Fortune-Telling by Comments, or a New Intellectual Entertainment
Translated from Russian Read the original →
There is a popular folk attraction – sitting about chatting on the networks. People love to show themselves off by supposedly coming to look at others.
On social networks a person gets the impression of having been out visiting. And many find it especially pleasant that there is no bill to pay, no dishes to wash, and you have dodged the “and a punch in the face…” too, yet an exchange – of attention and emotional stroking – has taken place.
I propose a fresh angle for thinking people – to use comments for your own entertainment, self-development and subsequent benefit (to humanity, of course))
Even sorted rubbish turns into a resource, so what can one say of people. They suddenly become useful, and, I’m not afraid to say it, ALL of them.
“What, you don’t like people? You simply don’t know how to make fun of them,” says modern folk wisdom.
So, having collected some “fleas” on the net, I want to share how they can be used. The word “fleas” is a collective image for people who haven’t been personally invited, but are allowed to turn up on your territory (well, let them jump about), where they can run riot (they are given this right by birth) and start biting.
I use the net as a living platform for exchanging experience, where I share my experiments on myself and my life, and discoveries gathered in the psychological laboratories of human development.
And so I am interested in Life in all its fullness, and for full contact with the whole world I prefer not to close off comments, not to “ban” people – it’s so fascinating – everyone brings along their whole world, and anyone who can’t stand my close attention to their person does “seppuku”* to themselves by leaving the correspondence of their own accord.
* seppuku – a synonym for hara-kiri, meaning ritual suicide carried out according to all the rules.
A real psychologist, I admit this and will reveal a professional secret (my colleagues forgive me), does not listen to people – he looks at them. He looks at what they actually do when they think they are being listened to, and at what they show themselves when they choose words to describe something. For the purity of the experiment, a more informative occasion is one where the person is describing and commenting on not themselves, but something else. This reveals their way of life, and in general “gives them away” completely. If we begin to look at the process and not at the words, every speaker appears to us naked. In this process, for our living mind, as for the body, the pleasant naturalness and authenticity of the person appears, which of course is incomparably tastier than the “silicone surrogates” of formally polite, superficial communication – “billiard-ball style”, as Eric Berne called it in his book “Games People Play and the People Who Play the Games”
For when the truth appears before us in all its beauty, it is, whatever the layout, an aesthetic spectacle. A person wants to know the inside story. And here, “no need to visit a fortune-teller”, a many-layered reality opens up in all its glory, with all the adult complexes and emotional traumas of childhood. Some commenters you can even “see” – with what and how they were “beaten and hurt” in childhood and what their hypertonus was at birth. If people begin to look so attentively – “between the lines” – at the life around them, films and TV series will vanish as unnecessary. Whoever lives a real life doesn’t watch them anyway (there’s no time to watch, so much that is alive and interesting is sticking out all around).
About commenters on social networks.
The seeing will see, the listening will hear (I apologise in advance, in some of the characters you may recognise yourself) You of course guess that this is a “chance” coincidence. However – recognising yourself will be informative and therapeutic at the same time.
1. THE GRADER – “Sit down – A” / “Sit down – F”.
Belief: Believes in the magic power of the wrapper/label!
A person who has come to grade, which means someone for whom grades themselves are important, collects grades himself, treasures them; those given by friends and significant people take pride of place in his iconostasis. It is as if a person came with an empty box labelled “rub-bish” or even “untold treasure” and thought that it could be palmed off without unpacking it, and an emotional effect obtained.
But write whatever you like and stick a price tag on it – it won’t add value or use. When a person has no thoughts of their own, no experience of living through things, but wants to communicate because they lack warmth and recognition.
He is used to getting it from others, since the right to give it to himself was taken away in childhood. So many truly consider a grade informative, that is, they try to feed you with what they eat themselves, even if it is food that has already been “eaten” once (forgive the pun). Particularly telling in such comments are – “this is complete nonsense not worth attention” and so on. And yet such people can persistently and stubbornly take up a place on the air. (?)
Life Drama: A victim of our grade-based system of education. And who isn’t a victim? you will ask, alas almost everyone. I call them tenderly the “under-lullabied”. Unfortunately, they were deprived of the right to their own opinion, their own desires back in childhood, and this was done unconsciously by their parents.
An anecdote:
Mother: – Vovochka, home!
Son: – Am I hungry or am I cold?
Mother: – No, You’re sleepy!
