Monday, April 10, 2006

Slick Stalkings

Y’ever let somebody else’s judgment supersede your own, and then just kick yourself for it, because you knew? I’ve been doin’ that for weeks now, and paid for it. A person I know has been getting squirrellier every damn day, and I didn’t like where I thought it was going.

I behaved as though I believed the hype, and didn’t argue my case more strenuously. That’s the part I am really having a problem with. I was hearing “X could never use violence” and failing to retort “Even though X punched a wall, recently, proving that X knew very well how the process worked?”

While statutes vary, most define stalking as a course of conduct that places a person in fear for their safety.

We like to forget we are mammals. We like to believe we “can’t” do things because, in most situations we choose not to. Unfortunately, the bad-enough situations crop up too often for such self-delusion. Not everyone needs a plane crash in the Andes to spark the idea of eating someone else in the not-so-good way.

We are all capable of violence. We are all capable of violence. We are all capable of violence. Sing it with me, in harmony. Believe it. Now, and only now might the work begin. You, in the back, sing, or I’ll bean you with an icepack (Now we see the violence inherent in the system )!

Stalking behavior patterns closely mirror those common in many domestic violence cases.

I ignored the increasing phone calls, explained away the lack of resolution of the menacing voicemails, told myself that whatever happened, would be verbal.

But I know that even the crunchy hippie dude who gave me my watsu could, conceivably, perpetrate violence given the correct stimuli. What gives insight into character is what violence, used against and in the service of whom, and with what control?

When I went to the workshop on NonViolent Communication (and trust me, there’s enough irony there to build an aircraft carrier) I noted that the construction “I need you to do x…” was labeled a strategy (to get a need met). The need is elsewhere, unspoken. I wonder what the need was, there.

I can’t imagine what need could underlie, “I have a need to punch you in the eye.” Hey, that’s the beginning of a good ol’ country song. Now I gotta work in my momma, and trains, and my dog. Actually, I can think of several need constructions that could encompass that action, but since I’m slightly partisan on this issue, they all come out sounding like “I have a need to be a gigantic assmunch, I have a need to be divorced, and/or I have a need to be in jail.” More on that last, later.

Oh well, we live and learn. I learned I’m not violence-prone, and that people who say they’re not, often are.

Speaking of which. Just as a general rule, I subscribe to “whatever people tell you they’re specifically not, they probably are.” People who say, “I don’t play games” probably have a trophy case full of the heads of previous gamers. I believe what people do, not what they say. I have recently been taken solidly to task for having this belief. I ask but this question, “Who should I believe, you or my own (swollen) eyes?”

Some preacher guy once asked that we judge a person by the content of their character. I have several judgments about the character of a certain someone, and will be paying a bit more attention to my judgments of character in the future.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home