Show offs

Some people are annoying. In fact, a lot of people are annoying. The Show Off is one particular breed I haven't encountered for quite a while. I met lots when I was at school. Conscious that I am 'focusing on the negatives' and 'labelling'. I feel nevertheless that I would like to write some thoughts about the Show Off in light of the fact that I encountered one recently.

This guy is in a band I play with. He attempts to slyly win applause or get one up on others (me) most often through his words and sometimes through his actions. It's all very sophomoric. Vidi:

• "I can't do that date because I have a paid gig."

I don't care about the comings and goings of your private life and I don't think anyone else does. Simply informing us that you can't make it on that day would have sufficed. There's no need to pretend that you are an heavily-in-demand pro musician when it's clear from your playing that you are most certainly not.

• "I wrote out the music for ___ and now I'm going to have to write it all out again. Damn!"

Firstly, I didn't ask you to write the music out for me. I am perfectly capable of writing it myself. Secondly, I don't believe you did it just for me. You expect me to believe that you were sat at home spending your own free time altruistically writing parts thinking, "I must do this for Tee!" Hogwash. You were just trying to usurp my position as transcriber-arranger and assert your superiority over me as some kind of part-writing expert.

________________


But under closer inspection I am getting needlessly agitated due to several cognitive distortions on my part.

1. Labelling: He's more than "just a show off" - he's a human being. Humans are complex. They are not just negative entities bereft of anything other than negativity. Humans are a complex mix of positive, negative and neutral. When I label people I focus exclusively on the negative.

2. Mind-Reading: I don't actually know that he is doing all these things for the reasons presumed. I could be completely wrong. Although I suspect I am right. I do not KNOW it. There is a chance I could be wrong. I have been wrong in the past. In his case, he's not British so perhaps his choice of words are typical of someone from his country.

3. Should: Implicit in all my criticisms is the belief that he 'should' not be saying and doing these things. But in fact, the opposite is true. Given his personal beliefs, his personality, his manner of speaking, all formed from his education, his upbringing, friends, family and perhaps even genetics, he SHOULD speak and act as he does. If he acted at variance with his nature THAT would be odd and it would be right then to say he 'should' act different.

4. Mental-Filter: Following on from labelling, I am filtering out all the positive and focusing exclusively on the negative. Like putting a drop of ink in a glass of water. I am allowing a few possibly-negative comments and actions to cloud my entire judgement of the man and forgetting all the positives: he bought me a drink, we've spoken in a friendly down-to-earth way in the past, he's been complimentary to me before, there are MUCH WORSE people in the world!

Depression Explained

1. You are depressed.
2. You are depressed because of thoughts going through your mind.
3. The thoughts going through your mind paint a gloomy picture of yourself and the world.
4. But these thoughts are unrealistic and unhelpful.
5. By seeing things in a more realistic and helpful way, you will feel less depressed.

Example: Tommy was lying on his bed staring out of his window. He was depressed. In his mind he was thinking about all the "bad" things in life - failed relationships, nasty people, being unemployed, feeling out of place - as well as all the "bad" things about himself - his physical shape, his inability to find a girlfriend or a job. Life in Tommy's mind was overwhelmingly unpleasant.

However, in reality Tommy was lying on a comfortable double bed in a comfortable flat with all mod-cons. Outside his window the sun shone warmly, lighting up a beautiful blue sky and bouncing vibrant lush colour off the swaying trees below. People passed below in the street, many of them perfectly pleasant and making the best of life according to what they knew. Further, in reality Tommy was a young able-bodied man, intelligent, talented in many ways, attractive, much loved, with a small but quality social and family circle.

Life was not really so gloomy. In fact, if Tommy concentrated exclusively on the positive pleasant aspects of life and himself and interpreted the supposedly "bad" aspects in a more balanced rational light, his outlook would turn 180 degrees from gloomy to positively cheery. It would be as if suddenly the light of the sun flooded in saturating everything while the gloom that covered everything up was suddenly lifted.

Bloviation

Another word I quite like.

To discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner.

Sociopath

I quite like this word and can see myself using it a lot henceforth. According to Wikipedia it is synonymous with psychopath, but has superseded it. Dictionary.com defines it as:

A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse.

The American Merriam-Webster thing defines a sociopath as:

Someone whose social behaviour is extremely abnormal. Sociopaths are interested only in their personal needs and desires, without concern for the effects of their behaviour on others.

Misanthropy

Here's a word I just learned but should have known long ago. Well, I have heard it before, I think, but I just forgot about it. Silly really seeing how it should be one that falls from my lips every time I try and explain myself. What is it? Dictionary.com defines it as a 'hatred, dislike, or distrust of humankind.' I am therefore a misanthrope or misanthropist.

Incidentally another word I learned recently was autodidact, which is 'a person who has learned a subject without the benefit of a teacher or formal education; a self-taught person.' I suppose then that I can be said to be something of one of these. Or perhaps one with autodidactic tendencies.

Time Is Frightening

It just keeps on moving. What you are doing at this very moment will immediately pass into nothingness, it will be a memory only. What you did last week will become something you did a month ago, a year ago, ten years ago. The memory fades and fades. It may even pass out of mind completely before long.

I'm always thinking back to my school days - remembering those feelings I had then, the familiar smells, faces, awkward situations, the abundance of hope that I had inside me. I left in 1996 and that thought drives me crazy - I get these existential pangs of despair whenever I think about it.

I remember when I left in 1996. For the following days I was virtually pacing my room like a caged animal feeling overwhelmed that it was all over and that I would never see the inside of that building and most of those people ever again. a year later I'd think the same thought, again throughout 2000, 2004, and now 2008 - twelve year later.

It almost defies belief that it's twelve years since I left. It no longer feels like yesterday, but it certainly feels close enough for me to reach out and touch - I remember those people, the fashions, the fears, everything so well. I could almost be walking through the courtyard now seeing Danny, Phil and everyone else sitting on that bench.

What's more frightening is that I remember sitting in my bedroom in 2004 thinking these very same thoughts, 'wow I can't believe it's eight years... crazy'. Well that was four years ago and now it's twelve years since I left! My God, time just keeps on moving. Days just keep piling up. It's truly frightening.

I think I need to reread the Power of Now. This is driving me crazy.

This Be The Verse

I remember this poem by Larkin from 1999 and I've never forgotten those first few lines, strangely - they must have struck a chord. At the time I was a naive first year undergraduate and our rather stiff professor suddenly decided to recite it, much to the class's surprise. He seemed to relish in the surprise a little though, thinking himself a bit "hip" or something. As a result the display seemed a little cheap to me.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

So true! And now a bit about Larkin:

Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL, (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist and jazz critic. He spent his working life as a university librarian and was offered the Poet Laureateship following the death of John Betjeman, but declined the post. Larkin is commonly regarded as one of the greatest English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century. In 2003 Larkin was chosen as the "nation's best-loved poet" in a survey by the Poetry Book Society.