Baboon! Baboon! BabOOOOOON!

I was given some advice by my supervisor the other day.  I have felt unsettled about it since until now.  It struck an old and deep chord with me.  Something she said brought me back to my childhood.  On the playground we are taught to play nice.  We are taught to take turns, respect the other...to play well with others.  We are told that to be liked is the ultimate goal.  This is the advice my boss bestowed upon me.  It's total crap.

I believe we must learn to be independent of being liked.  I believe we must not concern ourselves with the good or bad opinions of others.  No one is beneath me albeit and I am beneath no one.  I won't purposefully hurt another, that's very un-dude.  But I will certainly stand up for what is right.  If that includes putting someone in their place who so sorely requires it, so be it.  I had to do that to a colleague.  She had overstepped her bounds in an odd way and her mistake was rectified by yours truly.  I was professional and calm and corrected the injustice immediately.  Normally, I would have stewed.  I would have taken it home.  I would have slit my wrists and bled out for this person all to make them more comfortable.  All to make her feel safe.  Well all of that shit be overrated.  Safety is an illusion.  I can control my reaction to things and that is all.  Comfort is a story we tell ourselves to feel safe.  Which in itself is also an illusion.

The colleague apologized to me and all has been forgiven.  However, my supervisor felt the need to interject her own personal spin on things.  She probably thought I needed to be comforted.  Fool.  So I listened quietly as she wove a tale of how the best way to get what you want from the environment we mutually find ourselves in(our stupid job surrounded by ego driven incompetent boobs), is to be liked.  Not liked, but loved.  She told me how she manipulates people around her into loving her.  How she makes people love her to avoid conflict I had previously faced.  Therefore she never feels uncomfortable and always feel safe.  Obviously she didn't say these words but that was their meaning.  What's wrong with a little conflict?  How else do you truly know the other?  Just like in school.  Follow along.  Keep quiet.  Don't make a scene.  Play nice.  Fuck that.  Fuck her.  I am not going to waste my precious time stirring the ego pot of fear and emotion to get what I want.  I'm going to use my words, like a big girl!  I'll use logic, reason and an intense root system of justice that I feel grows within me the more I use it...like I think that's called my gut brain.  I will draw on this energy to resolve conflict.  That shit is real.  Waffling and kissing ass are no way to live.  It takes a great deal of strength to realize this and even more backbone to put it into action.  We should be more interested in doing what is right and not what feels happy in our whittle tummies.  Guess what?  That shit is transitory.  Fleeting is the feeling of consuming someones opinion about you and attempting to change it to your favor.  People pretending to love you is the nihility of love.

Feelings cannot hurt you.  They are temporary bits of code that can be rewritten at the flick of an eyelash.  So let us not degrade one another to our child selves.  Let us not consume one another in a tepid sea of fake and apologetic smiles  Let's not exist perpetually where everyone is afraid of each other and themselves.  Let us be fucking real for a change and get some fucking work done.