I made a post the weekend just gone (Playboy) and got “caught out” or “called on it”.

Which got me a-thinkin… (About a WHOLE lotta stuff! I wrote half a notebook this afternoon (coz I was away from my computer) so I thought I’d post some stuff here as a sort of “follow-up series” to that disaster…)

You see, what I didn’t realise is that my profile on the forum that I mentioned had a link to this blog. And the gal whose comment I was ridiculing thought she’d take a look-see over here.

You can read her comment following the Playboy post–along with my response to her response.

And then her response to my response.

I actually had quite a restless night’s sleep, which is odd because I’m not usually someone to even metaphorically loses sleep over things like this!

So what’s bothering me and why am I writing about it here?

Well. Let’s start with the “Why?” and then go to the “What?”

This site (which the blog is attached to) is essentially about self development. Go read the homepage or the “About Me & this Blog” if you’re interested in how it started.

Now, I’ve used all those resources and put them into action in my life and my life is better for it. Which is the reason I’m constantly recommending them to others! (as in “I really recommend…“)

And I think I’m a pretty well-adjusted, level-headed, emotionally mature, self-aware person.

And essentially that Playboy post reveals/lets loose an ugly side of me that perhaps I’d rather not admit exists.

I don’t suffer fools gladly. Never have. And the more I deal with people, the more fools I meet. That’s just statistics; the Law of Averages.

Now, being relatively well-adjusted and taking responsibility for my life and so on doesn’t mean that I have to turn into a spineless, appeasing, conflict-dodging apologist who doesn’t like to ruffle feathers and “agrees to disagree”. Yeah, I like yoga. Yeah, I eat tofu. But you know what I mean, right?

Which is not to say, of course, that you should go out of your way to disagree or be disagreeable or not make a stand when you see something you object to or think is stupid or damaging or both.

But neither is there any need to be so openly hostile, offensive, aggressive and arrogant as I am at times.

I’ve been called arrogant many, many times in my life. (In fact, I’ve been called arrogant by a previous commenter on this very blog!)

But after a while I realised that the vast majority of those accusations came from:

(a) people who simply disagreed with me and felt that because I had a well-formulated argument and forcefully presented it, that makes me arrogant. (Note: It may or may not. Depends on the manner of the delivery. But a lot of people just say “You’re wrong. And your strong opinion equals arrogance”)

My response to this response is “You’re an idiot”, which is naturally (but not necessarily, rightly) perceived as being arrogant. Fact is, there ARE idiots in the world. Lots of ‘em. A fact that may or may not correlate with intelligence, incidentally.

(b) people who have strong, strong emotional issues surrounding conflict and who therefore see any strong-willed, passionate person (whom they disagree with, of course!) as arrogant.

Naturally, the ones they agree with they laud as “champions” or “firebrands” or “beacons of truth”!

(c) people who fall into both categories (a) and (b)

(d) people who are right.

And so emerged in my life what I like to refer to as “The Cock Test“.

Also, before I go on any further with this discussion about the fall out and consequences from that Playboy post, I’d like to direct you to another post I’ll also make separately (but parallel to this discussion, too) “Don’t Give Me Your Excuses“.

Then we’ll go onto Part 2.

Say, my creepy Orwellian computer system (actually, just a simple WordPress plug-in and nothing to worry about. Honest!) is displaying this message automatically because it wants to help you get the latest updates to this somewhat irregular blog delivered to you direct, hot off the press via RSS! Huh? Via...WHAT??? Don't worry, it's just a fancy email thing without the spam. Easy. Painless. Safe. Click here to subscribe via RSS..

Thanks for visiting & I hope you find some good stuff here! Leslie