Misunderstood

I can't handle being misunderstood. If somebody assumes the wrong thing about me, I just can't let it go, and it haunts me for days. I think it's the thought that people hate me for who I'm NOT that bothers me the most. They hate me for what they THINK I am, because they are paranoid and delusional. I think I take it personally because I'm supposed to be a communication expert. Frank Luntz says, it's not what you say, it's what people hear. But it's also true that you can't please all of the people all of the time. There will always be someone who's going to shit on you. Still, I get mad when people misinterpret my intentions. When they morally condemn me for being an evil person, they cross the line. I never shame other people and I hate being shamed. I think this is the most destructive way to tell someone that you think they're doing something wrong:

"HEY YOU'RE EVIL AND YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED. "

Well thanks for letting me know. What am I supposed to do now, punish myself? That was very helpful of you to point out how evil I was. It must feel pretty good that you're not evil like me. It must feel pretty good to point your finger at me and be the morally superior being.

It's absolutely intimidating and bigoted. Why do you have to condemn me if I'm not hurting you in any way? I believe it's hypocritical to claim that you are fighting for other people's rights. What are you, the protector of the Universe? By morally condemning me, you are essentially claiming that I should change. Who are you to tell me how to live my life, if it doesn't affect you in any bad way? Fuck you in the neck, I am not changing for your delusional cause. Helping people... you wanna be like mother Teresa or something? Fuck your hypocrisy, man, I'm sick of moral preaching faggots like you.

You claim that manipulation is evil, and yet you are trying to manipulate me into changing, and manipulate other people's opinions about me. You are like the politician who claims that guns kill people, and threatens people with a gun to prevent them from buying one. What a fucking hypocrite. Fuck you in the neck. You're assuming what is good for other people, instead of focusing on your own preferences. You have no sense of self, because you hate who you are; and you project this by shaming your perceived enemies, who can't live up to your unrealistic irrational standards, that you yourself can't satisfy.

Why is it that I care so much about what strangers think of me? What makes them so important to me? Why do I feel the need to justify myself to such unimportant faggots? This shit makes my life stressful. I can't deal with rejection when I find it to be unjustified. I should be able to accept that people are free to interpret my intentions as they wish, and take responsibility for the consequences of their misinterpretations. I'm open to advice.

Miscommunication

I'm going to explain my theory of miscommunication in simpler terms, and provide more examples, because I feel like miscommunication is the root of all hostility. I believe that most people have good or neutral intentions. But everyone has their own filters, and interprets things in different ways. And because people have insecurities, they sometimes get paranoid, and interpret things the wrong way. They assume bad intentions from the other side, and they become hostile and defensive, which then reflects back at them. In other words, they enter the Game.

The Game is a social situation where Winning or Losing is assumed to occur, and empathy is blocked away. If you get caught up in the Game, you've already lost. It's a back and forward play with no productive outcome, just like the Master-Slave relationships. The Game is not about coming to terms; it's about proving Them wrong. It's not about you being happy, it's about Them being unhappy. It's not about being honest and vulnerable, it's about being tough and strategic. It's a mechanism that feeds one's false-self but provides no real value in the long run.

People have unwritten rules about communication, mostly based on reciprocity. The perfect communication is the one where the desires of both interlocutors are met. You give me what I want, I give you what you want. Miscommunication occurs when at least one of the conversational partners cease to receive the desired feed. A variety of emotions would indicate that this has happened: anxiety, fear, boredom, frustration, anger, shame, guilt, or sadness.

There is, however, a type of communication that does not require reciprocity: Donation. Favors and gifts are one-sided transactions of preferred content that demand nothing in return. Gifts are material, favors are non-material (free services). To reject a donation, or to refuse donating, are both perfectly acceptable and non-offensive behaviors. In the former case, because you don't find the gesture preferable; hence, it's not really a favor nor a gift. In the second case, because you don't owe anybody a favor. Don't mistake donation for restitution - the latter is a way to make up for a lack of reciprocity. Make sure you clarify whether you are asking or being asked for a favor or restitution.

Individuals prefer different kinds of communication. Depending on their psychological state, people might look for one thing or the other, as the preferred feedback in a conversation. Some people prefer to talk a lot, others prefer to listen. Some prefer to debate, others like to talk about agreeable topics. Some appreciate discussing relevant issues, others prefer talking about irrelevant bullshit. You can never know, everybody's different. I call this factors "feed submodalities". Here is a full list of them:

Logical: feedback/no feedback.
Verbal: agreeable/disagreeable, relevant/irrelevant, acceptable/offensive, valuable/useless.
Physiological: congruent/incongruent, matching/mismatching, close/away, loud/quiet, low/high, fast/slow, intonation. Physiological submodalities are about one's body language. A person's body language is incongruent when it contradicts their verbal message. A matching body language is one that is similar to your interlocutor's body language.

