Contempt from the Ringside Seat

The Ringside Seat

Imagine having a ringside seat at a boxing match, not because you paid good money for it, but because you share such a close relationship with the boxer that no other person would be allowed to take that seat, even when you were not present to sit in it.

The person you are supporting is the challenger for a title, and through the rounds they are pummelled and battered. Every round portends a possible knockout, yet the challenger endures. They keep going, taking the blows but never being beaten, and the points tallied at the end of each round add up to hand the challenger the victory and the belt.

Then, in your telling of that encounter, you speak of bloodshot eyes, of mouth guards being knocked out, and of the uselessness of the challenger, insisting that you could put up a better fight and walk away unscathed. That becomes the report you file, neglecting the simple fact that your person was the victor.

Telling My Story

In the story of my life, about which I have written quite extensively, there are many strands of adversity and failure; but the successes and triumphs bookmark the telling of this story, so that it would seem strange to major in the misfortunes.

One narrative could have been given in this light. Akin has had such a blessed life. I have watched situations of failure, joblessness, two debilitating bouts of cancer, and challenges that seemed insurmountable.

And yet you would not look at him and think he had been touched by anything but the good fortune of scaling through life on sheer luck and almost undeserved providence. What an inspiring story he has, should he ever wish to talk about it.

Rather, of all that could have been said, what got relayed back to me was a mis-telling of my story: a conflation of events, suffused with half-truths, then given the veneer of a wastrel and ne'er-do-well, constantly down on his luck because of his irresponsibility.

There is a useful distinction to be drawn here between interpretation and misrepresentation. Two honest witnesses may weight the same night differently, one dwelling on the punishment absorbed, another on the resilience shown; but neither is entitled to erase the result. Perspective explains emphasis; it does not license fabrication.

There is every possibility, like the person invited to the ringside seat, to tell a different tale with the outlook of a curmudgeon incapable of seeing the good in anything. We own the filters of our perspectives on things.

The Four Pillars

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

The architecture of trust, whereby your ringside supporter reports your story in the best light possible, the truth and not embellishment, the honest and frank assessment of what was observed, rests on four pillars: care, concern, consideration, and confidence. One could define those four Cs in the terms that follow:

Care: the baseline emotional investment a person has in your wellbeing.

Concern: the active protective instinct they feel regarding your vulnerability.

Consideration: the cognitive foresight to understand how their future actions might actually affect you.

Confidence: the secure container that the first three pillars create.

Blog: Thought Picnic: Confidences, Not Secrets

The Honest Retelling

An honest retelling, then, is one the subject can recognise, even when it is unflattering. You may wince at a true account, but you will not fail to find yourself in it. When the portrait no longer resembles the sitter, the fault lies with the painter.

Honesty also requires proportion. To recount the joblessness, the two debilitating bouts of cancer, and the seemingly insurmountable challenges, and yet omit that I am still here, still working, still writing, still standing, is not honesty; it is selective editing masquerading as candour.

When to Speak

With that in mind, it is difficult to understand how reality and retelling could diverge so far, so hurtfully, and so much to another's discredit, for reasons best known to the teller. When a portrait is this false, one feels there is little option but to confront it and to challenge the narrative set loose about you.

Invariably, if you have nothing good to say about someone, you are not obliged to say anything at all out of a need for conversation, small talk, spite, malice, or anything else. Your silence does not have to be bought; it is a quality of self-control to bridle your tongue.

Brian’s Point of View: Words Can Break Something We Thought Was Safe

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Thought Picnic: Confidences, Not Secrets

Confidences, Not Secrets

In the broad scheme of things, we have no secrets; what we have are confidences that too often get betrayed in unguarded yet frank moments to others. 

Much as I hear and listen to a great deal, I am guarded about how I use what I have learnt. I could form opinions about people, but I am very flexible and, hopefully, tenderhearted, making allowances until indifference or unkindness breaks the bond.

Indifference is, for me, the most wicked form of expression in any communication, because it means there is no care, concern, consideration, or confidence. Whatever confidences you might have thought you had in that setting are then ready for the careless abandon of reason and a carefree dissemination to anyone.

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

Words have an effect, a great effect, when what should have been kept in mind finds an outlet to others. I am also a believer in the biblical saying, “From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.” Even discretion and moderation can scarcely stand in for self-control once you have resolved all inner contention and convincingly arrived at the conclusion you have uttered.

Being Spoken About

From people I trust, I have heard the most hurtful things, sometimes directly, though usually relayed to me through other channels. I bat them away most of the time; yet, in other situations, the covenant is broken beyond redemption, and the relationship sours or is terminated for my own peace of mind.

What we cannot avoid is that we will always be spoken about by someone else: in praise, in jest, in commendation, in spite, in jealousy, in rancour, or much worse. That is a given.

I have the outlet of my blog to reflect on these many things, and perhaps to limit the impact of malevolence whilst maximising that of benevolence.

Words That Wound

Perhaps decades ago, it was a guardian relating to someone else that I had been picked up off the street. I am grateful that my story, which has had many failures, has been greeted with amazing successes.

Another, whilst I was in the throes of personal angst and the loss of confidence to project myself, grew fed up with the process I took towards rebuilding character and purpose. Out of nowhere came words to the effect that my inability to produce results was inimical to their social standing; I was the illuminant of a bastard.

