2+2=5 if someone who can destroy you says so

Exploring the Philosophical side of the Occult.

Post Reply
User avatar
Cybernetic_Jazz
Forum Member
Forum Member
Posts: 1219
Joined: Thu Sep 26, 2013 9:12 pm
Location: On a play date with the Universe.

2+2=5 if someone who can destroy you says so

Post by Cybernetic_Jazz »

I'm sitting back for a second and attempting to address a particular fallacy that happens in people's thinking, especially for people who are under significant duress in a particular category of their lives.

For instance you can have fundamental universal truth on one hand, then you can have social de facto truth - the two can be horribly out of sync but by the same token the most profound and immediate consequences are those that happen at the social de facto level.


Here's a story from my own life that shows a dynamic I really want to get over, a situation that I really want to never see play itself out again.

At my last job I was in charge of reviewing the check, EFT, and credit card runs as they went out the door. I had to review each individual one and look at the amount, date, invoice #, etc. to make sure everything in the image system matched the printout (ie. the accounting side). I would work through this at the fastest sustainable rate I could (ie. fastest without accruing stress-damage). After about a month my supervisor started asking me if everything was okay, I said yes the first time or two until I realize she was implying that there was a problem. When I did ask her I found out that it's taking me eight hours to get it done, the guy before me only took six. I realized that there was no benchmarking where I was working so the thought of my fastest not being enough and needing to figure out some way or fudging the review really made me uncomfortable. I then the next week worked right up to the self-damage point, still not enough - I gained only half an hour. The next week, in my own mind, I whipped myself, beat myself, yelled "Fastafastafastagogogogogogogogogo!!!", trying to insinuate the most blunt and ignorant force that could possibly try to push me past my breaking point.

At the end of the day I still had a few pages to go. That night I did something I've never done before and never did siince - the whole way home I was saying to myself "You failed. You failed. You failed". Anytime a single charitable or even univerally true reason came to be not to beat myself I crossed out and coldly reiteratted "You failed". I had it firmly in my mind that I was going to go home, sit in front of the mirror, and score my shoulder with a razor-blade to tell my nervous system and body that it wasn't enough, it wasn't good enough, it wasn't fast enough, and that if it needed to be punished to understand that it was failing me that I'd comply in forcing the point. I did do just that and strangely enough the cut did heal, the area of contact with the adhesive from the bandage ripped and made a more significant wound which was worse than the original cut.

The situation got worse when a lady who I was working with, someone with less education, more experience, and notably resentful about that, ended up taking it one day and got most if done in four hours. Again - I saw how much I was being asked to do, she hadn't adhered at all to what the supervisor had asked of me. I drank my dinner that night.

That position had me, at several points, quite ready to commit suicide. As a social idiot I couldn't sell anything, didn't have the multitasking capability to do anything that required that, and on top of that the career path that I graduated highest honors in from college was seeming to prove untennable when I was asked to compete with other people's limits. I could be the sweetest person in the world and it didn't matter - I was weak, my weakness was a greater sin than being a criminal, therefore I needed to be destroyed. I hadn't been in that sort of place since my late 20's where I had a job based on performance metrics but those metrics were literally what they were as I found out later - ie. getting rated on dollars found but considering the audits we were getting it wouldn't matter if you had a complete slug or the best person in the company - you would find $5,000 or $10,000 and there was nothing else to that - that was the other place where I'd leave an audit fantasizing about slitting my own throat. When it was me on a site with no other point of reference I had to assume that I was just the God of all slugs, even at my best.


I know that I won't always find sadistic situations in terms of work demands but I also know that they're always out there, there's plenty of them, and I really am trying find a bit logic, a piece of information that - when the desire to scourge, flail, self-mortify, etc. comes up based on standards or situations that I have no control over, what it is I can do to at least prohibit myself from that class of action.

What really breaks my heart is the thought that my body is almost its own distinct phase of me, it has nothing to do with crazy work conditions, it's my willing work horse, it loves me, and I'm willing to slap it around like an abusive spouse all because someone's abusing me. It's diplorable, disgusting, and morally reprehensible. I know that if I were armed with the right kind of logic I could prop it in that reactive corridor and neutralize this kind of behavior, just that I haven't found that logic yet.

