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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wolv0rine" data-source="post: 678316" data-attributes="member: 9045">[COLOR=royal blue]The following is likely harsh and a bit antagonostic.  I've been without smokes for a day or two now, and I haven't been trying to quit smoking, just poor timing.  Bear with me. :T[/COLOR] No, that's nothing short of a cheap cop-out.  The original target is "so important" because it's the goal, it's the point, it's the target.If I take a bb gun out to the woods and point to a distant branch, and say to you "I'll bet you $500 right here and now that I can hit that branch", and then I shoot the bb gun, and hit something entirely different (or hit nothing even), then turn to you with a smug grin and ask for my $500 because "I unmade the target and remade it to what I did hit, you owe me $500 bucks, buddy!" I'm sure you'd agree that it's suddenly a cheap cop-out.True, true. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />But really now, if you’re not angry with CG, then what do you care what she does?  How could she ever, no matter what she does, ever bother you in any way?  And I am quite seriously including such things as “CG grabs a butcher knife, raises it over her head, and drives it into your 3 year old child’s face”.  I mean really, if you have no anger at all over this you have no reason to respond with anything other than a yawn.  Love?  Reason?  Intelligence?  Love is an emotion, and ¾ of this thread has been about if we can count emotional reactions as something to be embraced, or something to be stomped out, so all emotional responses may as well be ignored.  Reason (knowing that such acts are ‘wrong’) will only prompt you to sit there and contemplate the action.  No, I say that it is the fact that this makes you angry to begin with that is valid.  I have yet to hear a suggestion as to what course of action you might take in the face of this CG which does not originate with anger.  I have also yet to hear anything that leads me to believe that I am angry with myself in this situation.  Being “angry at myself because I do not do something” is, respectfully, a silly proposal at best.  No, grandma does something we know (or feel as a collective society) to be wrong.  That such a closely blood-related family member is doing such a thing is abhorrent.  At no point do I feel angry with myself (unless I fail to take physical action, and my not taking physical action is even then never blamed upon Me, but upon the rest of the family AND society as whole, because that is who will not allow me to kill the abhorrent theoretical woman).  So you see, there IS no anger at self, only at others here.  My opinion is that you are trying to shoehorn the situation to fit your argument – with a crowbar. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Okay, like what?  Don’t go to see her?  What if she comes to see you?  Or calls your house a lot?  What if the rest of the family en masse begins demanding that you make appearances?  You are free to stop answering your phone (cutting you off from everyone in the world via telephone), stop answering your door (similar), don’t let her in your house in specific (in which case she may start convincing those blood-relatives of yours, Your Family, that you are a Bad Person).  You could tell the entire family to kiss your arse, but you’ve just burned every bridge to your entire family right there.  And I can say from a real life example:  If you burn your bridges with your family, there is a very good chance they will never even try to forgive you. What I’m saying is, yes you can take some form of action, but if you weren’t angered by Grandma why would you bother?  And if you take a “calm, removed” action, you may in fact be making it worse for yourself if your family is an important entity in your life.  Again, I think you’re forcing a fit here.  To begin with, anger doesn’t “solve” any problem here, because there is, technically, no problem to solve.  You were never anything but an endangered bystander in the event, which is likely over before you truly even registered it.  Yes, we hate to be helpless, but are you really reacting to a feeling of helplessness?  Is it possible that what you are really feeling in that case is hatred for a faceless person who obviously places no worth on your life (as shown by his placing it in danger, without even so much as paying any attention to that fact)?  Because really, that’s how I interpret road-rage; anger at someone else at not being courteous or considerate.  And there just IS no way to make that anger-at-self.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> “Once I’m safe again, my anger strikes” you say.  But every time I’ve used this example, I’ve referred to the anger occurring after the event itself.  You swerve, you’re alright but it was close, and “You sonofab<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />ch!  #^&*@!%#&$Y&$^#@^%^&!$#^!^@&!^@^!&@^!!!!!!”, you grumble a bit more, and then you forget about it.  So your anger strikes afterwards, that means it does indeed strike.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />[/b]How can this be seen as anger with oneself?  I mean, even in the farthest stretch of the imagination, I can’t see this as anger with self.  I see this as threat to self, but not anger at self.Now, it seems to me that you are insisting on seeing the idea of the MLE as a real-world-view.  It’s not.  Such cases do exist, it can be and has been real, but the MLE is a “for argument only” idea.  It has rules that you have to accept to play in it (and we are gamers here, we should understand about The Rules of the Game).  Some of the primary rules are: Black and White only, NO shades of gray.  Agreement is never allowed, because if an agreement is reached, you’ve already exited the game.  You are correct and right, they are wrong.  These are basic presumptions you have to walk in with, because they hold it all up.  It may be childish (which is not a bad thing inherently, much as people act like it is), it’s definitely egocentric (it has to be), and it states blatantly that everyone else is a threat (and they can be, at any time, in the real world).  It’s based on history, example, and a very simple form of extrapolation. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  You can call it fear of losing control, but I think you’re wrong.  There is fear there, yes, don’t let me make it seem as if there’s not.  It’s fear of self-control – freedom - being taken away.  Not losing control, because losing implies you had a hand in its loss.   The anger is the logical response to someone threatening to make sure you are not able or allowed to have your own opinion or beliefs (and that’s what the entire MLE is about – the chance that through extreme, if unlikely, circumstances you will lose your freedom to have your own opinion of beliefs, and have someone else’s imposed upon you).  I have no problem with others knowing this scares the hell out of me, it’s much worse than death.  But I still cannot fathom any form of anger at self involved.  Only fear and self-protection.  Or are you proposing that fear is a form of self-hate instead of the awareness of the chance of failure and/or defeat?*shrugs*  I just don’t see it, so I can’t agree with it.</blockquote>

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