I think I won't convince you about my capacity for empathy in this context, but I guess I'll just say that my opinion here isn't a lack of empathy for the guy or his family. I'm not confused that reading such things could hurt.
I have come to a place in my life where I crave more honesty all around, and I'm willing to pay for it with emotional pain. And it's not just a selfish sort of myopia--like, I can imagine you reading that and thinking I have some autistic flavored honesty fixation and I am projecting that onto everyone without considering their feelings. It's not that. Actually I believe that we as a society would better if we set the baseline somewhere closer to what she wrote than to perfunctory respect and polite platitudes. And I believe the various negative emotions that would come with that new baseline are both real costs dearly paid AND worth paying all the same. I know my perspective on this isn't popular.
For what it's worth, I do agree with you about at least one thing: she probably wasn't the person who should have written this, even if we take as a given that it should have been written at all. If someone wrote something similar about me, I'd want them to be someone I loved and who loved me--the kind of person who could say something profoundly true about me, as a testament to the real effect I had in the world, both good and bad.
Edit: Oh, and since it obviously doesn't go without saying, I'll say this too: I am not offended by the obit she wrote, and I would want a similar thing for myself, but I nevertheless think she did the wrong thing by writing it. I might have a fantasy about what I consider to be a better world in which what she wrote was fine, but we don't live in that world and she clearly violated dearly held norms when she wrote that.
That was part of my context when I wrote the post that started this conversation, but I didn't make it clear at all.
As an exercise I want you to go back, read what you wrote on this topic and count the I's. Then read my response which I will now use neutral language in.
This nor my last post was written to suggest autistic perception, but rather that not everyone thinks from others' different perspectives naturally (wherever they sit on the spectrum). I will indulge in your stated interest to receive honesty. You don't write like someone that thinks by putting themselves in other's shoes and thinking through the lens of their values. Rather, the internal value systems you have becomes a framework to apply externally in your life. 'I believe' 'I think' 'I agree', checks upon those value systems you have logically/emotionally and your writing and actions are built upon that. Those with this line of thought seek to change the world to fit their value systems, not harmonize the chaos of different value systems by speaking inside them.
As one interested in emotional intelligence, I'm telling you this because it might actually help you, but more importantly help those you're trying to help. For what it's worth most of the people I chose to work with are more like you and don't think through others' value systems naturally. It 'feels' more authentic to see people's clear and consistent values than try to peg down the chameleons that constantly lens through systems.
>Actually I believe that we as a society would better if we set the baseline somewhere closer to what she wrote than to perfunctory respect and polite platitudes. And I believe the various negative emotions that would come with that new baseline are both real costs dearly paid AND worth paying all the same. I know my perspective on this isn't popular.
You're alive, you can write posts in response to criticism. The deceased cannot. An obit isn't a performance review of a person written while they are alive; it's a final send-off written to tell a story about someone's life and comfort the living.
I understand why you'd believe it's ok to have things written like this about you (this is directed to you) in your obituary, but you should be aware that it may cause pain to your friends and relatives, that they won't understand why people spoke of you in these ways. Everyone makes mistakes and values can change as we grow older and move between social groups. The 'you' that you see yourself as-is always going to be different from how others see you. It will never match your ideal. This is an inescapable fact.
The issue at hand is that you, whether or not you're consciously aware, are seeking to project your own value system onto those that won't share that value system. I'm not asking you to share in their values or even to fully understand them. I'm asking you to acknowledge their presence and understand that an obit isn't written to a party of one.
Consider this example: People feel pain and sadness after their relatives die. Even if Mitchell wanted to say she didn't get along with Gerv, she could have made her narrative something that would have respected his values that didn't match her own. There's a way to say something like: 'We did not always agree on matters, but Gerv's dedication always impressed me.' (Which is sort of what the totality of her post could be taken as) Rather than inform his family that he caused distress inside the organization, she could still try the express the totality of Gerv by not showcasing the pain he's caused.
If you read my original post it was a straightforward statement about my preferences for myself, and nothing about what I thought the right thing was or what other people should want. That wasn't an accident. I think your heuristics for judging people by their statements might be misleading you about who I am and what I think?
It's a little disorienting to have you relating to me as though I'm deficient in perspective taking, mainly because perspective taking (and teaching others to take perspectives) is literally my profession.
My best guess is that your main point in the last thing you wrote is that I am not thinking of my own relatives and loved ones when I say I want a warts-and-all style obit for myself--that if I took their perspective, and realized it would hurt them for me to receive what I want, then I might change my mind, particularly on the grounds that the obit is actually for them, not for me. Let me know if I got that wrong.
>It's a little disorienting to have you relating to me as though I'm deficient in perspective taking, mainly because perspective taking (and teaching others to take perspectives) is literally my profession.
Never claimed you were deficient. I claimed it appears that you do not naturally think this way and it shows in your writing.
>My best guess is that your main point in the last thing you wrote is that I am not thinking of my own relatives and loved ones when I say I want a warts-and-all style obit for myself--that if I took their perspective, and realized it would hurt them for me to receive what I want, then I might change my mind, particularly on the grounds that the obit is actually for them, not for me. Let me know if I got that wrong.
That's the gist of what I'm trying to convey. I can understand though that some, maybe you, would rather risk some distress to those around them in hopes others will have a better acceptance/understanding of who they really were.
If you feel I'm really off-base on my comments about you, I'm actually making a point with that too. If I were you wrote an obit about you, you'd obviously disagree with claims being made (yes, I'm aware we only know each other from a series of brief posts back and forth). It's the same way with any acquaintance doing it, they only get to know parts of you and the parts you think they know might be totally at odds with the values/image you tried to convey about yourself.
I have come to a place in my life where I crave more honesty all around, and I'm willing to pay for it with emotional pain. And it's not just a selfish sort of myopia--like, I can imagine you reading that and thinking I have some autistic flavored honesty fixation and I am projecting that onto everyone without considering their feelings. It's not that. Actually I believe that we as a society would better if we set the baseline somewhere closer to what she wrote than to perfunctory respect and polite platitudes. And I believe the various negative emotions that would come with that new baseline are both real costs dearly paid AND worth paying all the same. I know my perspective on this isn't popular.
For what it's worth, I do agree with you about at least one thing: she probably wasn't the person who should have written this, even if we take as a given that it should have been written at all. If someone wrote something similar about me, I'd want them to be someone I loved and who loved me--the kind of person who could say something profoundly true about me, as a testament to the real effect I had in the world, both good and bad.
Edit: Oh, and since it obviously doesn't go without saying, I'll say this too: I am not offended by the obit she wrote, and I would want a similar thing for myself, but I nevertheless think she did the wrong thing by writing it. I might have a fantasy about what I consider to be a better world in which what she wrote was fine, but we don't live in that world and she clearly violated dearly held norms when she wrote that.
That was part of my context when I wrote the post that started this conversation, but I didn't make it clear at all.