I think I’m an ‘ask’ person, who likes to ask things directly, straight-forwardly.
I think I was born to a father who was Ask and a Guess mother.
Guess which one I’m having the most trouble communicating with? Of course, any ‘communicating’ with my father is strictly in my head, seeing as how he’s been gone for many, many years. :-) No, I don’t believe in ouija boards and such – I think they just tell you things you already ‘know’. As *all* such ‘media’ (nyuk nyuk) do. I crack myself up... :-)
Links:
MetaFilter, "Did he ask or did he guess?":
http://metatalk.metafilter.com/19253/Did-he-ask-or-did-he-guess
UK Guard:ian, "This column will change your life: Are you an Asker or a Guesser?":
http://metatalk.metafilter.com/19253/Did-he-ask-or-did-he-guess
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
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4 comments:
You are doing really really good work. I am a slacker and riding in your coat tails.
I am a ask person. It works for me. I have given up on the guessing. I go with the information given. And yet am willing to guess on past behaviors what is going on.
I will give you an example. My father is all but bed ridden from an operation. I can assume that I will be given tasks to do to help out and my siblings will not.
My father was in the hospital and the "family" got together and went to shows, out to eat and went to look at Christmas lights. Me I get to buy and install a raised toilet as my father is embarrassed to tell the people that mean something he needs it. I get to go to the store. My father has a nurse to come take care of him and so my mother can go out and do things. I am not told this I am left in the dark. I am the only child that knows how serious the illness is. My father was given gifts for his car. He is never going to drive again.
I do not think I can stop this behavior. All I can do is protect myself from it. In a real way no matter what I do it will be wrong and there is freedom in that knowledge.
Hah! Thanks, Michael! :-) Riding my coattails - I had to go look at the picture on the top of Orts to see if grasshopper's wearing a tail coat. He's (she's?) not, but it sort of *seems* like it. So the image fits :-)
Well, ok, at the risk of seeming to be 'contrary', here -
Along the lines of - what's it called again - 'defensive self-reliance'?
Let's say we all need several things simultaneously:
To be needed
To be appreciated
To belong
To be important to somebody
To matter
To be valued.
AND
at the same time
our culture claims that we must all be self-sufficient.
Now, can you *hear* the cognitive dissonance clanging around in the head of person who tries to contain *all* those things in their head at once? *I* can, in my *own* head, that is.
The needs are *essential*, not negotiable. Hence the term 'needs' and not 'wants'.
And yet, *not* being cast out by one's clan, one's tribe, one's culture? Is *also*, *not* negotiable.
So when a *need*, and the expectations of the 'tribe' seem to be in direct conflict?
Well, as I see it, that's pretty much the 'how and why' of how *all* splits, of *all* kinds, happen.
Mine is, I think I tried to describe before, like this literal 'line' down the middle of my vision, where I'm often *quite* conscious of my left and right brains holding two separate, and irreconcible (at least, not reconcilable by *me*, at *this time*) sets of ideas or thoughts.
Argh, another post-lenth response. Here I go to finish it elsewhere, again, or Blogger will just cut me off for being too long again.
Now that I wrote all that, I see I'm not really responding to *your* comment at all, but rather to what's in *my* head.
So, I'll try again. Reading your comment again, hourglass symbol spinning...
Well, maybe my previous comment isn't *totally* irrelevant. I have a tendency to leap directly to the conclusion and then have to come back and try to explain how I *got* there, which I don't always *know*, so it can be a bit painful. For *me* that is, the *process*, I mean, of taking it apart and putting it back together again. Argh.
Aside: It makes me wonder if a) I'm actually *intuitive*, but I *appear* to be analytical because I've spent so much of my life (or so it seems?) explaining what seems *totally* obvious to me who don't think in 'leaps' or 'flashes'. Which is *very tedious* for me, and I think my apparent hyper-analytical-ness (?) comes from the analytical thing not *really* coming naturally to me.
But I've had to *do* it so much that (*I* think :-) I'm actually quite good at it! Maybe I could hire out as an 'interpreter' between analytical (left brain?) and intuitive (right brain?) types who're having trouble communicating. Feels like I spend half my life doing this *anyway*, might as well get paid for it, right? :-) Wonder what you'd *call such a job.
Also makes me wonder if 'Askers' tend to be more left-brain, analytical? And maybe 'Guessers' tend to be more right-brain, intuitive?
"There's two kinds of people in the world: People who divide people into two kinds of people, and people who don't..." Argh.
***
Realized it was getting too long again - third try:
I mean, what if doing the things you do, that you seem to be *expected* to do, are sort of, your 'role' in the family? And, you sort of like that. I mean, you can do things other people can't, right? So thatfeels kind of special, and good, maybe?
But, on the *other* hand, you feel left out of all the 'fun' things you see the others doing. You assume that they don't *want* to be doing what you do. Which, granted, *does* kind of seem like the dirty work.
I don't know, for some reason the idea of 'teacher's pet' is coming to mind.
It's like, your parents have *singled you out* for special treatment among the kids.
But it doesn't really make you *feel* good - I mean, it *does* in the sense that you have a place to fit in and a 'role' to play. You are *needed*.
I wonder if it might be a *fear* thing? I ask, because I had to face this in myself:
If I don't play the role they *assign* me, what role will I have?
It turned out that the answer was: NONE.
Now, this is shifting, with my mom. But VERY SLOWLY, kind of like an iceberg. She's 74, and still pretty sharp, but I'm guessing we won't finish this 'work' with each other.
But maybe we *will*. Which would be really cool. And maybe it will inspire my (stupid, irritating, !@#$#@%$#@!$) *brothers* to see *how totally cool their sister is!* And cut me some slack, and meet me halfway, and all that.
Sorry, got all 'me me me' again.
So, I'm wondering, I mean, could it be that you *fear* walking away from that role, because it's scary to think that you might not *have* a place in the family unless you accept the one they 'assign' you?
Argh, I'm afraid you'll think that's too harsh, or 'in your face', or intrusive. I hope not, and I hope you'll tell me if it is!
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