Narcissism Posing As Humility: Cheap Spirituality Cures All!
on October 7th, 2010(This is one of the few posts saved from the old blog. It is dated 2007, and I am re-posting it here, because sometimes we all need a friendly reminder…)
For whatever reason, no matter how hideous people have been to you in the past, no matter whether or not they ripped you off in business or treated you abominably in ways they should be very grateful weren’t captured on film, they always come back.
I don’t get it.
When I am done with someone, I am done. I do not seek them out again.
Eight, ten, or fifteen years later, I am really not interested in pursuing a relationship with someone who was unpleasant company, and frankly, I am very relieved to be rid of them.
However, I have had a few weird experiences with people who simply would Not Go Away. One was with a friend who wanted to be a pro cartoonist.
When I first started self publishing, he asked if I would also publish his work. I was very candid with him. I could barely afford to publish my own work much less anyone else’s, and if I had the resources to properly publish and promote the work of a beginner, then I would also have the financial resources to publish someone who had a much bigger name and reputation and make a better return on my financial investment. Therefore, publishing a beginner was a financial risk I could not take. No, I would not do it.
He had a bad reaction, and several months later, deliberately humiliated me with a nasty public tantrum, among other delights. It was completely unexpected, and completely uncalled for, and designed to cause me maximum pain.
I got over it and moved on. I don’t even think I mentioned it on my blogs before, because frankly, the whole thing rates pretty low on my interesting-life-o-meter.
He did not go away, though.
Years later, I was at a convention during the height of the self publishing boom and my signing line was about two hours long.
Ah, Those were the days!
I looked up, and there he was. He had stood in that long line just so he could brightly declare, “Hi! Great to see you! When’s the next issue coming out?” I looked at him coolly, asked him how he wanted his book signed, and then moved immediately to the next person.
OK, I took a jab. I asked him how to spell his name.
His face fell a bit. What did he expect, a hug?
Well, yeah.
About three months later, I got a letter from him in the mail.
He was very sorry. He had hurt me out of pride. He had always felt bad about it. He was very sad. He had come all the way to Philadelphia just to see me and apologize. Yadda yadda.
I just didn’t buy it. I still don’t buy it.
How odd that this person seemed to think they needed to seek me out to right this wrong in a private letter when their meltdown had been a public event. He had been standing right in front of me in a line before hundreds of people at that convention and had an opportunity to address the matter both there and in the years previous. I guess the public meltdown he had before hundreds of people was one thing, but a public apology before hundreds of people was just too much to bear.
He had not come to me to apologize, because there is no apology when someone fails to make reparations. The hideous whisper campaigns, little slanders, and public meltdowns are always something that makes them feel bad for awhile. How sad for them. Maybe they later even reveal they are suffering from some sort of illness, because that’s always a great excuse that somehow makes other people feel guilty for being mad at you. Besides, it’s so much more modern than claiming the devil made you do it. No, we’re not talking about someone who is genuinely ill from paranoid schizophrenia, we’re talking ontological excuse for character flaw.
I call B.S..
The damage was done and irreparable.
This is on my mind for two reasons: a good buddy of mine, a gay man, had been the subject of a hideous campaign of abuse when he was in school in Australia. My friend told a companion he was gay. The friend, sworn to secrecy, maliciously revealed the secret anyway. The damage was immeasurable. There were bashings, my friend was ostracized, and treated brutally. Moving to another school did not stop the abuse. This poor dude was so badly treated, he thought his life was over.
Twenty years later, he ran into the guy who had hurt him in a shop, and the next thing you know, basher dude is saying he’s sorry, sending a couple of guilt ridden emails to boot.
My Aussie friend and I talked it over. He thought his old buddy felt bad.
I thought his old buddy was full of crap.
Would someone please explain to me why it takes twenty freaking years to realize you have almost ruined someone’s life? That you did something to someone which caused them so much pain that it almost killed them? That your behavior caused someone to be beaten and publicly ostracized? That you contributed to the hatred and abuse of people based on their sexual orientation and you needed 20 years to figure out that might be a bad thing?
And you think you can make it all better with a letter?
What?
