This post is a bit of navel-gazing that has nothing to do with New Orleans, politics, geoscience, copyright issues or travel. Ever since VatulBlog went from being a simple stump in my portion of electronic acreage to an über-public space, I’ve thought about starting another blog, a more personal one under an anonymous name that serves as online Dear Diary, but of a more private nature. Well, I do have one of those somewhere, but it now serves mostly as repository of quizzes, YouTube videos and conversations held within a select group of friends.
That is, however, the beauty of blogging, isn’t it? I don’t have to wear a Dolce & Gabbana suit and a ton of makeup to come to you with breaking news, analyses of New Orleans and scientific happenings, and internet roundups. By the same token, I’m not limited in any way by a holding company or publisher to speak only of certain ordained things. It is after all, heaven forfend, my blog. Subsumed, in a way, by the professionalism required to be a purveyor of often serious news, but still my blog.
What does this long preface lead up to? Yesterday, thanks to an online social networking site, I found an old friend from my Kuwaiti youth. Type-A and competitive youngsters, we didn’t always get along, but loved one another as kids do when they’ve known each other since kindergarten. Bad things happened to both of our families in 1990, we went our separate ways, and we never saw each other again … until I caught her grown-up face in a blurry picture, while surfing through friends’ friends lists. It brought back all kinds of memories and sixteen years of rumination.
There’s something I have come to realize in my years of reluctant adulthood: People are people. I don’t have to like all of them, and not one of them is obligated to like me — THIS IS OK. And that, yes, there are people who dislike me, but for each one who does, there are at least two dozen who have overwhelmingly positive or neutral feelings towards me. This is not a plea for “I like/love you” or “I despise you” comments, so don’t bother with them. Why not? It’s because no human is fully angel or demon; inter-personal relationships and attendant judgments are just not that black or white. There is no such thing as all love and all hate towards one person, and most of the time to our self-centered eyes, people just are. Coincidentally, D said something very profound to me yesterday, “No one is wholly a bitch, Maitri, they were being bitchy under those set of circumstances. This is why it’s best not to speak ill of anyone, for you will never know what they were going through at the time to prompt that awful behavior.” (I love this man, and his ability to be a sage and an impetuous sixteen-year-old at the same time.)
Thought I’d share.
Update: When discussing this topic with friends just a few hours ago, they said, “How could anyone not like you?” I rolled my eyes and said, “Very easily, it just depends on the set of circumstances.” Objectivity between friends is not guaranteed, hence the blog post.
I eschew objectivity re: you.
I know you were not looking for these kinds of comments, but you are gonna get one anyway, from a stranger no less! I likes ya and I don’t even know you!
Whereas I only kind of know you and I don’t like you at all. (grin.. smirk.. wink)
To Jeffrey: Exactly.
What about those for whom the reaction to every set of circumstances is bitchiness, eh?
Aaah, yes, those. Seriously prolonged set of circumstances, I would say.
As a fellow scientist, you must agree that there are data points that will form the outliers of theories, even emotional ones, because humans are humans … and not all of them take their prescribed medication on time everyday.