To them, that was a kind of radical intervention to jar my senses, but it did the opposite. It fell into that rubric of dripping criticism, the kind that strips you of your dignity to force a reaction and their view of the right result. It is about them, rather than you.

Shedding Old Skin

For me, there was no second instinct; I ceased initiating communication from that point. It is the kind of talk the speaker believes is necessary, but which the listener, with an appreciation of nuance and the use of language, would find, basically, unforgivable.

Yet these examples might tempt a recipient to deem such incidents forgettable, until you are broadsided by the notion that you are living a fake life. I do wish a whole lot of things were fake: the losses, the cancers, some experiences, a few tragedies. But what kind of a life would that be?

Perhaps, for once, I am not remotely my own harshest critic when I allow myself the pleasure of living, of loving, of existing, and of doing my own thing, unbothered by what others think, because that is their problem and not mine. Yes, the words do hurt, but they must not dampen the spirit of the joy of living. Like moulting, or the shedding of skin, some old bonds need breaking for the renewal of self.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Thought Picnic: Choose your travel companions carefully

Sharing with the caring

Choose your travel companions carefully, they are usually rarely blood-related but the bonding that grows between you gives a daring sense of adventure that you won’t wish for another to share the experience.

The journeys you venture on in life come with perils and triumphs, you must think about who would support and succour you first in the wilderness and long before you get to the city comforts that mask the true nature of your company.

Know the wolf cries

Fairweather friends are many, feigning interest, love, and engagement, sometimes our discernment and the ability to be a judge of character deserts us and in the process, we face unexpected betrayal and hurt. To know the signs early is to be blessed beyond measure.

When you are following someone, do not follow them too close so that you cannot cut yourself loose when they are determined to end up in a ditch. You do not have to be collateral out of blind loyalty. Fall because of your misstep rather than out of using another’s eyes.

Know the person indeed

If your friends are your relations, you are probably lucky, in every case. judge a person on their own character and integrity and avoid allowing the corporate trust in an environment of allegiances like a place of worship, business, or a club to vouch for your association. Many have had their fingers burnt in being taken advantage of by malevolent people covered by community settings.

Be wary of sycophancy or bias, take the compliments and test the sincerity of anything that attempts to puff you up, between friends, honesty, frankness, openness, and bluntness does crucially matter. You need to know who would pull you out of the fire. They will always stand with you yet will not let you get away with bad behaviour. We all need accountability partners, cherish them with love, honour and respect.

Choose your travel companions wisely, that can be the difference between getting to your destination or perishing along the way.

Thought Picnic: The earnest of a let-down

Churning thoughts

It is sometimes difficult to be left to one’s thoughts as event and episode provide material to ruminate over and over again of absence and occupation.

For life does go on for those who have much doing whilst those seeking something to do are left idling about course, cause, purpose, perspective and direction.

Yet, the days coming present opportunities to show oneself again as able and capable, even so there are some ready to prepare you for an unsure future which might well be bright and rosy.

Smothered from bother

Snapping back to the thoughts you wonder again, the sympathy moves nothing forward but the fact that things are known whilst the promises made remain unfulfilled that one must stretch to do what one is barely equipped to do.

Burdened by emotions beyond oneself of urgency and tendency, the day lays waste before the dusk is done.

One must however abandon the thoughts before regret and betrayal become the seeds of self-pity and dark clouds billow of despair and discouragement bearing acid rain because of being alone in the loneliness of a stupefying lonesomeness. They must not bother for the bothersome is nowhere but here.

Thought Picnic: Et tu, Brute?

A history of betrayals

“Nothing is more damaging than to feel a sense of betrayal from those you have dared to call friends.” That is what he said to me. I could see the hurt and it was likely that the box of tissues will come in handy.

When you look at it, it is a sentence that that has been uttered through the ages by many demonstrated by a Judas Iscariot kiss, a Brutus stab, an unkind quip or an indifference to another man’s plight.

Almost like me

My friend had quite similar circumstances, throughout his working life; he had deigned to make friends and establishing relationships with the people he worked with. I have known him to care, to get involved, to appreciate and to engage.

Obviously, he was also a tough cookie, God knows there are times when certain colleagues have cursed under their breath but he has always meant well, for the good and the better all to deliver the best for whatever organisation he has worked for, testament to that is number of times he has been reunited to colleagues in other companies and projects because they felt he had something to give.

Even I have wondered how his life could almost parallel mine, it is uncanny if not scary as he fell upon some misfortune that kept him out of his line of work and expertise for a while and now he is actively ready to reengage and do what he knows best to do, he could in the same chorus as I say – deliver solutions.

Learning the hard way

His professional network have always been informed of his situation so one would hope that whenever any good opportunity comes up his name like times before will automatically come into focus.

Social media can be nice and it can also deliver very cruel news, he must have been out of sight and out of the mind of one such group of friends when he discovered that a job that would have so suited him if they had asked him went to a complete stranger.

One’s inclination will be to mount a railing accusation but to what end? Like that story of old, for the good of Rome, one would suppose the last words of Julius Caesar as the first stab went in from his good friend Marcus Brutus was “Et tu, Brute?”

Only this time, Caesar will live; nursing his wounds and life will go on. We all still need friends – ones to betray us and others to help us. Such is life.