Echoes of an Advocate #2

'Raw Honesty'

This post is part of my series, 'echoes of an advocate'. I don't think it can be called a series, but it's a title I'll be giving to posts in which I rant. So it's up to you whether you decide to read the rants or not. And within the post, I can give the rant a title or theme. I decided to call this one 'raw honesty' because I was annoyed when I wrote it (about 4 days ago) and I said a lot of honest and personal things. Hence 'honesty' but also ' raw' because it's unfiltered. So, enjoy reading what I wrote a few days ago.

P.S. Don't try to understand anything. It'll be incoherent like a rant would normally be haha, so don't engage in brainpower.

P.S.S Spoiler alert! I talk about a character from the Kdrama 'My Unfamiliar Family'.  If you intend to watch it, proceed at your own risk.

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Even though it's good for parents to lecture to you and advise you, I don't really like it.

I think it's because ultimately I know I'm the problem but I also hate people telling me I'm the problem. Because basically, I'll just end up being angry - telling me something I already know.

And sometimes it's okay for people to advice but most times I already know the advice so the problem is following it. It's better if people ask for future plans rather than past stuff.

I've been watching Korean dramas (Kdramas) for a long time now and shows but this is the first time, I think, that I've felt so similar to a character. Like I honestly think she's me. And I'm so into MBTI so I think the character is also an INFJ like me.

It's the drama ' My Unfamiliar Family' and I'm talking about the character Kim Eun Joo. She's the oldest of 3 children, and she seems like she doesn't like her family. The drama untangles a lot of issues and things but every time I watch it, I'm convinced that Eun Joo is an INFJ. And that she is essentially future me - since the character is like 40yrs old I think.

I watched the drama with my mum and my mum would always criticize her and ask why she seems to have bad energy around her. People in the drama also referred to her as a 'party pooper', which is something I'm sure I've been referred to as a lot - a boring person. And from Eun Joo's perspective, which is the same for me, it's not that we try to be. We don't purposefully try to 'kill the mood'. It just so happens that we end up bottling stuff up and end up with a lot of hate. As well as trying not to be pretentious and so finding it difficult to smile when there's no reason to smile. Or finding it difficult to get along happily with someone when you dislike them a lot.

I related so much to her because I always feel like half my life, and probably till now, is being pretentious. And it's annoying because that's kinda how you have to be in society. I always felt like I had to smile around people or had to like/get along with people I didn't like. And it's not that I didn't like them for no reason. Like Eun Joo and INFJs, we don't do things for the sake of it or for no reason. We arrive at a point after a long while, so, me not liking someone has a beginning. 

And so we just blame ourselves like 'ah I'm the problem. I don't like them because I'm this kind of person's and it's irritating.' 

In the drama, Eun Joo tried to resolve some of her inner feelings but in a very straightforward manner. She cared a lot but outwardly, said things as if she didn't care. 

So like her, I like to resolve things but I always feel like, 'ah I'm bothering them' or 'well it's just me that feels this way so it doesn't matter. They seem to be doing well, regardless of how I feel, so it's better not to ruin their happiness'.

That's something Eun Joo did as she was growing up and now, in the drama, everything was essentially coming back to bite her. She had to confront the things that she ignored in the past.

I mentioned earlier that Eun Joo tried to solve things in a manner that seemed like she didn't care. She disregarded how much her words could hurt others because she had to. And I think in a sense she already developed the 'feeling' (F) aspect of her personality.

(Explain about MBTI in a previous post OR before starting this.)

Well not necessarily developed, but she began to activate her inferior function which is her 'thinking' part a bit - opposite of feeling. Thinking types use logic and so from what I saw, she knew that in order to get her points across and for people to understand, she had to say things without emotion or feeling otherwise people may not take it seriously.

Another issue I feel with INFJs sometimes is that we feel like others perceive us to be people that love to victimize themselves. 

Okay, that probably doesn't make sense so let's break it down.

Some people always like to play the victim and would always flip a situation to make it seem like they're the victim. So sometimes I feel like what I say makes me seem like the victim when it isn't my intention, and so I find myself having to pull back when I sense that whoever I'm talking to might think that way.

