Recent decisions

I recently determined that I had been trying to fit the mold of a Western personality. This hasn’t been working out for me at all, because it requires me to over-think everything before I speak, and then I get tied up in knots trying not to offend someone in a way that would make me seem a political monster. It also fed my creativity, though, in that it seemed desirable to compensate by saying monstrous things. What I lost on one side of the equation, I could gain on the other side.

Right now, I’ve decided not to bother anymore. I have accepted that I am rather insensitive to a lot of things that Western people consider important. I’m also very much in tune with aspects of reality they are oblivious to. I’ve understood that there is nothing I can do to change this. My force of will over twenty years has done nothing to change my innate tendencies, particularly what I am sensitive or insensitive to.

I don’t like being made sensitive to those things Westerners are generally attuned to. I even start to feel queasy and uncomfortable after a while, and much more quickly when I am cajoling myself into making an effort.

So I accept that I am going to automatically come across as anti-social at times, but not as much so as if I am intentionally sparring with myself and trying to bring myself in line with cultural values I consider to be inherently arbitrary. In those cases, I rebel against my own self-policing and become even more unrefined.

I’m sticking to the path of least resistance. It’s kind of weird to enter that mode of relaxed indifference after all these years, instead of being on edge. I know that I will upset some people by being me, but since I am not trying to carve out a career for myself, in Western culture, the stakes are extremely low.

This more relaxed state does enable me to be much more efficient in what I ordinarily do. I can easily do my job without second-guessing myself, and I can engage with most people in that way without offending them. I used to doubt whether I had the right to speak authoritatively on any given topic, but suddenly this is gone.

I’m always going to be too African for my own good. People confuse me when they make assertions about the need for greater sensitivity. It even happened at the Reclaim the Night rally, where I gave a short speech on self defense. Afterwards a woman asked me to show her one of the techniques again, and she seemed really nervous. Then two guys also came up to us to talk about the technique and to explain it to her in finessed terms. I thought that was fine, but she later mentioned that this hadn’t been what she’d expected and she didn’t know how to tell them to go away. So I guess I wasn’t being territorial enough, which is something I’ve also decided to stop attempting, since I don’t find it very natural or harmonizing.

I guess there will always be problems with mis-communication in my sphere, but I think the best way to minimize those are to enjoy life is to accept that I will  end up doing things differently.