You know those people who you can’t talk to? The people you can’t converse with or transfer information to for whatever reason? We are calling them “fans” on this blog because when you meet someone like this and try to talk to them, your words are blown back to you in little bits. The fan person can just not take anything in so you are in fact completely wasting your time when you talk to them. Continuing to outline the various types as promised:
People who are super defensive are also fans. People with an attitude or an agenda to defend. And it can be as stupid as a person who identifies themselves as a cookie eater. They looooove cookies.
“Oh yeah? Well I see you eat pie all the time,” I might say.
“No! Cookies! It’s cookies that I eat, I am a cookie eater.”
“But we ate pie last night. In fact we ate pie six times last week.”
“Yeah but I’m really a cookie eater. I have always been a cookie eater all my life.”
“Er, never mind. Cookies it is!”
Here is the astrology version:
“I hate Scorpios. Hate those bastards!”
“Really? But your son has a Scorpio Moon. Matter of fact he has 4 planets in Scorpio.’
“He does?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, well he must be some other kind of Scorpio because I have never gotten alonfg with Scorpio in my life. Those people are awful.”
“Hmm. Well it sounds like you hate those Scorpios.”
“Uh huh.”
This is an interesting one because if you are like this it is very easy to change. Just quit defining yourself. It’s like saying you’re a pizza eater or you love M & M’s. Say that and you’re locked in. It’s like you have eat pizza or little chocolate candies all the time just to prove you are right. Yep, you’re a pizza eater all right. You. Eat. Pizza.
“Porn does this and that bad thing.”
“What about all the people who feel porn enhances their relationships?”
“No! Porn does this and that bad thing.”
“Oh, okay…”
~
“Astrology and astrologers – now those people suck.”
“Do you know any astrologers?”
“No, but I know astrology sucks. I hate astrology.”
“Oh yeah, I can see that you do. Interesting, that’s very interesting…”
Fan, fan, fan, and fan.
You can see what’s happening here. No new information allowed!
People like this ought to just give you a handout when you meet them, sort of like a list of the specs of an automobile. What it says is what they are and there is no sense talking to the thing.
Skip to Type 3 – The System
*thud*
One of the paragraph headers in our book in Deviant Behavior (yup, that’s a real class) talks about the necessity of deviance in society because people seem to somehow absolutely require… not something to BE… but something to NOT BE.
Identity is intensely bound up in what we are not. I have some theories on why we might be wired that way, but haven’t made too much headway. In the meantime, yes, it certainly can drive you nuts. Nor is there really any explanation for why some of us break free of it.
yes.
hm. when i say i act like a fan, it’s when i simply can’t absorb anything more. it happens. particularly when there’s too much going on in my head already.
i do try to let people know so they don’t waste their time, though.
this, though, is just a refusal to hear.
If the “fan” person came to a reading or wanted help and then says how nothing helps and astrologers are crap; whats the game going on?
Fan wants help (victim)
person begins to give help (rescue)
Fan rejects help (switch)
person left with ‘thud’ (new victim)
Fan has power and continues on (persecutor)
person evaluates their helping role (supervision)
kingsley
I’m getting more and more cautious around people who say I hate. Maybe it’s because they can’t or won’t look at this aspect in themselves so do a bnit of projecting?
I know over the years whenever I’ve had that type of reaction, many times it’s been a part of myself that I did not or could not at that time recognise. The recognition came sometime later and then I ‘had ‘ to make amends if I had caused someone heatache. No I’m not taking responsibility for there feelings but for my own part in another’s pain.
I’m with wyrdling…at a certain point I have to tell people: “I’m really sorry, but nothing you’re saying is going to compute anymore, I’m overloaded with information already.”
My brain literally short-circuits. No more incoming! I attribute this to working in the industry I was in for almost a decade (courier). Constantly listening,looking, smelling, responding, routing myself while being physically active for hours on end took its toll.
Sensory overload.
As for this type of fan, the aren’t really in my life (except for at work or school). I avoid them.
“Porn does this and that bad thing.”
“What about all the people who feel porn enhances their relationships?”
“No! Porn does this and that bad thing.”
“Oh, okay…”
Ok….I’m gonna’ claim this one, Elsa. I do talk alot about how destructive Porn is….for children and young women ….ok…everyone. I worked in that industry at one time and speak from an informed perspective. Being inside this industry allows for a vantage point not seen nor understood by many. For me, everyone else is the “fan” on this subject. It would be like me telling someone with genital herpes or syphillis or lung cancer or diabetes that what they participated in to contract these illnesses was not harmful when they are living proof of just the opposite.
