Guest post: How to bonsai a personality
Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on Lipstick=target of death threats.
I despise these platitudes.
“I can predict the future, and you’re going to be okay.”
Unless you’re not, in which case you’ll be dead and unable to point out how full of crap I was.
“Maybe all you need to know is you are great, just as you are now!”
Maybe all you need to know is that you are not great, just as you are now. Maybe, you kind of suck and need to take some time to make the effort to not suck. Maybe you need to consider that there is a whole world out there full of things you don’t know or understand, and rather than jacking off to your own reflection, you should go out there and have some life changing experiences.
This whole idea of “You are great, just as you are now” is if anything incredibly toxic, because most of us fall into that second camp of people who are not particularly great, we’ve got to put some work in, and honestly? Even the people who are great? They don’t stay that way by resting on their laurels.
Besides, being great as you are now would be profoundly depressing. It is like saying it all gets worse from here on out.
“The way you express yourself: it’s up to you. It’s not up to anybody else.”
No. Everybody else does in fact get a say in how you express yourself, because if you say “Fsaad wekhrfshf kashdkdash weabsz” not a lot of people are going to understand you.
“But their years of being a vocal advocate for self-love…”
Self love, is, to put it bluntly, narcissism. This is an issue that goes beyond the trans movement – it is how you end up with people like Donald Trump. Some self criticism is healthy, heck having some shame isn’t a bad thing. Sure, have some self-respect, don’t be a doormat, but keep in mind that those negative feelings? They’re as important as the positive ones.
This whole article sounds like how to bonsai a personality – a poisoned sweetness that presents itself as support but really just stunts the audience’s growth.
That’s a pretty sweet bit of phrasing. Bonsai a personality. I approve.
Sadly, there appears to be no way to have a functioning society where everyone is free to be exactly who they want to be at any given moment.
Right? It captures so much so neatly.
My local coffee shop, which I loved otherwise, is addicted to these kinds of treacly platitudes. The owners are members of a trendy,a bit culty, big box church called My Fathers House. Ick.
“Maybe all you need to know is that you are not great, just as you are now. Maybe, you kind of suck and need to take some time to make the effort to not suck. Maybe you need to consider that there is a whole world out there full of things you don’t know or understand, and rather than jacking off to your own reflection, you should go out there and have some life changing experiences.”
I think there’s two broad ways to think about self improvement. I don’t want to say it’s about strengths and weaknesses, but it is about traits or temperament. A naturally cautious person might benefit from learning how to take more risks, and a natural risk taker can benefit from learning to look before they leap. In both cases the dominant trait isn’t really a flaw unless you never learn to grow beyond it, in which case both the cautious person and the risk taker may end up worse off. That’s the first view of self improvement, it’s about becoming a balanced and well rounded person who can handle whatever life throws at them, within reason.
The second view seems to be more dominant these days, to the point where its arguably become quite toxic. It’s the idea that you are fine as you are, and that you shouldn’t really try to be something else, essentially you should play to your “strengths” and not worry too much about you “weaknesses” because we’re all different and that’s what makes us special. Which sounds nice when you hear it but is pretty much at odds with the first concept of self improvement that I talked about.
I was talking with some people about this sort of stuff recently in relation to TV and Movie characters and we sort of came to the conclusion that it’s probably easier to write a character that people will like if they follow the first type of personal development but that a character who follows the second model runs more of a risk of being disliked because all the story can teach them is that they’ve been on the right track all along, they just needed to keep ignoring the naysayers who tried to get them to change.
The second view zoomed into first place with the “self-esteem” frenzy and has been plaguing the world ever since. I really loathe it.
This only works for trans “identities” if you smuggle in a gendered “soul” via Cartesian (Butlerian?) dualism to explain the conflict between the glorious, true, inner self and the mistaken, useless husk of the physical body. This incidental body is to be shaped and carved to conform to the Inner Truth of the Sacred Gender Feels, like bonsaing a Maple to make it match the deeper reality of its inner Pine.