Reflections in a snow-covered hill

[kiya]

I'm watching an argument, mostly.

It's an argument that ten years ago I would have come in on, vehemently, passionately, in the belief that cites and rhetoric could win. In the intervening decade, I've learned that that doesn't actually work so well. Or I've learned that arguing that way means investing too much of myself in a place where I risk losing a handle on it. Or something.

And there's a part of me that misses the ... optimism of the hotheadedness, I guess it is. The sense that I could, in fact, if I just pushed hard enough, cared hard enough, it would be a good enough place to stand to go with this here lever. I regret its passing, even while I recognise what remains is more effective.

And I'm reminded of the thing I posted to rasseff back an age ago, about the feeling that treating things as if they matter is one of those things that doesn't fit in well, that makes people wary and hard to get along with. So there's that sort of weird edgy space in which things matter, but expressing how much they matter ... doesn't help.

I don't have the words for why this all makes me oddly melancholy.

Comments

[beaq.livejournal.com]

If I can only show them how strongly I feel about it, it will change everything. If I set myself on fire.

[kiya]

Exactly.

Angel, burning away
Cutting against the heartless unforgiven
Anger, blacken my dream
A phoenix in flame, returning in redemption...

[kiya]

And I go to play the song I just quoted at you, and the next thing iTunes comes up with is ...

Pink Floyd's "On the Turning Away."

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Hmhm.

[(Anonymous)]

I know what you mean, because I've been there.

And it hurts to realize that we can't do everything, save the world, make it right. All we can do is change ourselves and offer a hand. We can't make anyone take it.

Things matter, but just because they matter doesn't mean people believe in it. Just because they matter doesn't mean people will listen. And if you make too much noise about how much it matters, people listen to the noise and not what's actually important.

Which is why I routinely decide that people just plain suck sometimes. :(
Shad.

[thastygliax.livejournal.com]

I read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography earlier this year. One of his observations in there is that, ironically, more people listen to your ideas if you present them with feigned diffidence. If you don't reveal just how invested you are in the argument, they'll actually listen to the argument instead of getting distracted by your passion. It's a lot easier to say that than do it, though.

[mindways]

more people listen to your ideas if you present them with feigned diffidence

This does make some sense - passionate advocacy can be taken as evidence of an agenda, and while I'd love to be able to say that most passionate people's agendas have been arrived at through careful contemplation, or rigorous logic, the empirical evidence may say otherwise. :P

[mindways]

...and I had a thought late last night about this, tied in to the Apollonian-over-Dionysian emphasis in our culture - the dispassionate and critial intellectual examination over the passion - but anything more detailed than that has been smudged out of memory by sleep and dreams.

[(Anonymous)]

I think we fear passion because we can't control it.

Anything that cannot be controlled is to be feared. Passion is by its very nature uncontrolled.

Maybe if we just shove it far ENOUGH under the rug, it'll appear to go away? *snort*

(also, passion is considered "female", and that also is just not good enough in this world. *eyeroll*)
Shad.

[the-real-diana.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, I think, because the magic that you can change things is somehow burst.

[labrys6.livejournal.com]

"misses the ... optimism of the hotheadedness, I guess it is. The sense that I could, in fact, if I just pushed hard enough, cared hard enough, it would be a good enough place to stand to go with this here lever. I regret its passing, even while I recognise what remains is more effective."

Oh, I hear that. And I recall all the arguments I have had where my facts were right, my ducks all in a row...but the other person remained unconvinced claiming I was "not being objective". Actually, it always seemed to me that because I was emotionally invested in the argument, they merely found that "objectIONABLE" because subjectivity makes folks squirm. Just because there is an aspect of subjectivity does not mean the person so invested doesn't have objective facts as well.

Yep, melancholy. It's a bit of a day for it. Here it's fueled by the up-too-late-no-protein-for-breakfast 'hangover'....but hey, why eat protein when there is Solstice cake? ;-)