The child’s living initiative was cut short by the parental “think what you’re doing”. Because of this, in the living child, the energy “shot” out of the body into the head, the body was paralysed, and the child could not remain “alive” in his spontaneity. Then the child began to exist looking over his shoulder, with an ulterior motive, that you must constantly weigh up and seek this “right” thing, what exactly and how to do, want and even think. In such an atmosphere the child had to defend himself. For life is a circle of three strategies: feeling guilty, justifying yourself and accusing. This is how the impulse to create is paralysed by the fear of a mistake. The child refuses to create/act, and if he doesn’t create, what will he respect himself for? That is why these people often depend on other people’s respect and recognition. These people communicate in labels and generalisations, and, hiding behind pretty packaging, think they cannot be seen.
By the way, GRADERS are not always critical commenters, the praising ones also belong here. Words of praise are valuable in themselves to the one for whom that matters. In fact a comment becomes an order of magnitude more valuable if it specifies what struck/surprised/interested the commenter. Then it already passes into the category of discussion, which becomes a quite different, creative game.
What to do with GRADERS
Praise them in your own words, of course, say what a good boy/girl he/she is (“sit down, A”).
What does it give?
Praise strokes the GRADER, sometimes “against the fur”, and gives him the chance to “eat” his own beautiful and “correct” wrapper.
2. THE ADVISER – “The right thing would be for you to go… and do this… ”
Belief: He devoutly believes that “correctness” exists at all and that He, precisely, knows what is “right”.
A person who gives advice in a preaching mode when nobody has asked for it is the result of a lack of recognition in life. The activity of such a person in the world is not connected with his own authorial vision. Such a person on social networks sometimes sincerely tries to be useful.
The ADVISER “in the minus” is a GRADER hiding behind advice, who asserts himself through advice with a pretension to mockery, for example “read more”.
Life Drama:
The ADVISER wants to show himself, but in childhood he was scolded for it – “saying ‘I’ and sticking your neck out” is not nice – and the person is left to “learn, learn and learn again” – he does it and offers it to others. That is why in the personal drama of the ADVISER no scenario of success is provided for, it will always seem to him that he is not yet competent enough, and he is greatly irritated by people who do something and worry less.
What to do with the ADVISER?
You can draw attention to his aim/meaning and give it back to him, informing him that it is not your meaning. Surprise him with the fact that people have different aims and meanings and that he too can revise his own if they become outdated.
What does it give?
Usually the ADVISER changes in tone: he relaxes, or on the contrary tenses up, having received attention and, made happy by the insight (that people have different meanings), goes away to think about people’s right to have different personal ideas of “right and beautiful”
3. THE EXPERT: “did this… got that…” “it happens….” “there was a time when…” shares his experience on the subject in a narrative style.
Belief: Everything that can be tested by experience must be tested with your whole self. Believes that body, mind and emotions are given to a person for practical research and their own experiments.
Note that this type of person really does manage to DESCRIBE what is happening, not to GRADE it – this art is possessed by those who strive to pass many events through themselves. Please don’t confuse them with the distinguished “readers”. Readers are ADVISERS about the “right”, EXPERTS are about “their own”. EXPERTS don’t advise – they share what has worked for them personally or for those they know through a handshake. What the EXPERT has bagged “on the hunt” he brings / offers for general consideration. If the “game” is suitable, then even without any preachy advice it will be taken and used by those who need “the same”.
Drama: These are the children of warm, kind-hearted but lazy parents – they were loved, but “not looked after”. Having received their first (up to 7 years) “gentleman’s education” in the yard. They grew up in a circle of peers with a large field given over to games and experiments, with permission to use things with impunity to explore their properties.
What to do?
Offer to continue the research in neighbouring fields.
What does it give?
New projects and thinking travelling companions and enterprising partners.
4. THE DEFENDER: “you are the author, forgive the idiot Vasya…”, “he doesn’t even know who (what) he’s talking about…”
Belief: The DEFENDER’s belief – there must always be Heroes!
If this morning the sun hasn’t risen, then I will be the sun! And if for that I also have to thunder and hurl lightning bolts, then for a good cause, of course, and with pleasure.
And these are wonderful and brave people who are no longer floundering much in grades themselves (they have taken off), but still remember well how grades/labels affect one’s neighbour, and so often don’t hold back in their language when they stand up for someone. They boldly use them as a weapon for a good cause.
