Compliments are often a Trojan Horse, if you know what I mean. For example, did any ever call you smart? Then it's time to start drooling and speaking mostly in grunts. Or better yet, try not to be around that person. Hey, maybe this is just me exposing my own misshapen innards to the world, but I hate it when people call me smart. Occasionally there is a real, honest, compliment in there, but I am skeptical. Call me a misanthrope if you like. This is just my experience. But what do I mean by that, really? I'll use a concrete example.
Suppose there are some blue colored people around. Furthermore, suppose there is widespread opinion that it is great to be blue. The problem is that blueness cannot actually be seen without some special glasses. We all have our own glasses or our own handiwork and there isn't really any way of knowing if what other people see as blue is the same as what you see. Among these blue and not-blue people there are those who have come to resent blueness. Even if they kind of respect it, the resentment is the dominating factor. Who knows why, there are so many reasons why people resent things. What is dangerous is the way they handle this resentment. Think again of our make believe world. There is someone down in their basement mixing up the medicine, a blue colored paint. It isn't the same thing as what's in blue colored people, but it will do for the purposes of what can be seen through the glasses. Johnny comes out with this and starts giving it away for free on the street corner.
At first this seems like a good thing. Blue is good and now there is a way for everyone to be blue! The obvious problem with this is that Johnny resents blueness and his sole purpose in creating the blue paint is to populate the world full of people he can resent. You may recognize this as a rather convoluted way of describing psychological projection. Sometimes we have feelings we don't like and we pretend those feelings are coming from other people. In that way, it is easier to dismiss our poor opinions of ourselves as the poor opinions of others. But wait, how can you so easily dismiss the opinion of another person? By setting them up to fall.
"That guy thinks he is so great, so smart, so good looking, so virtuous, so whatever... but he isn't. He's full of it. And by the way, he also thinks I'm clumsy. Obviously you can't take the opinion of someone like that seriously."
And what do you do if your target does not think they are smart, good looking, virtuous, or whatever? You mix up the special paint and smear those adjectives right over them. "I love how your brain works." Seriously, whoever said that and meant it? I love how your brain works? Please. Yep, I'm being a bit of a jerk about it and just because I say so doesn't make it so. I can only speak for my own experience, but in my experience compliments are often a trap. What a way to live, right? I don't believe the nice things people say to me. I am just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the day when they start tearing me apart for thinking I am so much better than they are. Perhaps they have even convinced themselves that my supposed superiority is not something I ever claimed to have, but something they attributed to me. Better yet perhaps they remember their compliments, but have convinced themselves that I have solicited praise from them because I so desperately need it. Do you see what I mean?
"You think you're so great."
"I never said that, you called me great."
"I told you what you wanted to hear."
Forget that it was never asked for. These mazes are hard to find one's way out of. People say the world is full of narcissists. I've read that America is a country built on narcissism. I'm sure there are things written in other languages that claim the same about numerous other places. Maybe, just maybe, this is because the accusation of narcissism is the ultimate projection, a self serving mental masturbation of the most exquisite execution. It's like being a child with a newly acquired naughty word. Now that everyone knows what narcissism is, everyone gleefully goes about labeling the world until there is nothing left. There are no real people.
"And this is why I am better than all of them, above all those people who think they are better than me and need me to tell them they are better because they are narcissists. You know what, I might stop saying nice things about them altogether."
But if you did stop, the fantasy would come apart. I guess Candid has a chip on his shoulder. I don't mean to speak in absolutes. I have a long history with someone who routinely built me up just to tell me I was getting too big for my britches and needed to be cut down to size. It has left me with a distaste for positive feedback, which I understand is kind of sad in way. It's like loosing one's sense of taste. It's no way to live, but it has lead me to the notion that there is great freedom in seeking identity without words. It is possible that there is a better place for my mind, and maybe yours too. Relinquish all labels. You are not pretty or good with your hands. You do not have the bluest eye. Of course, maybe you are and it is not necessarily good to forget this entirely. However, you can experience these attributes without needing to label them or reflect on them or doing anything but just live them as they are, whatever they are. The benefit is that when it comes to negative labels that we inevitably apply to ourselves and others, these slip away.
The animals don't know there names. We named them. They don't know that they can jump high and swim fast. They just do it. And they don't give a shit what we think of ourselves or of them. Sounds nice.
