Try not to anger your one true fan
I sent my mom a small stack of my new business cards in the mail before heading off to Japan. I was really proud of them because Juri and I collaborated on them for a considerable amount of time. The card was also meant to be the symbol of my new business. We even made one side of the card in Japanese so we could show them off to Juri’s family and some other VIPs we are meeting with. I’ll also have to talk more about the barcode that I put on the cards at some point.
Anyway, after my mom recieved the cards, she fired up the old PC to look at my website and what I had been up to. I have always had the suspicion that everything I write makes her roll her eyes. She’s has been supportive despite the eyerolling thing. I wrote a post over a month ago about 25 things I had been thinking about. In it, I mentioned that I wanted to encourage my dad to quit smoking, but I often felt blocked by her. Seeking to deter conflict between my dad and I, she would steer me away from yelling at him about it. Isn’t that the true mother’s role in the animal kingdom? In order to continue the species, the mother must occasionally prevent the idiot son from getting eaten by his father for mouthing off about something he knows little about.
My comment that she was an apologist came from my perspective on several situations. But perspective, like perception doesn’t mean s***. Because perspective doesn’t show you that when you weren’t looking, your mom has been hounding your dad at every appropriate moment how his smoking will affect her and him in the future. Perspective won’t tell you how someone has been battling behind the scenes. Your belief in your own perspective can render you absolutely wrong. How many times do I have to learn this? If you scrubbed through my site right now, I bet you’d find tons of very uneducated comments that I would be embarrassed to recall if you reminded me of them. Even right now, I have to ask myself “Have I looked over this entry to make sure it really says what I mean? Will this entry bite me later? Will this entry hurt my number one fan when she reads it?”
If only self-editing weren’t so troublesome and time consuming. If only we could change our minds about a subject given new knowledge and have all of our old writings updated for us automatically. “Oh you see I don’t really hate people from Florida, I’ve righted all those wrongs, just check out my blog now!” We could be consistent instantly and always. Of course it wouldn’t be good for those of us who need to be truly held accountable for our actions such as presidents and dictators. But for those of us who don’t want to ruin their number one fan’s day, that ability would really help.
May 31, 2007 at 8:36 pm | family, learning, rants, writing | No comment