This man has no business feeling any guilt, because guilt is for people who do not clean up their mess. This man ought to be feeling shame.
If he did feel so bad about his gay bashing activity as a young, stupid man, why isn’t he out there working for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays so that the things he did don’t happen to others? Why is he telling the story in private where it will do the least good? Why did he allow his childhood friend to suffer such hideous pain for so many years while he got on with his life doing absolutely NOTHING to take away the pain that HE HIMSELF caused?
Why does he think waiting twenty years – AFTER the damage is done AFTER the pain is caused – to write a letter saying “Gee, I feel bad!” is going to do a damned bit of good for anyone?
After a few rounds, my Aussie friend and I were in agreement. The gay bashing yutz was doing this NOT to make reparations, but for the sole purpose of MAKING HIMSELF FEEL BETTER.
Cheap spirituality teaches people that feeling bad and saying “I’m sorry!” is all it’s about, but it’s not. Genuine repentance means making reparations to the people you have harmed in addition to being sorry for what you have done. There would be no need for guilt if you were genuinely ashamed, because you can wash away guilt with reparations. Reparations are part and parcel of genuine repentance.
Few want to remember that part because reparations require genuine effort.
I’ve got this on my mind because of yet another person from my checkered past who has decided they were not responsible for anything they have done because they were, you know, “not themselves”. Or something.
Well, that won’t hold up in a court of law, and I don’t buy it, either.
I’d appreciate it however, if they continued to stay far away from me.
I don’t wish them any harm, I don’t wish them anything, but I don’t want them in my life.
Is that too much to ask?
It’s not? OK.
“Don’t come back. PLEASE. Yes, I mean YOU.”
What really got me thinking was this Slate article about the New Age takeover of Yoga, a disturbing piece about a woman who had done a major number on a “friend” 20 years before, only to decide she needed to make amends because she felt bad. This feeling-bad-made-better included behavior that could politely be described as stalking, as in tracking down her prey, writing letters, and making phone calls that were clearly unwelcome. The subject of her guilt did not want to be the subject of her guilt. He just wanted to get on with his life with her out of it.
But, of course, the advisers in the article are shocked, SHOCKED I say, that the unwilling subject of all this hand wringing doesn’t want to be a part of this goofy woman’s quest for spiritual development. His indifference is seen as “unforgiving”. How awful! Because there is no sin among the cheap spirituality set like being unforgiving! It doesn’t matter what you did to cause people to run screaming from you, what really matters is the real badness that is unforgiving-ness!
Like after 20 years, this woman is entitled to anything from this guy’s life. Anything at all. She’s entitled to nothing but indifference.
She wants part of the precious hours of this man’s life so she can writhe around and assuage her bad feelings at his expense, when she has already had a piece of his life at his expense. She’s not entitled to one more nanosecond.
After all of this, the advisers tell her to light candles, take a bath, and breathe deeply while thinking good thoughts, which, in the end does nothing for anyone else (in particular the victim of her unwanted attentions,) but it does make her feel good.
This is the point of this cheap spirituality. It’s not about making up for what you’ve done to others – it’s about feeling good!
And for those who want to engage in some of that fake-feel-good at the further expense of your victims, it’s not that we’re afraid of what else you might do when you get within biting distance again. Those of us who manage to get on with our lives are often utterly indifferent to those who gnash, writhe, and grind themselves into emotional pretzels over things like fame proximity, other people’s sexual orientation, or frustrated career ambitions. We simply don’t think you are entitled to any more than you have already gotten. We’re not afraid of you. We just don’t care about you.
Well, OK. We’re afraid of one thing.
Having our time wasted.
c
UPDATE: Years later, the back story of the aspiring cartoonist buddy got even more interesting when I heard from mutual friend Danny Donovan. Aspiring cartoonist buddy who never got that career he wanted, now had an ontological excuse for failure. He wielded it like a club. The new claim was that he had a big career at Marvel Comics (he never worked there,) and that I had destroyed it for him and broken his heart (he never worked me, either.)
This story was repeated before the culprit knew Danny Donovan knew me. And apparently, this schmuck never realized how easy it is to search creator credits online, where his name appears nowhere in any Might Marvel Masthead.
Some people just never anticipated the internet.