And I think a reason why it may seem like I'm always the victim is that after bottling things up and feeling like everyone involved has wronged you since things pile up. And then since those things take up space, a majority of my thoughts end up being negative thoughts. And since most of my thoughts are negative thoughts, whenever I'm talking to people casually, I can't think of anything positive to say. So if I start talking about the negative stuff then it might seem like I'm victimizing myself. And sometimes maybe not victimizing, but coming off as if you're blaming the person. I attribute things internally as myself being the cause, and I think INFJs do too so blaming others will only occur if we're convinced that we're definitely not the cause.

Also stemming from that, not wanting to ruin other people's mood is related to the pretentious thing. It's like being in happy gatherings but not actually feeling happy, but feeling like you NEED to act happy and so you do. And then hating yourself afterward because being pretentious is against your principles, basically creating dissonance.

Nothing I'm saying is coherent really.

I'm basically spoiling the drama but anyway, Eun Joo ends up getting a divorce from her husband of about 5 years because she finds out that he's gay. Well, he set it up for her to find out when he was ready to come clean, and then he told her. It was messy.

Anyway so they're getting a divorce and at some point, the husband says something like, 'it's so like you to want to end things properly'. I honestly felt that. Eun Joo liked to draw a line between people in her relationships and I find that I do that too. And if things don't end well, then it basically haunts me forever. Haunts in the sense that there's no way to move forward. And I think Eun Joo said that too, that for her to be able to move forward and start afresh, she needs to be able to end things properly.

Basically every time Eun Joo acted or said something, I found myself re-reflecting on the past. Thinking about the things that didn't end properly and still now affect my daily life.

And also in relation to her wanting to end things, she also sometimes resorted to ending things instead of trying to fix something. So she found out that her dad is not her biological dad and so she couldn't act normal towards her siblings. And so she decided she wanted to just cut off her relationship with them.

Fine, a lot of people might think that's extreme but not people that understand her. If something like that got revealed to me, at the age of 40, I won't be able to act normal. Not even be able to look at my siblings in the eye. And so the sorta obvious decision might be to end things and move on, rather than trying to work through something that probably can't be worked through. Trying to sort out a problem that was never there and all of a sudden appears to wreak havoc on my orderly world.

Yeah, so another reason why I felt like Eun Joo is an INFJ is because she liked order. And when things went out of order in her 'perfect life', actually when they went out of order soo much, she broke down. All her walls came crashing down and she ended up revealing her vulnerable self to her sister. And she hated revealing that but I think she eventually got closer to her sister through that.

I can understand why she'd hate revealing that, well because it wasn't planned. If it was planned then she would have thought of all possible scenarios and would know what to do.

But also like an INFJ, she picked herself back up and began to reorganize her world. So basically make plans and decide what the next step is. 

I could tell that once she broke down, it was the last straw. She absolutely had it and I saw that. Like honestly I was like, girl it took you so long to break down. I would've lost it earlier on but she held back longer than I could've. And by 'lost it', I don't mean going crazy. I mean crying.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with Eun Joo but like I said, if past things aren't ended well then moving on in the present and future is very hard. But I found myself thinking about some past thing. 

Because I knew that I have a reason for everything I do. And so I was thinking about why I didn't like a certain person. And like I explained earlier, it's not like I told the person that. I honestly wanted to, and I wanted to work it out so that I could be free of killing myself and telling myself I shouldn't dislike them for no reason even though there's a reason. And then having to create dissonance by being nice and friendly but hating myself afterward for doing that but then not being able to resolve the dissonance because it'll seem like I'm coming out of the blue with some issue and that might ruin the person happiness.

One thing I noticed with Eun Joo as well is that sometimes people felt like she did things 'out of the blue' but I know that INFJs don't. Especially like big/ major things in our control, it can't have been done out of the blue. It must've been planned.

Anyway, so it may have seemed like I came out of the blue with an issue and so I may not be taken seriously. And that'll annoy me more because depending on the issue, I already take myself seriously. So for someone to not take me seriously or to respond in a way that demeans the problem and makes it seem trivial is annoying. Or makes it seem like the issue was with me. Like obviously I thought about and I know part of the issue lies with me, but me talking to you is to see whether you know that you did something too.