Asking a question automatically presupposes that an honest answer is preferred. Otherwise one wouldn't even want to ask the question in the first place. Therefore, it doesn't matter if the content of the answer is preferable. It's the answer itself that has to be preferable, or in other words, it has to be honest. Basically, you're obliged to say the truth, even if it's horribly painful.

There are three main types of miscommunication that I have discovered: Unwanted Feedback, Vicious Cycle, and Dishonest Feedback. Let's have homosexuals Bob and Alan talking at the coffee table, and give out examples for each type of miscommunication:

Unwanted Feedback: Alan says, "Hey Bob, your hair looks great today". Bob is happy to hear that, and he replies back, "Yours, too, Alan". Needles to say, Alan hates his hair, and he perceives Bob's comment as a sarcastic insult. "Fuck you, Bob! My hair is SHIT", he replies. Bob sent out the wrong signal to Alan, and Bob's message was thus not reciprocal. Bob is responsible for the miscommunication because he was either being disrespectful, or he was unaware of what Alan's preferences were.

Vicious Cycle: Bob takes Alan's anger personally, and he scoffs back: "Way to be nice, asshole". Now, Bob should have interpreted Alan's outburst as an indication of his preferences; instead, he snapped back at him. Alan was sent the wrong type of feed, and reacted accordingly. Bob is responsible for the miscommunication because he gave Alan the wrong material to work with, in the first place. Instead of taking responsibility, he invited Alan to enter the Game.

Dishonest Feedback: Alan hates when Bob snaps back at him. He's now in the Game, though, and he decides to Win by coming off as the morally superior. "I'm really sorry, baby. I'm just having a bad hair day". What happens next is, Bob keeps attacking him: "It was very rude of you". Alan received the wrong type of feed, but he was incapable of indicating his disapproval. Alan is thus responsible for the miscommunication because instead, he sent out positive signals which assured Bob that reciprocity had been met.

Reciprocity wise, one can be a Creditor, or a Debtor. Creditor is the person who currently weighs more on the scale of reciprocity, and Debtor is the interlocutor who was sent a preferred message and is now expected to reciprocate. In the very beginning, when the conversation starts, the initiator is the one who requests attention. In order to give attention, the other side has to change his/her priorities. Because of that, the initiator is essentially a Debtor. During a conversation, it may be hard to trace back who's the Creditor and who's the Debtor, but it doesn't even matter. Because if you're the Debtor and you didn't reciprocate, you will be informed. If not, it's the Creditor's responsibility that he/she didn't let you know. Therefore, you're always in the clear. Assume that you're a Neutral - either wait for input, or send a message.

How do we handle miscommunication? As soon as your emotions hint that something is wrong with the conversation, indicate so, ASAP. What has happened in the past does not matter. Make no compromise, make no excuses that might justify the miscommunication. Instead, indicate as soon as possible, no matter if you're the Debtor or the Creditor. You will learn to enjoy awkward situations and even find them entertaining, when you realize who's responsible for their occurrence, and when you clearly realize what your preferences are.

Be angry! You are entitled to your anger whenever someone's being disrespectful to you. You are being disrespected when you are deliberately given unwanted feed. How do you know if it was intended? If the person is clearly aware of your preferences, but keeps violating them, you know there's something wrong going on. So make sure you let him/her know that you find his/her behavior to be disrespectful and explain why.

If you are a Creditor, and you receive unwanted feedback, you could either ask a question, make a statement, or exit the conversation. The most open-minded thing to do is to ask a question; Share what you observe and ask what to make of it. Alan could have asked Bob, "Do you honestly think my hair looks great, or were you making fun of it?". If you wanna make a statement, share how you feel in the moment, and congruently speak out your opinion. Alan could have said, "I am feeling very upset right now. I think my hair looks horrible".

If you are a Debtor, and you've been signaled that your feedback was perhaps unwanted, you could either ask a question, paraphrase what you've said, or apologize. If you want to go with the question, ask if the Creditor finds your message preferable to accept at this moment. Bob, could have asked Alan, "Did that hurt you, baby?". If you want to paraphrase, find other ways of delivering your message and/or explaining how the Creditor can relate to it. Advertise your feed. Bob could have said, "My perception of your hair is strongly biased by how much I love you".

Human automatic behavior allows for cheating in the process of reciprocation. Emotions that we find positive are prioritized and thus, someone who's influencing us to experience our preferred emotions can be perceived as being reciprocal. Factually, this is true, but if mixed with unwanted feed, preferred emotions can act like a Trojan horse in the long run. When this happens, one would usually feel ambivalent and paralyzed.

