Another friend once shared with me one of the
aphorisms of 12-step recovery programs: “What other people think of you
is none of your business.” Like a lot of wisdom, this sounds at first
suspiciously similar to idiotic nonsense; obviously what other people
think of you is your business, it’s your main job in life to try to
control it, to do tireless P.R. and spin control for yourself. Every
woman who ever went out with you must pine for you forever. Those who
rejected you must regret it. You must be loved, respected — above all,
taken seriously! They who mocked you will rue the day! The problem is
that this is insane — the psychology of dictators who regard all dissent
as treason, and periodically order purges to ensure unquestioning
loyalty. It’s no way to run a country.
aphorisms of 12-step recovery programs: “What other people think of you
is none of your business.” Like a lot of wisdom, this sounds at first
suspiciously similar to idiotic nonsense; obviously what other people
think of you is your business, it’s your main job in life to try to
control it, to do tireless P.R. and spin control for yourself. Every
woman who ever went out with you must pine for you forever. Those who
rejected you must regret it. You must be loved, respected — above all,
taken seriously! They who mocked you will rue the day! The problem is
that this is insane — the psychology of dictators who regard all dissent
as treason, and periodically order purges to ensure unquestioning
loyalty. It’s no way to run a country.
THE operative fallacy here is that we believe
that unconditional love means not seeing anything negative about
someone, when it really means pretty much the opposite: loving someone
despite their infuriating flaws and essential absurdity. “Do I want to
be loved in spite of?” Donald Barthelme writes in his story
“Rebecca” about a woman with green skin. “Do you? Does anyone? But
aren’t we all, to some degree?”
that unconditional love means not seeing anything negative about
someone, when it really means pretty much the opposite: loving someone
despite their infuriating flaws and essential absurdity. “Do I want to
be loved in spite of?” Donald Barthelme writes in his story
“Rebecca” about a woman with green skin. “Do you? Does anyone? But
aren’t we all, to some degree?”
We don’t give other people credit for the
same interior complexity we take for granted in ourselves, the same
capacity for holding contradictory feelings in balance, for complexly
alloyed affections, for bottomless generosity of heart and petty,
capricious malice. We can’t believe that anyone could be unkind to us
and still be genuinely fond of us, although we do it all the time.
same interior complexity we take for granted in ourselves, the same
capacity for holding contradictory feelings in balance, for complexly
alloyed affections, for bottomless generosity of heart and petty,
capricious malice. We can’t believe that anyone could be unkind to us
and still be genuinely fond of us, although we do it all the time.