Jon writes: "In my often younger, leftist circles, I feel real pressure to constantly signal virtue: to present as an empathetic cis white male when nothing in my soul could feel further from that description. Socially, I can feel a persistent kind of body dysmorphia, in which my presentation and my being are almost never aligned. I keep hoping that a long observed record of behavior will outweigh the immediate classification, but honestly, who is paying that much attention anyway?"
Many days I walk across a short bridge to a peninsula to a dog park. Because it is a pinch point, humans either queue or gather on one side or another. During COVID, most people were willing to keep it one way and not to cluster on either side. Kind of like it is bad form to stand by the airplane cockpit door to get into the bathroom. (It is a nuisance to the flight attendants and it gives bad vibes.) The gathering with dogs and acquaintances for the purposes of socializing really annoys me, much like the bad vibes from those that hover at the bathroom. It confuses who takes the lane because it isn't clear whether they are queued or gathering. Do they want to go or not? I can't see their facial expression from that distance, so it is hard to say. Yelling would be ridiculous and might not be clear in the wind anyway. Meanwhile, a dog's vision is good for motion but not for detail at distance. I know there may be dogs on the other side of that bridge, but my dog doesn't necessarily sense it. And her being deaf doesn't help. To her, we get to the end of the bridge and suddenly there are 10 dogs of different temperaments staring her down. I find a quick vector off to the side. Nonetheless, feeling ambushed, she gives the "Wanna piece of me?" look to be on the safe side. Because of course she does. The endlessly socializing senior gals inform their dogs "not to react" and look disapprovingly. I fake a warm smile and continue. How about they use their empathy and keep the pathway clear in the first place? Pretty sure I don't care what Pink or Macklemore thinks or feels or what virtues they think they are signaling. Meh!
smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