You once wrote that, and I am paraphrasing here, ‘when a woman is beaten in Texas, everyone woman is affected.’
For me, if one child is used as an instrument of profit and exploited for sexual purposes through the Porn industry then every child is affected. It is as simple as that. So where do we draw the line? And whose needs are the greater?
To say that I am a “fan” because I reject the notion that any good can come from this industry is to totally discredit my vantage point.
Perhaps it is those who do not speak from experience that are the “fans”…eh? 😉
For many years of my life, I did a lot of public speaking about a controversial issue that, to my mind, should not be controversial: the need and desire of Native peoples in this country to repatriate and rebury our ancestors’ remains and burial property that are housed in universities, musems and federal and state agencies. In doing this work, I met every type of ‘fan’ there is: those who just won’t take in another viewpoint; those who ardently believe that if you will just LISTEN to them, you’ll be glad they educated you and made you see reason; those who want to criticize and tell you what you’re doing wrong; those who are defensive and take your position as a personal insult to them; those who go on the offensive and become insulting and demeaning; and those who stand and watch while planning global attacks and looking for all the world like a cat watching its prey. There are also ‘fans’ who want to exploit you and use your issue to garner their 15 minutes of fame.
And of course the one thing they all have in common is that they will not be deterred from their goal by giving a millimeter of ground. I soon learned to discern a ‘fan’ in the first minute of talking with them and to deflect them. In doing so, however, this made me a ‘fan’ too, since I really didn’t want to hear what they had to say – but when you hear the same crap over and over again, as I did over the course of 20+ years, it becomes a matter of wasting or saving precious time and energy.
An odd conundrum, isn’t it, when parties of opposing camps simply cannot hear one another? Then where do you go with the issue you’ve been debating? I just learned to walk away from the ‘fans’ because I knew they were not going to be part of the paradigm shift that was necessary for us to restore to our relatives the self-evident, human right to rest in peace.
But there are all kinds of teachers in this world, right? And some of them teach you how not to be, like people who are ‘fans’ in all areas of their lives. I guess I’m thankful for what they taught me: to be as tolerant as I can, but not so tolerant that I become a doormat, and to keep moving forward despite heavy opposition. I used to wonder why I’ve had a life so full of conflict and confrontation, and it’s not over yet, by any means. But I quit worring about the ‘fans’ a long time ago.
Jamie – I don’t know. I am right now uploading a video that talks about women who are flogged or hanged in public for looking at a man. I have no idea where the line is goes but I believe in some freedom for adults.
And porn, overeating, smoking… I mean lets say all these things are bad for you (and others since we are all connected). Should we start killing people over it? How will that be for us?
There really is no perfect solution. And you think porn is the problem but Tom Cruise thinks psychiatry is the devil so what the hell? Which one of you should get to decide this and dictate to the rest of us?
Jamie, I am not saying you are wrong. I am just saying… well you can read what I am saying. 🙂
No, No. Porn is not the problem, Elsa. WE are the problem! Our defunct species is the problem.
Who decides that a woman does not deserve to be beaten by her man? It gives him a lot of pleasure to have this kind of power obviously…so what that she does not like it…or her children. He likes it. “One man’s pleasure is another man’s pain/poison” as the saying goes.
“And porn, overeating, smoking… I mean lets say all these things are bad for you (and others since we are all connected). Should we start killing people over it? ”
I’m not getting this. Kill people over what? Why would you kill someone over this?**scratching head**
You spend a lot of your time, Elsa, giving your opinion from your vantage point and I trust that your vantage point is real and not without merit. I am not dictating but rather giving my view from this vantage point.
I think I come from an objective POV as I am not adverse to trying all kinds of experiences to learn discrimination. I’ve participated in things that would probably make your hair curl…ier. 🙂
The thing that brings me to my conclusion about porn are the stories of the victims. For me, I am open to unorthodox ideas in regards to ALL things and including sexuality….but there are those who have been harmed physically and emotionally by this industry. Do I just say, “So sorry. That’s your problem. I’ve had no bad experiences from it!” Or do I realize that my participation possibly perpetuates their suffering?
