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and because most people are prone to being self-obsessed, many self-proclaimed “decent” actors will punish other decent actors for being wary and looking out for their own self-interest. These outcomes are downstream of the original bad actors!
Other people’s mistrust and wariness of you is not an assessment of your moral worth. Rather, it is a reflection their (imperfect) assessment of the context they are operating in “I am worried for my safety” does not mean “you are a bad person”
I’ve been wanting to tweet for a long time about how to effectively signal that you are a good actor, but I always procrastinate because talk is cheap and it’s always more effective to just be a good actor than to talk about it. Still, I feel like someone ought to talk about it
As a big brown man in a small not-very-brown country, I am very used to people assuming the worst of me, feeling nervous & unsafe around me. If I seem charming and likeable, quite a lot of it has to do with the fact that I’ve always *needed* to be. It’s self-taught, not innate
The first & most important thing you have to learn as a player in the massive multiplayer human game is “it’s not about you”. Until you learn this, you’re in for a bad time. Once you properly internalize this, you can let go of a metric fuckton of stress and anxiety and anger https://t.co/yjwABI2HlQ
(While other people’s assumptions about you are “not about you”, those assumptions, when acted upon, can still absolutely cause you unyielding torment and misery. They can ruin your life, dehumanize you, they can literally kill you for it. This is not to dismiss any of that.)
(I could talk about so many things here. Me being a literal blasphemy in the eyes of casteists. The misery my wife suffered for dating me. School, for effectively being child prison. All sorts of terrible things that happen to all sorts of people all over the world, every day.)
What I’m really trying to get at is something Les Brown once said: You do not have to let other people’s opinions of you *become your reality*. And as Nomi from Sense8 said, the worst, most unforgivable violence... https://t.co/YlK1pv2v25
Do not allow ignorant or malicious actors assuming the worst of you *turn you into what they think you are*. https://t.co/bCXtffPCaE
- consider how you’re being - articulate how you see yourself - learn about the experiences of others - consider how and why others might not see you the way you see yourself - consider how you would like to navigate the inevitable confusion of people who don’t know you
In my experience, all you have to do to win the deep, binding trust of 95% of wary, suspicious people is to simply *embody the understanding that it’s not about you*. Smile and hold your own frame, know your own worth. It’s interesting to me how so many people are bad at this 🤔 https://t.co/lJBIr0ldUa
I think many people are bad at it because they haven’t actually done a rigorous assessment of their own worth. Their sense of self is ungrounded, and so extremely exposed and vulnerable to attacks as well as *perceived* attacks. A cursed, exhausting life
I said 95% earlier because - you can never win everybody. Some people are going to assume the worst of you because of reasons you cannot influence. You remind them of someone or something else. They don’t actually *know* you, though. Which means... https://t.co/ZmXBTxd8WB
It’s not about you https://t.co/unTvy9F8aR
If you’re operating in a disreputable marketplace (eg dating), don’t take it personally if people are skeptical of you even though you’re being honest Remember, again: it’s not about you! It’s the context you are in https://t.co/tAihyWtbMQ
18. Just realized this is another instance of the bad actor problem. Well-intentioned criticisms get lumped in together with bad ones. Each bad actor increases the cost of good faith for everybody https://t.co/vssRqoMTmX
I’ve been trying to find a way to express this!! I criticise things I love and enjoy and *am* (eg naive tech optimism, capitalism, masculinity...) If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t talk about it; I would talk about what I cared about instead. This really seems to confuse people https://t.co/i5CAlCJM73
@visakanv I doubt signalling being a decent person is even possible, short of just being a decent person. I don't think there are any actions that adequately separate good and bad people quickly. Would love to be proven wrong though.