There are ways to get around being manipulated in such way. Imagine the Debtor delivering the message in a neutral state. Would you still feel the same way about it? Would you accept the message if it were delivered to you by someone whom you didn't like, or by a robot? Was the emotional rush what you expected to get in return for your input, or did you expect something more than that? Did the Debtor switch your beefsteak for a lollipop?

When you want to end a conversation, it's because you stopped getting what you prefer at this moment - the conversation is no longer your priority. Therefore, you have the perfect right to leave, because the other side can't possibly be reciprocal to you anymore. If you're leaving as a Debtor, apologize or give gratitude before your departure, and do not wait for feedback. Expecting feedback would be disrespectful. If you're leaving as the Creditor, you don't have to announce your departure. The person on the other side shouldn't feel guilty, because it was your preference that you get no more feedback from him/her, and therefore you have "received" the preferred lack of feedback. Respectfully, if someone is ending the conversation with you, the right thing to do is to not respond, unless the person is a Creditor who expects your feedback.

Unsolicited Criticism

My friend made a new song, and I assumed he would appreciate some criticism, so I critiqued his song. He got offended and complained that he never asked for my advice. John Bradshaw writes in his book "respect for others means letting them live their own lives, suffer their own pains and solve their own problems". When I say to my friend "The guitar levels are too loud", what does that mean? It essentially means I want them fixed, or else why should I bother telling him this? So what I'm really saying then is, "You should turn down the guitar levels". It relates to Bradshaw's statement in a way that if you're telling others what they should be doing, with your criticism, you're not letting them solve their problems, themselves. Music is also a subjective matter, so my assertion then translates to "My subjective opinion is more valid than yours", which is an ignorant and bigoted thing to say. It's like saying that someone is stupid for liking the color red, because you like the color blue.

Let's look at another example: I posted a new topic on a message board: "In this thread, we post pictures of ourselves". This one user, let's call him Fuckface, replied back with a sarcastic comment, expressing his disapproval of people posting their pictures in a forum. So when Fuckface posts his sarcastic comment there, he is suggesting that my subjective preference to make such a thread on the forums is inferior to his subjective preference not to do it. Why do I translate this in such a way: Why would he be posting in a thread that he disapproves of, if he didn't strongly believe that his opinion was superior? Not only that, he's doing it in front of everybody else, thus intimidating me. Did I ask for his opinion? I don't think so. I had clearly stated what the thread was about, and I had also given instructions on how to participate.

Here is an analogy: I rent a room in a hotel and I put a sign on the door saying "in this room we wear pants". Suddenly Fuckface enters the room naked and he starts giving me lectures in front of everybody else on how wearing pants is stupid. He must be really confident in his opinion in order to enter the room naked and assert that they're wrong. If he believed that both his and the pants-wearing people's personal preferences were equally valid, he would never have done that, unless we're talking about an idiot. In a way, he is denying them the right to do whatever the fuck they want with their lives.

Now let's look at an example of unsolicited criticism about an objective issue: John claims that "two plus two equals five". Here comes Hank, who overheard John's obnoxious claim. "You are incorrect, John! Two plus two equals four", says Hank. John's face gets red and he screams back, "SHUT UP, SMARTASS, NOBODY ASKED FOR YOUR STUPID OPINION". Is John right to be angry? Well, in this case, Hank is asserting a fact, and regardless of his opinion, two plus two always equals four. I call this constructive criticism - giving an opportunity to someone to see their mistake. Providing constructive criticism is like doing somebody a favor; it's like a gift.

So the question then becomes: Is it rational to become angry at someone who has bought you a gift that you didn't like? I'd say that it's perfectly moral and acceptable to reject the gift, or throw it in the trash. Surely, you didn't ask for such a gift, so you have no obligation to accept it, or to be grateful. If the gift provider was not aware that you didn't like the thing he bought, he's doing nothing disrespectful; hence, getting angry at him would be irrational and rude. You could instead simply indicate politely that you don't like being given such gifts. If Hank, however, knew that John didn't like being corrected on his Maths, I would conclude that John indeed did have the right to get angry at Hank. Once again, "respect for others means letting them live their own lives, suffer their own pains and solve their own problems". Hank should let John take responsibility for his stupidity and suffer the consequences.

So here's a few tips about providing unsolicited criticism:
If the issue is subjective, don't bother criticizing. It's disrespectful, arrogant, and bigoted. If the issue is objective, give it a try. If you're met with indifference or annoyance, don't provide any more criticism on that same issue. It's going to be unproductive, and disrespectful.

And if you're on the receiving side:
If the issue is subjective, let your anger free! I would suggest rather ignoring that person; but if they're someone important to you, you gotta let them know that you're angry and annoyed at their behavior. If the issue is objective, I suggest that you listen, if you have the time. If you're tired, or you have something better to do, let them know this is the case. Maybe you're right, maybe he's right, but this is not a good time for a debate.