“Which one of you should get to decide this and dictate to the rest of us?”
Moi? A dictator? Does that show up in my chart? LOL! What have I been doing with my life all these years! 😀
I don’t see myself in the same league as Tom Cruise because he has a ‘Belief System’ (Scientology) that he must support and invest in for his emotional well being.
My only belief is that no one should be harmed in the pursuit of pleasure or self realization.
If this makes me a ‘party-pooper’ then …oh well.
I’m really not trying to “rain on anyone’s porn parade” here. I’ve just had to come by these realizations the hard way and with a lot of introspection due to my participation.
If everyone wants to invest their energy in perusing porn then more power to them…and less to those who are exploited in the making of it. Damn….it just keeps going round and round with no exit! 🙁
Sorry.
Peppermint, that was a beautiful post. I absolutely loved reading your perspective on ‘fans’. Valid points. 🙂
Jamie, I just don’t see who gets to make the rules. Tom Cruise is as passionate about his dislike of psychiatry and you are re: pornography. Someone else thinks trans fats have got to go… and as for the killing, there are cultures where people are killed over things I feel are innocuous.
Who gets to decide what is harmful and what is innocuous. You? Tom Cruise? Me? I think this is an unanswerable question. The collective decides I suppose.
At the moment we as a collective have decided it is okay to post naked pictures of ourselves publicaly and sexualize our children when they are 5 years old. It has not always been that way and I am sure it will not stay that way. We will swing back in the other direction, sort of like hemlines that rise and fall.
Thank you Jamie, and I want to say I see your point too: there are just some things on which we, as individuals, and based on our individual experiences, cannot compromise. We can stay open to other points of view, we just don’t have to adopt them as our own. And we can choose the level of energy and time we are going to invest in trying to deal with ‘fans’ and the energy and time we will need to invest to effect the paradigm shifts that are necessary to obtain some justice.
And maybe justice and respect are the operative terms here: when does one person’s viewpoint become an imposition on others’ rights? When that viewpoint denies to some people certain inalienable human rights taken for granted by the majority, as in Elsa’s discussion of the oppression of women? It’s an age-old question, man’s inhumanity to man, and I very much appreciate Elsa, your initiation of this important discussion.
I wish I could continue this powerful dialogue with everyone today, but I’m on my way to the funeral of a colleague who worked for 14 years to have dignity restored to a cemetery full of Native people (upon which a golf course had been built) who had been illegally incarcerated in a mental asylum because they refused to give up their ceremonies or allow their children to be placed in Christian, military boarding schools, where, it was hoped, the motto of “Kill the Indian, save the man” would prevent them from being who they were born to be.
I like to think of my friend’s courage in speaking truth to power and of his one-man campaign to change just a little place on this earth, as being for the good of everyone. Was my friend a ‘fan’ when it came to listening to other viewpoints concerning the treatment of this cemetery? Almost certainly – he had to be in order to attain his goal. Was his viewpoint unfair or did it result in injustice to others? Maybe the golfers thought so.
But I can say with equal certainty that his work was about restoration – not the tearing down or destruction of others’ human rights – but the restoration of justice and respect for a relatively small group of powerless people. And because he refused to compromise, I think he effected a positive change in this world, and I think that’s a good thing.
Maybe there’s a distinction to be made in favor of being a ‘fan’ when you will not back down from those who try to prevent you from creating positive changes in this world. I guess it all depends on one’s idea of ‘positive changes.’ I think of Martin Luther King, and my friend who is going home today, as being good examples of this type of tenacity.
I will catch up with the rest of this great discussion tomorrow. Thanks for the good insights and for listening to me.
“At the moment we as a collective have decided it is okay to post naked pictures of ourselves publicaly and sexualize our children when they are 5 years old. It has not always been that way and I am sure it will not stay that way. We will swing back in the other direction, sort of like hemlines that rise and fall”
Oh, Elsa. If children were only made of cotton and polyester then there would be no debate on this issue. But, alas, we are not and so how does one of 5 go from being sexualized and exploited to healthy and powerful?
I just do not see it as simple as the movement of hemlines.
I’m not telling anyone that they can or cannot do anything. I am only asking people to think about those who are being victimized by our pastime.
It is not a matter of dictates to want the safety of thsoe who cannot speak for themselves. It is an obligation for those of us who do have power to use it for the benefit of all.