Regarding the Aspiring Cartoonist — even before the internet, the comics arena was “small town” and people knew people. The dimwitted aspirants who do not register that fact constantly make the mistake of claiming greater connection to Big Names than they actually have, and constantly run the risk of encountering people who actually DO have connections.
I don’t like name dropping just to make impressions, but I do know a few people. Enough that I can ask them questions like “Do you really know SoAndSo? ‘Cause I met them yesterday.”
Name dropping without real connection will bite you in the rear.
As for the “I’m sooooo sorry” act, I totally agree with you. Very few people are interested in making reparation. They demand foregiveness without really showing repentence. I’ve tried very hard to handle my relationships in such a way that I don’t have to apologize for things years later – but there are still some situations where some injury was done. I do regret those. But I’m not going to hunt down people. If I encounter them again, I may try and see if things can be repaired.
I wonder some times if this false repentence stuff doesn’t come out of 12 Step programs. People are told to try and make amends in order to progress. But it seems to me that too many people think they are entitled to receive the forgiveness they are seeking, just because they are seeking it (and it would make them feel better).
Life is tough. And when people are hurt, they are often more concerned about making their own life work than they are about making you feel better. And that’s as it should be.
Two thumbs way up on all your comments.
If people want forgiveness, then clean up your mess. Few make any effort.
“Sorry” does not entitle one to future access to people one has harmed in the past.
re: 12 step programs
it’s a requirement to ask forgiveness for anyone they’ve wronged due to their addiction and to make amends IF POSSIBLE. What is NOT required (or even to be asked for) is for the wronged to forgive them. And there’s nothing in it that says if you don’t forgive them you’re being mean because frankly, it’s not about you XD
The help the addict or alcoholic gets by making amends is in the acknowledgment that what they did WAS wrong and that they own their consequences. No further contact or making up or whatever is expected or even the point. The purpose is for the addict/alcoholic to be able to stop beating themselves over the past and remove one more excuse to lapse back into the old behavior out of remorse/self loathing. But nowhere does it say that once amends are offered, everything is hunky dory again. Just wanted to clear that up.
Wow… this reminded me very hard about the book my doctor had me read during therapy “The Courage to Heal”; and one good advice I remember and use from that book is that you might never be able to receive any “revenge, gratification, vindication” from what happened in your past, what you can do and have to do is realize it happened. It is now in the past, can’t hurt you now . Just gather your wits and move a step forward. “close the chapter” if you will. Takes a load of guts, will power and a bucket of tears, but once you have done it, it feels good.
Something funny about today’s facebook is that bullies from my old elementary school days attempted to add me and start being “chatty and friendly” I am old enough to understand all that is for their sake, not mine.
A little part of their brain still nags at them that they “were bad”, and want to make amends, but they aren’t worth the time.
@ Arlene: great observations. Thanks for posting that.
Hi Colleen;
Two things:
1. My experience, not yours: I have had a very few people in my life who decided I had wronged them when I had not, and refused to even discuss the matter with me. No idea why they were offended. Nothing happened I was aware of. Only two people, and one of them still refuses to speak to me more than 30 years later, and I still have no idea why. I do plenty of the Good Work, but how can you remedy a wrong if you have no idea what it is?
If you don’t wish to suffer fools, all well and good, but it is possible for the person perceived as offending to be the injured party, if that matters in this context.
2. Slightly OT, but you really need to read today’s Cartoon Brew. It proves that the comic industry does not have a monopoly on reptiles.
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/would-you-submit-work-to-kenn-viselman.html
all for now,
Diana
@bodefan:
I know how confusing that can be. But if someone just doesn’t want to talk to us, then they don’t have to. If people have the right to freely enter a relationship, they have the right to freely leave it.
Sometimes people just decide they don’t like us anymore.
If people want to move on with their lives without us then we have to let them go. If we try to contact them and they don’t want that contact, then we have to respect that.
I fully agree that the person who has been rejected can be the injured party. Absolutely. This has happened to me, too.
That’s not what I’m writing about here, but I’m not really sure if there is anything we can – or should – do when someone has moved on with their life without us.
How people perceive us sometimes has everything to do with them and nothing with us.
