I know I didn't blog yesterday, but I was sick. I hope you can forgive me. I am recovering today! I am dehydrated but hopeful that all this water and Gatorade I'm drinking will replenish my fluids and help to settle my stomach... and dizziness.
Anyway, I've been having this issue lately that goes all the way back to me having some of the worst self-esteem issues in existence.
A lot of the time, I feel like, inside of me, I have a constant battle raging between an inferiority and a superiority complex.
When I'm with my friends or doing something that involves me interacting with other people things will go one of two ways.
For starters, we'll be talking about something like, politics or something to that effect--something I know essentially nothing about. However, everyone around me will be talking about it and I'll have pretty much no idea what's going on.
I've always considered that some people are so good at bullshitting that they sound like they know what they're talking about even if they don't, but seeing as how I know nothing about the subject I can't exactly tell.
This leads me to shrink away from the conversation and listen. Occasionally I'll nod or laugh when appropriate but essentially I'll be smiling because I have no idea what's going on.
And do you know how awful it makes feel to think that I don't know much about anything, when I have to sit there and consider the fact that even though I'm generally regarded as an intelligent person, that I may actually be the stupid one in the room? It makes me feel stupid or inferior and I hate feeling that way. Who wouldn't?
But there's another side to me; there's the pompous, I'm better than you, I know everything and you know nothing April. How can one person goes from one extreme to another--it's not all that hard.
For example, let's say I was listening to a bunch of crazies talk about Harry Potter talks about the worship of Satan. I could go on all day about how the main theme in Harry Potter is love and after extensive rereads of each of the books I'm pretty sure the worship of Satan isn't mentioned anywhere in it, but you know they wouldn't listen.
I don't want to say these people are stupid--
Okay, I do want to say they're stupid but I won't because it's not nice. Would you like it if someone called you stupid? Nope. So I won't do it either.
But I really want to! Because they sit there and they'll talk about how *Harry Potter is just an allegory for Satan and that Ron and Hermione are his two demon henchmen and I know they're so, so, so, so wrong. I want to shout from the top of my lungs "Hey, you guys are a bunch of F#cking idiots!" but they'd only reply "You're a f#cking idiot for reading Harry Potter and I hope you go straight to hell."
And talk to people who seem to be less intelligent than I am is like talking to a brick wall, so I don't talk to them at all because I don't want to be an asshole nor do I want to talk to a brick wall that can only utter absurdities to me.
So instead of trying to find a proper path of communication to get a point across to them I don't speak to them at all and I look down on them because I feel superior to them.
It's not good to feel inferior to people and it's not good to feel superior either.
It's obvious why anyone would hate feeling inferior, but it probably feels good to be better than other people right?
Wrong. I hate that feeling of looking down on people and suggesting that I'm smarter than them. I feel so guilty. And I know that in some cases I am probably more intelligent [at least common sense wise] than a fa ir few people but does that really give me the right to look at someone and say "you're stupid and I'm not and that makes me better than you."
And what really grinds my gears is that people in positions of authority like your boss, a parent, a teacher or whoever likes to suggest that they're smarter than you and better than you just because they have authority over you when you feel deep down in the pit of your stomach "If you didn't have the power to make my life miserable I would tell you off, show you that you're wrong and make you shut the f#ck up!"
But you don't do that. Some people do that and they end up losing their job or getting kicked out of their house or getting a bad mark on their paper. I grin and bear it because I know [or at least hope with all the hope I can muster] that this too shall pass.
I guess the one thing that above all others makes me angry, that makes me want to kick a field goal with a puppy is when people say something ignorant and I can't do anything about it because I either can't or simply because I'm just not the kind of person.
And you know what else? When people write things off as stupid when you feel really really passionate about it. Like I love watching The Universe and How the Earth Was Made because I am a total space nerd and I love outer space! But let it be on TV and it will only take three seconds for someone to say "turn that stupid shit off." Do you even know what you're calling stupid? Do you even have a general idea of how the earth can exist inside of this vast nothingness and you're calling it stupid? Even if you don't did even occur to you that I am completely enchanted by this great big universe and you're calling it stupid? Have you no soul that other people care about?
And let someone call Harry Potter stupid. That is something that I will go off about every time.
But I digress, I won't call you stupid or look down on you for disagreeing with me because I know how to agree to disagree and respectfully disagree because there's a whole section about disagreements in my brain's General Book of Manners.
Post-middle school, I don't recall disagreeing with someone and raising my voice. Screaming at someone isn't going to get your point across. It may, however, make people tune you out or piss them off or both. And if people scream at me I do tune the out. Can't you calmly and quietly get your point across to me without yelling at me? Last I checked I wasn't def and, I don't mean to toot my own horn but, I'm a damn good listener.
I look at it this way when you scream at me: Sometimes when people talk really, really loud, it's because they want to sound more intelligent than they actually are.
And that brings us back to me feeling superior and then guilty.
Now that I've completely gone off topic I'm going to go back to sleep and pray that all the fluids I've consumed thus far today start to kick in at some point.
Fare thee well,
April
*I've never actually heard someone say this about Harry and his friends, I'm just using it as an example to get my point across.
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