So, I'm back from my whirlwind tour of parts of the world better left undiscussed. Seriously though, I don't want to talk about it all that much. Which is why I have decided to comment on the first thing I noticed on coming back: complexity has replaced integrity in the minds of those who fancy themselves polite and educated.
"Morgan, that's particularly obscure, even for you". Yes, 'tis true that it is a somewhat arcane formulation to describe how a large number of people have irritated me since my return, but it is in fact accurate. Permit me to elucidate (I'm having fun with words today). When I returned home, I was the subject of some embarrassingly public media coverage in Toronto. Unsurprisingly, everyone I know in Toronto felt the need to comment on it, which is fine. Some, however, went so far as to ask when I would visit next. We should have coffee, we should reconnect, etc. Fortunately for my own sanity, I was somewhat skeptical, having been burned by such offers previously. However, I firmly reminded myself that I should be less cynical and that avoiding social activity was the first step on the road to PTSD. Off I went, to visit cousins (we had an amazing time at the ROM, you should go sometime). I decided to extend my trip, at my own expense, for several days so as to accommodate the approximately 10 people who had said they wanted to see me. On my arrival, I sent a text and facebook message saying that I was at their leisure. I understood full well that they have their own lives, but the resounding silence I received all week left me confused.
Hung over, on the plane back to QC, I realized what had happened. My reputation (which some degenerates in Toronto used to take women home, by claiming to have been in my Troop when I wasnt paying attention) was of value to these people. My physical presence was not. What I, in my naïveté, hadn't understood was that these people were extending an offer they didn't expect me to actually accept. QC being inconveniently distant from their lives, they simply assumed that as they wouldn't visit me, neither would I visit them. They assumed that we were speaking the same language- "Come visit us" was "we're glad you're back, because it's interesting conversation to tell our friends we know you". When I said "sure, I'll be by sometime soon" they were hearing "I appreciate your offer in the spirit it was given.
All this to say, out of a desire to be "polite", no one could find in themselves to use simple, unladen phrases like "We're glad you're back. Saw you in the paper, that was pretty cool". Everyone wanted to "be a part" of my life with out having to do any work. At first, I was upset. After all, I had put the effort in, right? Upon reflection, I realized that a large part of the eccentricity I display that so frightens people is that I am unusually active. To use phrases my contemporaries might better understand, I display an unusual degree of agency in my own activities: that is to say I am the driving force behind most of what I do.
One of the first lessons we learn in my profession is that people fall into broad categories. There are those who do, those who have things done to them, and those who have no idea things are even being done. Unfortunately, our welfare state encourages people to fall into the second category. After all, why should you slog through the morass of shifting regulations and permissions when you can simply sit back and roll with the tide? The ever-expanding complexity of basic activities is resulting in widespread apathy. People learn to specialize in one form of complexity so as to sustain themselves (get a job) and then ignore the rest.
Which brings us back to my original point: complexity, being seen as a mark of specialization or authority, is being unnecessarily applied to human interaction. To say what you mean, or mean what you say, is seen as boorishly simple. People incredulously look on when I actually exert the effort and expense to do something they assumed I wouldn't. To avoid awkwardness, they don't respond. I can't really blame them; it's what they've learned.
"Morgan, that's particularly obscure, even for you". Yes, 'tis true that it is a somewhat arcane formulation to describe how a large number of people have irritated me since my return, but it is in fact accurate. Permit me to elucidate (I'm having fun with words today). When I returned home, I was the subject of some embarrassingly public media coverage in Toronto. Unsurprisingly, everyone I know in Toronto felt the need to comment on it, which is fine. Some, however, went so far as to ask when I would visit next. We should have coffee, we should reconnect, etc. Fortunately for my own sanity, I was somewhat skeptical, having been burned by such offers previously. However, I firmly reminded myself that I should be less cynical and that avoiding social activity was the first step on the road to PTSD. Off I went, to visit cousins (we had an amazing time at the ROM, you should go sometime). I decided to extend my trip, at my own expense, for several days so as to accommodate the approximately 10 people who had said they wanted to see me. On my arrival, I sent a text and facebook message saying that I was at their leisure. I understood full well that they have their own lives, but the resounding silence I received all week left me confused.
Hung over, on the plane back to QC, I realized what had happened. My reputation (which some degenerates in Toronto used to take women home, by claiming to have been in my Troop when I wasnt paying attention) was of value to these people. My physical presence was not. What I, in my naïveté, hadn't understood was that these people were extending an offer they didn't expect me to actually accept. QC being inconveniently distant from their lives, they simply assumed that as they wouldn't visit me, neither would I visit them. They assumed that we were speaking the same language- "Come visit us" was "we're glad you're back, because it's interesting conversation to tell our friends we know you". When I said "sure, I'll be by sometime soon" they were hearing "I appreciate your offer in the spirit it was given.
All this to say, out of a desire to be "polite", no one could find in themselves to use simple, unladen phrases like "We're glad you're back. Saw you in the paper, that was pretty cool". Everyone wanted to "be a part" of my life with out having to do any work. At first, I was upset. After all, I had put the effort in, right? Upon reflection, I realized that a large part of the eccentricity I display that so frightens people is that I am unusually active. To use phrases my contemporaries might better understand, I display an unusual degree of agency in my own activities: that is to say I am the driving force behind most of what I do.
One of the first lessons we learn in my profession is that people fall into broad categories. There are those who do, those who have things done to them, and those who have no idea things are even being done. Unfortunately, our welfare state encourages people to fall into the second category. After all, why should you slog through the morass of shifting regulations and permissions when you can simply sit back and roll with the tide? The ever-expanding complexity of basic activities is resulting in widespread apathy. People learn to specialize in one form of complexity so as to sustain themselves (get a job) and then ignore the rest.
Which brings us back to my original point: complexity, being seen as a mark of specialization or authority, is being unnecessarily applied to human interaction. To say what you mean, or mean what you say, is seen as boorishly simple. People incredulously look on when I actually exert the effort and expense to do something they assumed I wouldn't. To avoid awkwardness, they don't respond. I can't really blame them; it's what they've learned.
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