Which Wolf Wins? Always, the One You Feed

Yeah, we all sometimes feel the need to push back when someone gets us all riled up. But have you ever noticed that some people actually seem to want, or simply NEED to blow their stack from time to time? In fact, many pent up, deeply frustrated people tend to save up all their stress and anxieties, until they find someone or something they think they can safely and justifiably dump their inner fury onto. Which isn't really healthy when you really think about it. For ourselves or the people around us.

Yes, people shouldn't push us to our limits, but we all have a responsibility to let the people around us know when enough is enough. It's just a matter of knowing how to establish boundaries for oneself, and learning how to keep the all too predatory wolf in others at bay. And let's face it, mankind is still a more and/or less predatory animal in most respects.

All of this becomes even more apparent when living long term in any one of several Northeast Asian countries (as I most definitely have), where people are expected to keep their emotions in check (or simply under cover) all the time. So it's not that people in the Far East are all somehow genetically endowed with the godlike power to be the walking, talking epitome of wise old Mr. Miyagi (from The Karate Kid). 'Cause wouldn't the very notion technically be "racist?" So it's rather that the strictures of Asian CULTure simply will not allow the vast majority of people within their highly structured societies to express even the simplest, and often most beneficial of human emotions.

Seriously! Living with and among people who fancy themselves "stoic" in more (and often considerably less) modern Asia is actually a lot like living on the planet Vulcan, of Star Trek fame. You know, like how, Mr. Spock famously never loses his highfalutin cool and venerable Vulcan logic. Except when he actually finally does, that is. And when he does lose it, he tends to lose it in a very big way. And believe it or not, so do people from typically pent up societies right here on Earth, in places where just about any healthy, straightforward and HONEST public display of emotion is frowned upon.

Well, you see, kids, this all started a long, long time ago, during a Chinese Dynasty (the Zhou, to be exact) far, far away, where there lived this dude named 孔夫子 (otherwise known as Confucius). And boy, was "Master Kong" awfully, awfully concerned about people being able to control (or simply appear to control) their social interactions with one another.

In fact, old Confucius was apparently so interested in controlling people, that his teachings are nowadays still very much the basic blueprint for what is and isn't acceptable social behavior in places like China, Taiwan (the Republic of China), Korea, and Japan. Heck! Even some highly Americanized Filipinos I've known over the years often seemed to have major problems with the display of any public emotion that isn't "happy." Or faux happy at the very least.

"No, you are happy!" a presumably well meaning (but overbearingly so) elder Filipino co-worker once kept repeating to me, over and over, and OVER AGAIN, when I was having a particularly tough and gloomy day. Now mind you, I wasn't killing anybody that particular day. I wasn't burning down buildings and skewering innocent babies, or anything clearly hideous like that either.

NO! I just didn't look FAKE HAPPY while minding my own damn business, doing my job to the usual best of my humble ability. And in my own country (where many people simply don't feel obliged to be phony), no less. I just simply wasn't all that happy that day. But I don't even really remember why now, so it couldn't have been that bad, now could it? But I sure do remember how overbearing this old guy got with me about MY bad day!

'Cause believe me, being forced to look "happy" (by a guy who wasn't even my boss) can be awfully overbearing when it just doesn't seem like a truly genuine thing to do. And even if this old dude was honestly trying to cheer me up, where did HE get off telling ME how I should FEEL? Was the bossy old fart in MY shoes? No. I think NOT.

But I try to like everybody everywhere as often as I can, of course, so let's not target, or get too fussy about any one group of people, shall we? Live and let live, I always say! Well, not always, but I'm sure there's somebody or other who honestly thinks they always, always, always believe all that fancy stuff. You know, like... oh... politicians, and all the people with those lengthy lists of "friends" on social media sites like Facebook. Those people. The perfect ones. The ones who never make mistakes. They never get angry. Well, sometimes, they certainly do have to throw their thunderbolts down from mighty Mount Olympus, do they not?

Unless... they never experience cyberbullying, or have to deal with angry little Internet trolls. Actually, they do have to deal with people like that (on and off the Internet), of course. We all do, in the Real World. But let's get back to the real point, shall we? Which is: A certain percentage of people from every walk of life, in every country, of every so-called "race," color, creed, you name it, are simply TWO FACED. There are of course various reasons for this, but it's still a fact, nonetheless. Yeah.  Sucks, too.  But that's the way a whole lot of our fellow human beans are, you know. Heck, I've even had a few Japanese friends who jokingly told me, "Some of us are even three faced!" Well... at least I hope they were joking....

But then, the art of cultivating effective social interactions and good, healthy methods of self expression isn't something that is necessarily taught anywhere, is it? So being sociable anywhere in the world can be pretty tough (no matter what Confucius supposedly said). Especially on the Internet, where we often can't even really see or know exactly who it is that we're actually interacting with. Which can actually be kind of scary, if you really stop and think about it.

But some people really do seem to need to "bait and switch." They love to play the victim, who can suddenly become the righteously indignant reverse-aggressor (consciously or not). In fact, this can be highly rewarding for many people who don't really know either how to express themselves in an honest, open, and healthy way, or they simply would rather not have to. But here's the thing; being aware of one's own personal limits and effectively communicating what is and isn't acceptable for everyone involved is everyone's responsibility. No exceptions!

True, it usually takes time to sort these things out with people we come in contact with throughout the course of our lives. The worst part is that many people simply don't show others their true selves. So if someone you know seems to be too good (or too bad) to be true, they probably really are. Many of these people tend to ooze a kind of "social honey," hoping to catch as many unsuspecting flies as possible, only to show you a dramatically less appealing, and much less outwardly amiable personality than what you originally thought you were getting -- especially when the chips are down, or when they think nobody is looking.

One way or another, learning to set your own boundaries, and becoming sensitive enough to be aware of the limitations of others is often a gradual and sometimes quite hard won process. Worst of all, there really aren't any instruction booklets (though I suppose one can spend a fortune on "self help" books), so learning to recognize which kind of individuals are more apt to push your buttons, and thereby push you to your limits, is often a lifelong process.

In the final analysis, remember that you and you alone are responsible for your own actions. After a major blow up, you can always say that the devil made you do it, but unless you are full of the same kind of conceit and self denial that helps most truly deceptive people to remain hidden behind various social behaviors that mask their true nature, you will already be able to readily recognize that you're not perfect either. None of us are.

In other words, there's a bit of the Devil in all of us! And it's usually buried right down there alongside the GOoD, where it fights for eventual, ultimate supremacy. So some of us are just more open and honest about who we really are than others. And if you cannot admit that to yourself and to the people closest to you, then you may actually be the one who has the most to learn (about yourself and others). But then, knowing how much or how little of the "bad" or the "good guy" that lies deep down in all of us, just waiting to rise up from the depths of Self Righteous Heaven or Hell, is the real trick, isn't it?

20090106 - Me, Angry?