Potty

The roads were the quietest I've ever seen them last night, I give thanks folks were staying at home. My mind wasn't quiet which is how I knew but I gave thanks for a nice slice of buttered toast as I gazed out of at the emptiness. Some of the people I'm having to interact with are really causing me some stress at the moment and I give thanks for understanding I have to try to understand what's going on to have any chance of surviving long enough to get away from them. This is what I came up with...

1) Humans commonly assume if they have some specific knowledge or skill set that those who don't are intellectually inferior. This is why we think people who don't use the spelling or grammar we grew up with are stupid...and talk loudly and slowly (in English) to non-English speakers.

2) In certain settings, eg clinical, treating all service users as if they were slow on the uptake (and possibly deaf) can increase the chances of positive outcomes if they are. This also ties in with a neurological quirk that makes us think we are 'better' than those who are poorer, sicker, more disabled etc. The brain figures if we were equal everyone would be at risk of being in the same situation, which no one wants to believe!

3) There will always be a sub-section of the population who conflate responsibility with innate superiority and infallibility eg Divine Right of Kings, police officers going overboard with coronavirus rules)

4) There will also always be folk who, perhaps due to some lack in their own sense of self worth, have a need to belittle, patronise, put down, 'correct' etc...especially if they fear the other party might be capable of doing the same to them...and 5) sometimes all of the above happens at once!

OK... So that was 'them' comprehended successfully, but I have as yet failed to come up with a reason why it bugs me so much to be talked down to and/or not listened to... apart from the fact it wounds my pride. However there is the fact that we are all under a lot of stress at the moment and all our buttons are pressed more easily. Also the tricky specifics that mean my life is in these people's hands - sometimes literally - so there's an inbuilt imbalance of power which makes me feel more vulnerable and impotent. I'll just have to ramp up the compassion - to all parties concerned!

I give thanks for a lot of Netflix last night! For The Innocent Man reminding me it could be much harder - I don't have to see these people every or even all day, and mostly my incarceration is in a rather pleasant cell. And I Am Not OK With This pointing out there are worse things than controlling your frustration!

I give thanks for pottering around gently today. For coaxing some teal chalk paint out of an almost dried up tub to work on my bedside table frames. For repotting some rather grateful plants. For cleaning one window and for looking out of another to see a man run for and catch a bus. The driver must have been astonished - it's only the second time I've seen a passenger over the last couple of weeks. For a lot of lolling about...