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Minor updates, and random thoughts on bullying
Hypercube and I bask luxuriously in front of the fireplace -- probably the last time I'll light it this year, and I rather feel like I should be working, but it's damp out and the ocicat so very much wanted it on, and it feels nice to relax a little.
I got an "exceeds expectations" rating at work last week, which applies to the last six months and equals my best ever previous rating. Woot woot, that means I will get a raise this fall (and probably a chunk of equity next month). The benefits of not relaxing.
And today I got my ass kicked for four hours by Manic Pixie, for whom handstand training is largely a matter of folding in half. Tightness and compression drills forever! Yesterday, with Pokemon, I pressed off the exercise ball in a different way than ever before -- it really felt like dragging forward into a floaty counterbalance (butt vs legs), instead of like trying to lift a heavy thing. So there's progress and hope and stuff, there in handstand land.
I've been thinking a lot about bullying, and exclusion of people. Having been the outcast and the underdog, I seem to find myself speaking on behalf of such excluded people rather often these days. It seems to be most upsetting to me when the excluders don't take responsibility for their own actions -- no, friend, you didn't block that person on Facebook "because they're an insufferable prick", you blocked them because you decided something and clicked a button. Sigh. (And this ends up inexorably tying into my thoughts about the election, in which the candidate I support has been kicked around brutally by her co-workers and the media for nearly as long as I've been alive. But that's a different story.)
I have been known to stop trying entirely with certain people after a while, myself -- the Lady X comes to mind. I think it crosses some line when person A isn't content to stop associating with person B, but goes further into trying to keep others from being friends with B in various ways.
I got an "exceeds expectations" rating at work last week, which applies to the last six months and equals my best ever previous rating. Woot woot, that means I will get a raise this fall (and probably a chunk of equity next month). The benefits of not relaxing.
And today I got my ass kicked for four hours by Manic Pixie, for whom handstand training is largely a matter of folding in half. Tightness and compression drills forever! Yesterday, with Pokemon, I pressed off the exercise ball in a different way than ever before -- it really felt like dragging forward into a floaty counterbalance (butt vs legs), instead of like trying to lift a heavy thing. So there's progress and hope and stuff, there in handstand land.
I've been thinking a lot about bullying, and exclusion of people. Having been the outcast and the underdog, I seem to find myself speaking on behalf of such excluded people rather often these days. It seems to be most upsetting to me when the excluders don't take responsibility for their own actions -- no, friend, you didn't block that person on Facebook "because they're an insufferable prick", you blocked them because you decided something and clicked a button. Sigh. (And this ends up inexorably tying into my thoughts about the election, in which the candidate I support has been kicked around brutally by her co-workers and the media for nearly as long as I've been alive. But that's a different story.)
I have been known to stop trying entirely with certain people after a while, myself -- the Lady X comes to mind. I think it crosses some line when person A isn't content to stop associating with person B, but goes further into trying to keep others from being friends with B in various ways.
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On the other hand, sadly none of us are big enough to have the difficult conversation of talking to the blocked directly about why we think they're an insufferable prick.
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Still, I wish the chance to have an abstract conversation didn't fly out the window the moment the identity of this particular underdog comes up.
sadly none of us are big enough to have the difficult conversation of talking to the blocked directly about why we think they're an insufferable prick.
This is the part that disappoints me. I've had many talks with the person about various behaviors, and found that they're actually pretty responsive to feedback. No they don't take hints, yes they need direct communication -- is this really something that stops multiple adults in their tracks? Apparently so.
At any rate, I sure don't feel safe in the local community the way I used to. It could decide to turn on me next, probably for the crime of refusing to ostracize anyone myself. That would make me sad, but I prefer it to joining in the general blockage / banning / refusal to communicate. And it probably would really have happened last year, if it was going to -- it's a silly concern at this point.
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