If someone is happier without me, then swing free, Tarzan.
I just wanted to follow up on this by saying that in the circles in which I travel, getting rejected for no discernible reason is as common as crabgrass.
One day everyone can’t get enough of you, the next no one will return your phone calls. Buddies one minute, strangers the next.
I try not to waste emotional energy on it.
wow, bodefan, that link…. just WOW.
Yeah, I’m going to be linking to that in a post. Mark Evanier had a related post last week.
Arlene, thanks for that correction — I did not mean to disparage those who are quite serious about the 12 Step process. I realize it has done a lot of good. It’s just that in Hollywood, it’s very easy to run into the type who “go through” at least part of it in order to “look rehabilitated”, but who do not really take it seriously (Lindsey Lohan, for instance). “Wounded and thus entitled” is run into a lot.
Those who are brave enough to be serious about the whole process are also the ones who will actually accept the “I really don’t want to talk with you again” removal. When one is serious about wanting to repair a relationship and the other person doesn’t want to go there (for whatever reason), it is no easy thing to say “Okay, fine. I hope things go well with you,” and to turn and walk away. But definite kudos are due to those who can do that.
@scribbler nope, I understood you meant the ones who are all “I said I’m sorry so you have to take me back into your circle!” rather than those truly seeking atonement in a 12 step program. It just didn’t come through that there was a difference so I just threw that in there.
I agree that “wounded and thus entitled” drives me nuts. That and the “I’m sorry if YOU were offended” (implying that the issue is with you and not with what was done, i.e. “if you weren’t offended I’m not sorry”) response.
Miss Manners has the right idea. Rather than “I’m sorry, excuse, reason, you know how it is, won’t happen again, blah blah blah” ten minute long Heidipology, she says that when one gives a sincere apology it need only consist of “I’m sorry” PERIOD. No qualifiers or clauses.
A Heidipology is:
http://wiki.fandomwank.com/index.php/Heidipology
I got one of those recently, and it was a hoot. I’m glad I lived long enough to experience it.
If I get hit by a nuclear bomb, it won’t be more of a blast.
of course these are 12 steppers trying to get “forgiveness” for their sins. Only rarely is it someone who is truly looking for forgiveness. A few of them are looking for solace before they kick the bucket, but I am sure most are just following the program.
Husband had someone come up to him a few years ago and try to do the apology. Husband did the “thanks, but whatever.”
Two years ago, this guy who warned husband away from me for months emails him out of the blue “if I had known how happy you would be with her, I would have never said all those things about her to you.” Yes, I know what they are. Husband told “friend” that it wasn’t his forgiveness he was after, but mine. When I got that message, I pretty much told the jerk to eff off. I don’t care if he’s now “sober” and looking for forgiveness, I don’t want him in my life after the bullshavik he’s pulled. He talks to husband, I refuse to talk to him.
Then there were two others. One recently. She asked me how I was doing and all that at a fair put on by her big boss that I had been given admission to one of her other bosses for me and my family. I pointed at my mobility scooter and said “remember that car accident I was in that you guys gave me so much grief over?” (I was 14 and was hit by a car on my bike) “yeah…” “that was the start of this.” “OMG!” It also gave me so much satisfaction that she was serving me and my children instead of lording things over me like she used to. She was a beauty in the class at the time, now? She turned just as ugly on the outside as she was on the inside. She tried to get me to forgive her for being so nasty to me in high school and I shut her down. We did the “remember when?” about some of the teachers, but I wasn’t interested in high school reminiscing – I just wanted the popcorn for my kids she was handing out. Mmm Popcorn… Off I scooted away.
But the first one kinda made me go “wtf” way way way back when. I didn’t really know all the 12 step stuff then, I still don’t really know it, but out of the blue, one of the boys who just verbally (at the least – I’ve blocked a lot out) harassed me at school and at this youth centre, came up out of nowhere and said he was sorry for all the things he had ever done. Gave me a real sob story in under 20 seconds about how he should never have done “it” and he was sooo sorry. Then told me that the youth centre, he was now running, was open to me and he would love to have my artistic skills mentoring some of the at-risk youth.
