Letting The Side Down
Feb. 12th, 2008 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanMuch as I often disagree with him, Sam DeBrito over at the SMH website struck a chord with this piece when I just read it... but I still disagree with him.
Not for any obvious reason. I do believe we all have an "internal dialogue", but I don't believe that disagreeing with it automatically results in damaging behaviour. What our Sam is describing is not a dialogue, but an argument. In fact, it's not even an argument... it's contradiction. To paraphrase my beloved Monty Python ~ "An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition... it's an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes"... "No it isn't!"
Though I can see the point he's making &, as is so often the case with 'helpful advice', he doubtlessly "means well", I believe Sam is not only mistaking the concept of dialogue ~ defined (in some online dictionary or other) as 'an exchange of ideas via conversation', but also if his piece accurately represents what he thinks an argument is, then if I ever disagree with him in person, I'll just skip the exchange of words & go straight for the knee to the wedding tackle, or the broken glass to the face, because that seems to be the end result he expects from an 'argument'.
God knows what he'd do if he ever disagreed with the voice in his head... probably beat himself into a coma.
If my inner voice was so reactionary & confrontational, I'd still be sane enough to doubt my own reason & get some help!! That said, I recognise there are degrees of reaction & realisation... much as I recognise the voices (not all of them internal) telling me to get help myself... though hopefully I'm not quite at the Elliot Smith stage just yet. Not by a looong shot. I pay a lot of attention to my inner voice &, on the whole, I think it's helped a lot more than it's hindered me. I have my own esteem issues like anyone else, but I definitely don't have some disembodied drill sergeant in my head yelling at me, telling me I'm a worthless pile of s@$t all day & night. I'm certainly not worthless...
Sam's article reminds me more of Robert Browning's dramatic monologue poetry, than anything resembling helpful advice...
So, can I syndicate my 'blog to the Sydney Morning Herald too??!
Back to the working week today. Not a good sign that I had an attack of Couldn'tBeF@%keditis which saw me turn up 25 minutes late... with the keys, take 90 minutes lunchbreak at 11am & indulge in a long personal phone call in the latter part of the day.
My professional attitude is on leave. Shame I couldn't go with it... Maybe I'm trying to tell me something.
Not for any obvious reason. I do believe we all have an "internal dialogue", but I don't believe that disagreeing with it automatically results in damaging behaviour. What our Sam is describing is not a dialogue, but an argument. In fact, it's not even an argument... it's contradiction. To paraphrase my beloved Monty Python ~ "An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition... it's an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes"... "No it isn't!"
Though I can see the point he's making &, as is so often the case with 'helpful advice', he doubtlessly "means well", I believe Sam is not only mistaking the concept of dialogue ~ defined (in some online dictionary or other) as 'an exchange of ideas via conversation', but also if his piece accurately represents what he thinks an argument is, then if I ever disagree with him in person, I'll just skip the exchange of words & go straight for the knee to the wedding tackle, or the broken glass to the face, because that seems to be the end result he expects from an 'argument'.
God knows what he'd do if he ever disagreed with the voice in his head... probably beat himself into a coma.
If my inner voice was so reactionary & confrontational, I'd still be sane enough to doubt my own reason & get some help!! That said, I recognise there are degrees of reaction & realisation... much as I recognise the voices (not all of them internal) telling me to get help myself... though hopefully I'm not quite at the Elliot Smith stage just yet. Not by a looong shot. I pay a lot of attention to my inner voice &, on the whole, I think it's helped a lot more than it's hindered me. I have my own esteem issues like anyone else, but I definitely don't have some disembodied drill sergeant in my head yelling at me, telling me I'm a worthless pile of s@$t all day & night. I'm certainly not worthless...
Sam's article reminds me more of Robert Browning's dramatic monologue poetry, than anything resembling helpful advice...
So, can I syndicate my 'blog to the Sydney Morning Herald too??!
Back to the working week today. Not a good sign that I had an attack of Couldn'tBeF@%keditis which saw me turn up 25 minutes late... with the keys, take 90 minutes lunchbreak at 11am & indulge in a long personal phone call in the latter part of the day.
My professional attitude is on leave. Shame I couldn't go with it... Maybe I'm trying to tell me something.