Drama:
In childhood, in their families there was a heroic example of the right use of anger, or there was an example of a flexible and vivid intellectual defence with zest.
What to do?
Here the person has an active position; the fact of your acceptance, even a silent one, will be enough for him – he already takes pleasure in it himself and gives himself recognition for it. Heroes are usually self-sufficient. Value them, perhaps this is a dying breed, and sometimes “top up” the population.
5. THE CUTIE… “aww-aww-aww…”
Belief: That good will triumph over evil and therefore you must try with all your might to seem kind.
“Girl Nature” – for avatars she often chooses a natural landscape, little feathers, little hands / feet (limbs, not the torso; please don’t confuse them, the torso is about something else). The attributes of the “cutie” state: a coffee with little hearts and a wisp of steam, sunbeams, sparkles and kittens))
She tells you about herself, just as nature itself does, that she exists and is glad of you. Personalisation – no, no, that frightens her very much – they could find fault with something, whereas nature and individual parts of the body, like kittens, are perfect, and recognised by all as divinely beautiful.
Of course, she waits for an appreciation of the beautiful in her, too, on your part, and will be very glad of it.
The CUTIE will not improve / correct anything or fight with anyone, it is a kind of inadvertent wisdom from a sensual emptiness – Everything is fine!
Drama: Such a girl may have lived through in childhood a vivid drama of psychological abuse or ridicule. And been a witness to a harsh confrontation between parents focused on themselves and on being right, and made the decision that from now on she would not interfere in any war, would not take anybody’s side, since she loved both parents and that beautiful time when there was peace/a truce.
The CUTIE is usually not deep, either. To go into nuances is dangerous for her, differences of reading and destructive polemic may arise, so it is not because she is stupid, but because she is frightened there. Hence the “little feathers”, the “fluff” and the often childlike short-sightedness that protects against the details and particulars of life.
What to do?
Smile and wave! Warmed by acceptance, she may suddenly discover her depth, but more in private messages. If you want to take one on to bring up, you can get them talking, very gradually. Often these are delicate, vulnerable girls, unexpected in their childhood stories.
What does it give?
A natural situation of patronage, tenderness, affection and recognition for warmth.
6. THE SKUNK: “rub-bish, your jellied fish”
Belief: All people are bad! Only I am good, sitting here in my dugout… shooting.
He is badly hurt by life’s injustice towards himself. What is more, his situation may be acceptable, yet this has no effect on the SKUNKS’ degree of happiness in life and satisfaction with themselves. This is a person who is so tired of his own dependence on grades and of constantly having to choose something that, in revenge, he now gives everyone an F, and often with swearing. He is choked by envy of positive feelings, irritated by the “cheek” of others in living and acting from a different state.
Drama:
This, strangely enough, is the polar pair of the CUTIE – a partner in trauma.
There too, in childhood, there was helplessness at being unable to influence the parents’ quarrels, and swearing out of the hopelessness of changing anything. At first they chose one parent’s side, and later were disappointed, and now deep inside they strongly condemn themselves for having believed and been betrayed or used by their parents in the war between them. They don’t know whom and what to believe. When they grow up, there is a further need to mask this bewilderment and somehow take part in life. So they hold their “swearing defence” (more often boys, of course, but there are girls too. Girls “talk dirty as they breathe” and devalue anyone who tries to stop them.
What to do?
Send smileys from a sister in trauma and leave them to the psychologists and psychiatrists.
7. THE BRAGGART: “you should have been there……I’d have liked to see you then…”
Belief: Speaking directly about yourself and your “exploits” is not nice!
Strangely enough, they are nice people, with a strange, indirect request for friendship and at the same time using the chance to show themselves in action.
Drama: Often victims of precisely that parental “don’t stick your neck out”.
They feel strong embarrassment when they need to talk about themselves directly. As if apologising that it’s so and so. But then, when “the train is leaving”, their ambitions catch up with them and they wedge themselves, out of place and awkwardly, into someone else’s process with their own story. Often the BRAGGART comes in the same compartment with the ADVISER, in order to justify somehow his showing of the “I-story”.
What to do?
Notice / draw attention to the fact that you hear his story. It has the right to be, even without being set against your words.
What does it give?
A quick resolution of the question. A strong mutual love (since they actually want to be like you in the courage to show themselves) or an immediate flight from the field of battle (if they get stuck in antagonism to the world)
8. THE BUDDY: “Don’t I know you, mate… you’re capable of even more than that…”
Belief: That all people are Brothers!