I thanked him for his apology, because I didn’t know what else to say, and went to the youth centre once to see what it was like now that it had moved yet again, and that was the last I have seen of him.
What doesn’t kill me doesn’t necessarily make me stronger, just makes it harder for the sap to sink in.
Oh yah… before I forget my long winded rant…
What drives me nuts about some people is that I am supposed to forgive all their injuries and trespasses done to me by them simply because they say “I’m sorry” but I’m not allowed the same latitude by the same people where I screwed up. Dude… it goes both ways.
@Arlnee: “That and the “I’m sorry if YOU were offended” (implying that the issue is with you and not with what was done, i.e. “if you weren’t offended I’m not sorry”) response.”
I don’t understand where you’re coming from there. After all, if you weren’t offended by something I did, why would I be sorry?
@ Allan – People usually say it that way when they have said something that is actually beyond snarky and is intended to be insulting toward someone. They say it to pretend that they are socially aware, but the reality is that they do not care if you were offended or not.
You’ll find it happening often when the discussion is of politics or religious beliefs (ie, “Anyone who believes anything in the Bible is nuts!” “Excuse me, but I’m a Christian.” “Oh, I’m sorry if YOU were offended. I know YOU aren’t nuts.” – exaggerated example, but only slightly). It also happens when the offender is snarking/sniping about someone you know, and when you speak up and say “X is a friend of mine.” They’re not really going to reconsider their opinion of X, they’re just sorry they got caught out by someone who knows X.
exactly. When the “sorry” comes from “I’m sorry I got caught” and not “I’m sorry for what I did” it’s not sorry at all. “I’m sorry if you were offended” is one of those weasel word apologies.
Allan, to amplify what Scribblerworks and Arlnee wrote, the issue is the use of the passive rather than active voice. An apology in the passive voice, such as “I’m sorry you were offended,” doesn’t seem to imply as much ownership on the part of the speaker as does an apology in the active voice, such as “I’m sorry I offended you.”
I know someone whose nephew was murdered and had to sit through an apology from one of the killers during sentencing.
The victim was the son of a pastor. He was a talented pianist, he was about to go on to become the pastor of his own church, and had a long-term goal of opening a funeral home. By all accounts he was a talented and wonderful young man with a bright future ahead of him.
That future was cut short one evening when he and some friends were dropping off a young girl whom they had taken with them to see a nice all-ages musical. They were about to go out for a late dinner when some thugs walked up to the car and began shooting through the windows. My friend’s nephew was short in the head and died a few days later. Others in the car were injured but survived.
It turns out the thugs were planning on robbing a house in the neighborhood, and wanted to eliminate any potential witnesses. “Senseless” doesn’t begin to cover it.
I bring all of this up because when one of the thugs was sentenced for the crime, he apologized for his actions and declared he would take up the good work of my friend’s deceased nephew. As though somehow that could balance the scales, and make up for a senseless murder and all the pain and grief that followed. As though enough time had passed to allow anyone to believe the thug was sincerely sorry about anything other than having been caught and convicted of a crime.
Sometimes a half-assed apology is worse than none at all.
Amen.
“Sorry” is not a blank check for your faults.
Gives new meaning to the term, “a sorry excuse”…
As for the bullying and Facebook requests… there are a few people I try not to think about. Everyone else from “that time” gets a reboot/second chance.
@ Torsten: I don’t recall anyone from high school that was so bad I couldn’t face them again.
I didn’t know what bullying was until I got into the fan/pro community. My early years were hell. Some of those people try to cozy up to me now, and I cut them cold.
Not just because they hurt me in the past, but because I know that proximity is a commodity. I don’t want to give them the opportunity to trade on it now.
I’m surprised at the sort of people who will attempt to cozy up or trade on associations 20 years later. And who will walk up and try to give you a hug. Jeezus.
I’ve gotten some Facebook requests from people who made my life miserable in high school but yet send me messages as if we are long-lost friends. Yet if I point out that isn’t a truthful recalling of those years, I’m the one who’s being difficult.
I can move on, however, life is too short to have to put up with certain types of people in my life. It’s not that I can’t face them, I’d just rather enjoy the several hundred mile buffer that currently exists.