I assume that you coming here reading this means that you care about my opinion and ask for it; hence, my subjective and objective suggestions are not really unsolicited.

Free Will

I have decided to summarize my views on determinism, compiling various excerpts from message boards. There is no rational reason to believe that free will exists. There is just no evidence for such a thing. I am going to list a few arguments FOR free will and refute them one by one. First of all, let's look at the definition of free will:

"Free will is the ability to choose otherwise than one might have chosen."
Why should this matter, that one could have chosen otherwise? To me, this is completely irrelevant. Fact is, what's done is done. Free Willies claim that without choice, there can be NO moral responsibility. "Moral" is a key term here; so what's the difference between "moral responsibility" and "responsibility"? I have no idea. I can only assume that if one is morally responsible, he can be morally condemned.

What is moral condemnation? The act of shaming someone for something harmful they have done. Once they've been morally condemned, they could also receive punishment. I don't believe moral condemnation is a constructive thing to do. Usually it's people who've been shamed all their lives that become criminals. So further shaming them for their hamrful behavior would be like putting out a fire with more wood. Once a person is given the label "criminal", they start perceiving themselves as such. "I'm a bad person". It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now that they believe it, they can embrace their evil selves and just go on being mean with even less remorse; because hey, "it's just the way I am".

Free Willies believe in punishment. There can be no punishment without moral condemnation. That's why they need free will to exist in order to justify their irrational beliefs, caused by bad parenting and the like. The deterministic solution to crime is prevention and self-defense. You either prevent things or they happen. Free Willies cannot be content with this because they need Revenge. They are caught up in the Game where you either win or lose; and they can't stand being the losers. Free Willies love to talk about empathy, but when it comes to a criminal, they usually have none for him. That's because they like to assume a role, where they're the good guys, and the criminals are the bad guys. The eternal battle between Good & Evil - it's nothing more than a delusional game.

Under the same circumstances, different individuals make different choices. If Dick acts in a destructive way, compared to Jack, who would have acted differently in the same situation, we can positively claim that Dick's behavior was immoral. The question "Could Dick have chosen otherwise?" is irrelevant to the morality of his actions, and rather they're trying to label Dick "immoral", himself. The question "Compared to what?" is much more practical and constructive. Dick chose this, compared to Jack, who would have chosen that. My point being, free will is not a prerequisite for morality. A rock falls on your head and kills you. It doesn't matter if the rock wanted to do it, it's still responsible for your death.

Here is the quantum mechanics perspective: "Because randomness exists at a quantum level, there's a reason to believe that people make random choices, too." They so badly want to believe that a person could have chosen otherwise, that they come down to quantum mechanics. The problem with this claim is that randomness is the opposite of intentional, willful action. Free Willies are now contradicting themselves. If Dick made a bad choice at random, how can he be held "morally responsible" for it?

The most famous claim against determinism is the fatalistic one: "If the future is determined and won't change, why not just sit back and watch it unfold? Nothing you do can change the future, right?" My answer is: If you're predetermined to decide to sit back and watch the future unfold, that means you've got issues. Nothing's gonna happen unless you act upon it. Determinism is simply the claim that everything happens for a reason. You chose to do this, BECAUSE you were influenced by a variety of events. The latter CAUSED you to make this choice, which makes it predetermined. If you want to fight psychological causation, check out my article: Introducing Chaos.

Stefan Molyneux's argument is similar to the fatalistic one: he says, "In the past, people prayed to Gods to alter the weather - however, these gods do not exist, and the weather is merely the complicated and predetermined movement of atoms and energy. When people gave up the idea that the gods controlled the weather, they stopped "debating" the weather, or attempting to alter its behavior through words, prayers, supplications and arguments." That's an argument from ignorance. It does in no way prove the existence of free will, but rather justifies it as a tool of comfort and convenience. My response: When the tribe finds out there are no Gods, they'll stop praying, but they'll start searching for ways to scientifically influence the weather into changing towards their benefit, after discovering what causes it to change. Once you find all the factors that influence an action, it becomes predictable and susceptible to change.

I'm gonna finish this with a quote from PCRS: Many questions on human behavior have been explained by finding causes in the past of the human being in question. Yet there is still a lot of ignorance about what moves men. Some people have given this ignorance a name (free will), called it an explanation for the remaining unexplained behavior and defined it as virtuous. When confronted with the contradictions in their uncaused cause, they defend it vigorously, bull charging determinists, thinking that disproving determinism gives their named ignorance more credibility as an explanation for yet unexplained human behavior. Science however will keep nibbling away on ignorance, leaving less and less room for their named ignorance (free will). Ignorance is not virtue.