This one communicates at once as if he were family and supposedly knows the subject, which of course can sometimes make you wince. Meanwhile he is thinking about something… of his own.
Yes, he forgets to clarify a number of things, since he considers them unimportant for experiencing kinship and involvement. On the whole he isn’t dangerous: he doesn’t bite, and if he “tramples about”, it is like a big kind bear, and his fur is thick. If need be, you can cry into it or talk about life, as with a big old friend … about days gone by.
Drama: A childhood in a big noisy family, the class favourite, a son/daughter of the regiment. Hence an early experience of the whole world as a big home.
What to do?
You needn’t chase him away; even if he has wounded your pride, don’t turn into a SKUNK, he turned up on your wall on FB not for war, but for faith in brotherhood. “Pat him on the shoulder” with a friend’s comment and perhaps something new, or at least something warm, will be born from it.
9. THE HUSSY (or rather Hussy-Darling) “oh oh oh, did you really mean what I thought you meant…”
They believe: They devoutly believe that sex is the basic instinct!
Energetic, emotional women. If a cynical SKUNK and/or GRADER doesn’t attach itself to this sub-personality, then, without excessive vulgarity, these are ladies of, indeed, easy virtue who liven up communication on the networks very much (they flirt more than they talk dirty). They relieve tension, “energise” the situation, and it also happens that a fit of non-aggressive vulgarity comes over them, as a reaction to fear. Vulgarity defuses the atmosphere, but prevents the birth of something real.
Drama. Usually these girls are, in their hearts, daddy’s girls, competing with mum for their father’s love, and at the same time aware of their beauty and often with a good first sexual experience.
What to do?
Feel yourself a representative of the opposite sex, regardless of the topic under discussion, and be glad for them, but not too much, or it will be hard to stop them and your wall on FB may take on the colour of “red lanterns”.
10. THE SUITOR (Hero-Lover) “Love. Love….”
Belief: Devoutly believes that compliments are pleasing to every woman, and that this is the way to her heart.
Drama: A mummy’s boy, whom his mother taught to treat women “properly”, since his dad didn’t know how) He basks in the rays of the romance of a “nascent personal life”. On the networks it is more comfortable for him and, above all, cheaper to strike up an acquaintance.
What to do?
If you are a woman and have a need for something personal, then please, have fun. If you have no such aim, it is better to ignore. Because any attempt to steer the communication into another channel will automatically be taken as flirting.
11. THE TROLL (Jester) “Ha-ha… that means, that… wow!” “So that’s what kind of ‘reindeer’ you really are!”
Belief: That behind everything people put on show, they are hiding something!
Looks for a hidden meaning in everything. Finding the “sore” buttons on the charged themes that show through between the lines of your post – presses them at once, and has fun with it.
Drama: An interesting childhood, though not at all necessarily a cloudless one, spent in journeys and trips. His parents are from different, you might say, “castes”, and so a sense of humour formed very early. As a strategy: to find the interesting and take pleasure in anything that happens, and to connect the “absurd”.
What to do?
Be afraid and “repent”, of course, sipping a sedative. If you are dependent on grades and afraid of being exposed, and at the same time there are charged themes and “skeletons in the cupboard”. What is more, you can repent even of what you didn’t do, so the TROLL calms down faster. And God forbid you should defend yourself, if he has so hit a sore subject – he may leave not a stone standing. Playfully and in passing he can badly undermine your picture of the world by showing its wrong side. Better to laugh together with him or shoot yourself at once.
Result: These are the most creative friends, with a high IQ and an inexhaustible sense of humour.
Well, that is perhaps all (if anyone has been left out, let me know, or better still draw them J ). These sweet characters, as you guessed, can come to you in pairs/threes in one person and crawl all over your wall.
Enjoy communicating with them in any combination. And don’t be afraid to see and be seen.
Here I remember a living scene in Simferopol at a meeting with Slava Gusev.
One of his students was sharing his discomfort at being stared at closely by others.
– You know, people look at me like that, they look and look sometimes.
Slava says to him: You are sitting in a cage. And of course it is interesting for those walking round the zoo to peer in and see who is there behind the bars, what kind of little beast. And you step out of the cage and start looking yourself at those in cages.
– Natalia Valitskaya
(Dubai, May 2015)
P.S. By the way, thanks to the girls from “Russians in the Emirates”, who inspired me with their activity to write this article.