I think sometimes we have to ask ourselves what it truly is we are trying to preserve when we take a stand on something. I just want all children to be safe.
That is my only desire. It has nothing to do with me.
But Jamie, Tom Cruise would make the same the argument. Put kids into therapy and mess them up life…
“Was my friend a ‘fan’ when it came to listening to other viewpoints concerning the treatment of this cemetery? Almost certainly – he had to be in order to attain his goal. Was his viewpoint unfair or did it result in injustice to others? Maybe the golfers thought so.”
Bravo! Peppermint. That was profound. I am humbled by your story. Thank you for sharing it.
May your friend, at long last, be at peace.
Well, hell. This is what I was working on yesterday:
“I realized the series, “It’s like talking into a fan…” is a Saturn in Virgo topic. The person is defended against communication for some reason and the reason may be a good one. Yesterday I did an interview…”
I made this into a video today instead of writing it…. but there are definitely excellent reasons to defend. Many, many, many good reasons.
Video coming up. I am trying to make a bunch of them today since my hair is good. 🙂
(so it may be a couple days before you see it – the pieces go in an order)
Where does Tom Cruise get his information would be the first question I’d ask. Should I know what he knows? I want to know what he knows!
If you knew something that would benefit mankind then I’d want to know that which you know! If you so choose to share or reveal it.
“Where there is smoke there is fire”?
When someone tells me something that I am not aware of I do not automatically shut them down. I simply investigate…or as in my case….I learn by default.
I’ve spent 2 years intensly investigating the Medical Profession and what I have found is quite frightening if not downright criminal. Now because many people have not had my experience or done the amount of work that I have done to uncover (Pluto seemed to be working overtime for me during it’s transit in Sadge) corruption it is understandable that they would resist the information I have diligently worked to bring to the surface.
If someone says that something is bad for you then I want to investigate that statement, and I can assure you that I will turn over every rock to either prove or disprove this statement…but sometimes some things are just so glaringly obvious that I have to set aside the defense and shift….to the left, right but mostly center.
I’m gonna’ say definitevely that the Medical Profession is in bed with the Pharma companies who are in bed with the Gov who are in bed with…..well….it gets a lot more intricate.
I’m not going to hem-haw and say well, maybe and might in this case cos’ I’ve not only done the homework I am LIVING the nightmare of Big Pharma/Gov/Medical Profession conspiracy.
If we think that Diabetes in a 12 year old is acceptable then there is really something festering in our society that we could even accept this as a reality. Why are 11 and 12 year old children diabetic? Why are young men and women having cholocystectomies? why is obesity an epidemic? Why is there ‘kiddie porn’?
Well, as long as we don’t ask ourselves the hard questions and actually go investigate them then we are doomed to a reality that defies sanity.
I really don’t want to go into detail here but it is pertinent to the topic. I had surgery 4 years ago to “correct” a digestive problem. 4 years later I am painfully and slowly losing the function of my Liver, Pancrease and kidneys. Why?
Because my surgery and long term care is profitable. I am in no way fabricating this story or conclusion. I have gone to 3 of the best Hospitals in the Country and when I confronted my doc about the viability of living without the gall bladder long term I was told that the Medical Professionals were not even sure it was safe to remove it….. Mkay…NOW ya’ tell me.
Because of the severity of this man made illness I am in need of narcotics to quell the pain but! without a diagnosis I am not able to be prescribed relief. Upon going to a prominant doctor at John’s Hopkins for the required procedure to get this definitive diagnosis he admitted (and I will quote), “Jamie, can I be honest with you? I do not want to kill you.”
Mkay…..so the procedure ,which is the gold standard for definitive diagnosis, causes early mortality…as oppossed to long, drawn out painful mortality in my case.
You see? Even doctors lie out of their asses until you catch onto them and then they spill their proverbial little guts all over your new shoes.
Okay…where was I going with this….hold on, Elsa…I’ll be right back (*scrolling up*)
Alright…I’ll get back on the track here. All that I am saying is everyone is a messenger and we must investigate the validity of their message. Who does it affect? Who benefits from the message? Who suffers?
I like to investigate and sometimes that requires going ‘undercover’ for a different perspective.
I wonder what we would see if we could see through the victim’s eyes?
A different perspective for sure.
I need to get a life. It’s 3 pm and I’m still in my bathrobe….sheesh!
‘MOBIDITY’—–not mortality.* Going now* 🙁