and taking it out on me, but those weren't answers she was capable of generating herself so the question tended to stop her in her tracks. Or she'd just ignore it and keep on going at me.

This question has some other uses in more productive relationships, too. I've always said that I'm willing to argue, if it's worthwhile. Part of knowing whether it's worthwhile I knowing why you're having the argument in the first place. It's quite often the case that people argue about things that they aren't actually arguing about. I used to say that my first wife and I only ever had one argument - it was about money and it took a myriad of forms.(*)

I still find the phrasing of these prompts frustrating. Calling my model of how someone will behave a "fantasy" is insulting. Never mind the notion that my belief people should act in moral and kind ways. I realize not everyone else (no one else) has my morality, but if I believe people should not be racist shitbags and they act in ways that don't accord with that, please don't call my beliefs "fantasy". Furthermore, if peoples' behavior deviates from my expectation in certain ways, I think I'm completely justified in saying that my frustration comes from their behavior. Again with these questions there's an unaddressed question of boundary-drawing - how do I know if I'm being unreasonable? To take one example, there's a whole segment of people who think it's unreasonable to punch Nazis; there's another segment who think it's unreasonable to allow fascists to go unchallenged in shouting "Jew will not replace us" in peoples' faces. Calmness doesn't seem like much of a superpower these days.

Or maybe less dramatically: I have endless examples of people saying "I believe X" and then acting to bring about not(X). Who's the fantasist in this scenario? And don't patronize me by saying "let's not get carried away". In response to an earlier prompt someone hypothesized that a major target of these prompts are women who've been socialized not to express things outwardly that might be controversial or confrontational. How do my women readers feel about being told that calmness is a superpower?

(*) Hypothesis: it wasn't about money, it was about something else, which money stood in for. Security or respect, I'd bet. Ain't hind-insight a bitch. I can't imagine my 20-something self being mature or sophisticated enough to penetrate two layers of indirection but it sure would have been nice. That alone might make this the most useful prompt of the series, so far.

Comments

[elusiveat]

I'm a woman and I feel fine about describing calmness as a superpower.

I'm also not particularly good at staying calm. Sometimes I can manage to maintain some emotional distance but my default is to be pretty emotionally expressive.

[drwex]

Thanks for the responses and for sharing your perspective.