Okay, I've gone off track lol - if there was a track, to begin with.

But I was thinking about why I didn't like a certain person. And I thought about all the times when I made up my mind to talk to them about it but couldn't. And it's worse when the person seems like a very nice and happy person because then I'm just like 'ehhhh I shouldn't come with this negativity'. So I just ignore the feelings. Anyway so after thinking about for a while, I realized that every added up thing that made me dislike/be uncomfortable with the person started from long ago. Like probably even before a

I met the person in real life. Once I realized that I was like damn wow.

So even before I met the person in real life, and then every little thing added on. And I pretty much let that person and the people around the person that liked the person, destroy my self-esteem. 

If I had somehow been able to talk about why I disliked the person to the person, and then give the person a chance to change what I think about them, then I think most of my internal battles could've been avoided. All the inner toxicity could've been avoided but it wasn't. Because I was thinking about the person and how they'd feel at the same time.

This is kinda why I was envious of Eun Joo. Not really envious but looked up to her. She got to a point where even though she cared, she tried to stop and thought about herself. And she realized that 'hey, I need to do this for myself regardless of how they feel' and so she went ahead to do things that people thought were mean. I guess she could've said things in a nicer way but either way she could say. Even if it was years later, she was finally able to resolve it.

Honestly, as time goes on, I feel like it'll be pointless and stupid to try to resolve something from long ago. But then it's annoying when that thing keeps affecting the present and that the situation or incident constantly replays in your mind as if it's part of the present.

I've just gone on a tangent. I wanted to get things out but now I realize that what I originally wanted to release wasn't even released. I didn't say what I was originally gonna say.

But anyway, whatever it is I wanted to say, I'll share it some other time.

So I'll wrap this up now. I started by saying "Even though it's good for parents to lecture you and advice you, I don't really like it."

I think another reason why I don't like it is that when I was younger, it was fine. Now I can be like yeah it was necessary when I was younger but now I feel like I've formed most of my principles and I don't want lectures. I want sorta casual conversations, in the sense of like rather than saying I should do this and this, more like talking about what you've been doing and the next step. Kinda like friends do sometimes.

That's kinda why I dislike it when friends randomly lecture or say I shouldn't be doing this or I should be doing that. 

I'm not sure if I'm explaining my point properly.

I think yes friends should caution you and whatnot, but not lecture. In the sense of rather than treat me like your child, treat as a friend. Rather than lecture, just say what you feel would be the best option.

That depends on the situation though. What I'm saying now, I have one friend in mind. I found myself being annoyed with the friend for a while recently because the person basically questioned everything I said I wanted to do. At a point, I felt like they doubted my ability to accomplish that, which is so unlike them because I considered them a close friend so I was very confused for a long while. But I decided to ignore it and carry on like normal. So like you rant and then a friend says 'it's not nice to say that' when they should be trying to understand you or help you feel better. So an example of what the person did, I basically talked about my day (on a public platform) and my day was probably the least productive thing on the planet lol. And the person responded in a sarcastic way with something like 'well aren't you productive...' And I was honestly confused at that. Generally, you'd expect a response like 'wowww such unproductiveness' with some emojis or 'bro same same'. That type of thing or maybe like 'man the same but you should try to work next time'. 

I was more shocked because it was sarcasm. People have taken sarcasm to be some casual thing when the actual definition is negative. Like I've always felt that people think I can't take sarcasm but if it's accompanied by emojis then fine. But also the definition of sarcasm isn't even positive, so am I expected to just brush it off every time? That always confused me lol. Or even with jokes in general - like someone always making an insulting joke. Of course jokes are jokes but it gets to a point where it's like.. 'are you being for real or what because we're past the stage of this'.

Anyway so the definition of sarcasm is "Use of acerbic language to mock or convey contempt, often using irony and (in speech) often marked by overemphasis and a sneering tone of voice."

It's totally different from wit.

Now if you read that definition you might either think, 'ah it's not positive or 'uhm what's the issue'.

