You are singing my song. :) As I've reflected on more than one occasion, it's interesting that the primary career fields I'm in - yoga and massage - are full of "I want to heal the whole world" no-boundary types, whereas I, if anything, am much more on the "I'll be over here, and the world can be over *there*" end of the spectrum. I don't think it's bad that I am where I am - if anything, it's advantageous, since I get lots of practice at openness and vulnerability but have no problem setting boundaries where necessary - but it does make me a bit unusual.
All of which is to say, I'm basically right there with you. But some part of me feels that I can be too discerning; I grew up the socially awkward kid who was continually rejected/ostracized, and worked hard to learn to read people and situations and understand power dynamics and generally speak Human, albeit as a second language. It's weird to me to realize that, these days, I'm much more in the position of the ostracizer than the ostracized.
...you know, since this started as a discussion of books, I feel there's a pertinent quote - this one from Joe Abercrombie's excellently complex high fantasy Before They Are Hanged, where one of the main characters is a one-time POW who has taken a position as an Inquisitor, and is speaking with the head of a local merchant's guild:
“It still seems a strange decision, though, for the tortured to turn torturer." "On the contrary, nothing could be more natural. In my experience, people do as they are done to. You were sold by your father and bought by your husband, and yet you choose to buy and sell.”
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branchandroot
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Date: 2017-04-06 09:28 pm (UTC)All of which is to say, I'm basically right there with you. But some part of me feels that I can be too discerning; I grew up the socially awkward kid who was continually rejected/ostracized, and worked hard to learn to read people and situations and understand power dynamics and generally speak Human, albeit as a second language. It's weird to me to realize that, these days, I'm much more in the position of the ostracizer than the ostracized.
...you know, since this started as a discussion of books, I feel there's a pertinent quote - this one from Joe Abercrombie's excellently complex high fantasy Before They Are Hanged, where one of the main characters is a one-time POW who has taken a position as an Inquisitor, and is speaking with the head of a local merchant's guild:
“It still seems a strange decision, though, for the tortured to turn torturer."
"On the contrary, nothing could be more natural. In my experience, people do as they are done to. You were sold by your father and bought by your husband, and yet you choose to buy and sell.”