I appreciate that I do rub some people up the wrong way, sometimes by my insistence on merely existing and sometimes because I do tend to tweak the tiger’s tail. But then there are those who seem to be intent on persuading themselves to dislike me, regardless of anything I say and do.
If I express remorse, these people say I'm playing to the gallery. If I write a piece that doesn't begin with a trail of tears, them I'm a heartless bastard. If I mention victims, I'm callous. If I don't, I'm self pitying. If I started walking on water and healing lepers, these are the ones who would complain I was disturbing the fish and practising medicine without a license.
There is, then, a constituency which can't be pleased. And so I'm not going to bother to try. They do interest me, though, from a psychological perspective. Their need to keep me as the Other, to twist and turn in their own minds until they can produce a representation of me that suits them, is really quite fascinating.
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Ben, had you not done what you did there'd still be two schools of thought about you -- because you're strong-spirited and feisty. Hostility is flattery and affirmation. You're cool.
ReplyDeleteIf you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no-one, so your on a hiding to nothing. Just say whatever you want, you can't help the person you are. One exception, Probation, just tell them what they want to hear, just to get out.
ReplyDeleteMy friend Janet and I think you must be a very tolerant man, because we would find such people who twist and turn things in their minds to suit their own prejudices a flippin nuisance.
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