Now to address this second thought - well obviously it all depends on the context or whatever but let's look at the definition. Look at the words in bold. None of it has any positive connotation. 

I'm not gonna try to analyze the definition or anything. I do miss English Literature and analyzing texts and stuff. Obviously, I can do that now for fun, but it was more fun I'm that competitive atmosphere of 'oh will my analysis be graded as something fresh'. That was exciting to me anyway. I think I did that once or twice for an English essay. I sat down to write it and I went so off track; in the process of going off track, I formulated some new ideas. An idea that I thought was so genius haha because I couldn't see how I could've landed on it randomly.

Anyway, that's beside the point. So I'm not trying to say that sarcasm is bad. Obviously, in person, you can see the person's reaction and whatnot. But depending on who it is, on a text, it can be difficult. And if you think about it, the definition of sarcasm isn't something extremely positive anyway. Because to me, it seemed like people used it a lot and that it was necessary for a conversation sometimes, but it can sometimes hurt people if one doesn't notice. So I was always confused about why it seemed like people made an effort to be sarcastic. There's no point in making an effort to do that.

Furthermore,  INFJs know that there is always room for improvement. They can always be better. So rather than constant advice or lecturing, I think it's better to suggest a way to help and ask if the person wants that. I'm not sure if other INFJs think that too though but for me personally, I think that.

I should probably explain why I'm posting so late and not at the end of June. Well, I had exams and Uni work so I wanted them to end. They're not over yet but I only have one left so I'm writing this (it'll be published after I'm done with my exams though). And I needed to tackle some things as well, so I couldn't write anything. And usually, I don't write in stages. I like to write things in one sitting and basically write all my thoughts at that point so I do my posts at once. And when I edit, I choose to add or remove stuff but 98% or 99% of the writing is done at once and most of it isn't edited out during the 'editing phase' because I wanna stay raw and honest.

Anyway, so I went on a rant. A very disjointed rant. Nothing probably made any sense. I talked about MBTI and I talked about a drama character. I should probably do separate posts explaining the MBTI and another post about the drama, like a review (the drama has 2 episodes left so everything I'm saying is based on what I've seen so far). If I feel like doing it, and I remember to do so. I most probably will do them anyway since those are 2 interesting things to me.

In my head, it'll be logical to post those first but I'm trying not to always have to do things in a logical sense. That's also why I don't publish a lot. Like I could've probably published more in the past but I always wanted to make things logical. So like for example I'd talk about something but then I'd be like 'ah I need to talk about the underlying concept first'. So then I'd just leave that post on hold for whenever I get back to writing about the underlying concept. And for most things, I haven't gone back to write any underlying concept lol. OR in relation to the stage thing, I think of an idea and write a little bit but then I'm like 'ah I don't have a chance now to do it all in one sitting'. So I postpone it. And that's how most things end up being incomplete because when I read through it later I've forgotten my point. So it's just better to write it when I think about it. That's a similar situation with me and writing stories since that's something I'm also interested in doing, but I'll mention that later.

Basically, this is my late post for the end of June. I'll do another for the end of July. Because even if I haven't stuck to any of my other new year's resolutions, I want to at least stick to this. It's better to do one thing at a time until it becomes a habit so this is the one resolution I decided to focus on.

At the end of this year, I'll probably talk about my resolutions + the ones I didn't tell you about. And I'll see how much of them I've accomplished and which ones I should focus on next year.

Okay, now I've typed a lot and my fingers hurt! I should probably go to sleep too! Have a great day and stay safe! Social distance too please :))

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Hi, present to me is back. I'll be honest with you, present me is supposed to edit that. Edit in the sense of reading it through and correct some words but I'm currently tired. And all of that is too long - funny since it came from me. I'll just read it in the future when I want to go through past memories and just edit it then haha. I'm not only tired but lowkey lazy too.

Stay safe! Wear a mask, sanitize, and social distance! Let's get through this together!

"A good rant is cathartic. Ranting is what keeps me sane. They always come from a different place."

Never forget that you're loved💖

- By Teenagehood Misfits💙