impersonal life, and playing by the rules

how do you draw the line between what is and isn’t someone else’s business? what should and shouldn’t you tell people about what goes on in other people’s lives? who sets the rules? this is a question i’ve been pondering for a while, and i’m going to go on about it for a little bit.

so, people like to talk. some more than others, but everybody likes to chat. it gives us, as people, a sense of commonality, camaraderie with our fellow man. sharing things that’ve happenned to us, relating our own lives to the stories of our friends and acquaintances. what then, can be said about what you
shouldn’t

say?

yesterday, a friend of mine came to me with a situation. they didn’t know all the details of the situation they were about to get into, a situation which put them at some risk. so i filled in the blanks, in an effort to protect my friend. i was revealing a little bit of the personal life of someone i don’t really consider a friend — perhaps giving away more than i should — but i have a duty to protect my friends from harm.

right? i think so.

in that case, i was looking after someone’s best interest.

if it were just for entertainment value, i wouldn’t have crossed that line. i wouldn’t have revealed details about another person’s life that should be private for the amusement of others. call this my personal rule — i don’t like giving stuff away. even less when it’s my stuff; people need their personal space, both physical and mental.

we all have our personal rules — how do we pick which ones to play by? i usually let the other person choose, and pick the lowest common denominator. for instance, if someone thought it was okay to pick up a woman i was dating without telling me about it, i wouldn’t feel bad about doing the same thing. if someone felt that they could talk with impunity about my personal life, i might just attune my own frequencies to that level as well. would i have done it that way beforehand? no. but that op was opened under the turnabout clause: turnabout is always fair play. would i apply that logic to anyone else? also no — it’s situational.

letting the other person choose the ‘level of play’ is a little like karma — they choose how badly they want their own behavioral guidelines turned back on them. sometimes, we have to take an ’it’s okay if you say it is’ attitude. and anyone getting turned about loses the right to complain about it .. rather, they lose the right to expect anyone to care when they do. it’s a little like complaining about politics when you don’t vote.

think of this as a kind of golden-rule in reverse. you treat them the way they treat you, because they are — you can infer — treating you the way they wish to be treated. as such, you are only doing what they want, and thus shoulder no guilt.

i don’t really believe in a moral high ground as such, because the only way i’ve ever seen it used is as a tool to gain self-satisfaction. and i’m pretty self-satisfied to begin with, so there’s no point. the moral high-ground is a deception, it is an illusion, it is a consolation prize at best.

back to ‘business’, you have to consider while delivering exposition on your own personal life how much it affects other people in the situation. if you’re talking about this great sandwich you had the other day with a friend, you have to consider how much that friend might care about you divulging their eating habits. if you don’t, you run the risk of alienating that friend, to the point they don’t want to eat with you anymore, out of self-protection.

you can’t go back, either. once lines have been crossed they’re crossed, and there’s no going back from there, without all parties agreeing and proper amends having been made. sometimes you can’t take it back, ever. sometimes, it can’t be fixed. accept it and move on.

the best way to defend yourself from this kind of behavior? be more careful about who you eat with. and try not to bend down past where your friends bend.

if you get caught on the wrong end of this — don’t complain. it makes you look like a whiner. everyone, after all, gets what they deserve.