That and I really have to assume that that kind of behavior is spiritually damaging, ie. while I don't think I'm likely to necessarily damage my own soul (no one would be able to evolve at all if that were the case) I do think - at least at the level of being a mystic and magician - it's not only a stumble backward but a stumble backward plus suffering - ie. just plainly stupid suffering rather than the gainful variety. Yes I understand there's such a thing as jnana yoga where people used to cut themselves, when I get to that I'm more apt to use a palm-shocker or something like that; it's a very different application to shock one's self for saying 'and' until they stop doing it rather than to shock, cut, or harm ones self for perception that you've come up short and deserve punishment.
You don't have to do a thing perfect, just relentlessly.

User avatar
magari
Forum Member
Forum Member
Posts: 824
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2014 3:43 am
Location: Colorado

Re: 2+2=5 if someone who can destroy you says so

Post by magari »

Im curious how your manager handled this situation.

User avatar
Cybernetic_Jazz
Forum Member
Forum Member
Posts: 1219
Joined: Thu Sep 26, 2013 9:12 pm
Location: On a play date with the Universe.

Re: 2+2=5 if someone who can destroy you says so

Post by Cybernetic_Jazz »

I had glowing reviews (at least verbally) when I left, I also - forced into that bottleneck - decided to jettison review of certain parts of that information that couldn't result in an overpayment, underpayment, or misapplication (ie. the invoice date - particularly if they system was already missing all their discounts and they weren't getting it fixed). They also had multiple invoices coming through on images - I stopped looking for that the way I was before and deferred it to statement research. Toward the end also a new manager in training, replacing my immediate supervisor, took it over so that headache was removed from my plate.

The recruiter who got me that job gave me all kinds of upbeat and encouragement to finish out strong, which I did (also left the girl who the new manager had brought in with everything she needed to hit the ground running), there was an opportunity offered that week by the recruiter that fell through, after that I never heard from him again. Lots of reasons to feel like requests for honest feedback were getting refused.

I get the impression that the supervisor I had when I was hired was someone that they were meaning to get rid of, they threaded her along enough to train her replacement, she was supposed to drift off to some niche oversight project but I think more likely they were going to say "Oops! We don't need that position anymore! Sorry bout that!". Nice lady but so much of what I messed up was from how she responded to questions I'd ask (on how to do my job properly) and I noticed that she didn't read emails either, the responses I'd get back quite often showed that much.
You don't have to do a thing perfect, just relentlessly.

User avatar
magari
Forum Member
Forum Member
Posts: 824
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2014 3:43 am
Location: Colorado

Re: 2+2=5 if someone who can destroy you says so

Post by magari »

Could you do her job?

User avatar
Cybernetic_Jazz
Forum Member
Forum Member
Posts: 1219
Joined: Thu Sep 26, 2013 9:12 pm
Location: On a play date with the Universe.

Re: 2+2=5 if someone who can destroy you says so

Post by Cybernetic_Jazz »

Don't know.

Things get iffy based on neurological issues - ie. fatigue, needing to examine things ad nauseum because instinct doesn't make up the difference, and it takes people a while to understand what I'm saying - I understand that in the corporate world if you put so much as a 'the' in the wrong place people act like you brought the apocalypse; writing for 3rd grade vocabulary level still isn't enough.

it's a toss up I guess. Any place I go I'll do my best but I could equally sink or swim - by my best efforts - based on how organized or how much of a madhouse these places are.
You don't have to do a thing perfect, just relentlessly.

User avatar
magari
Forum Member
Forum Member
Posts: 824
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2014 3:43 am
Location: Colorado

Re: 2+2=5 if someone who can destroy you says so

Post by magari »

Cybernetic_Jazz wrote:Don't know.

Things get iffy based on neurological issues - ie. fatigue, needing to examine things ad nauseum because instinct doesn't make up the difference, and it takes people a while to understand what I'm saying - I understand that in the corporate world if you put so much as a 'the' in the wrong place people act like you brought the apocalypse; writing for 3rd grade vocabulary level still isn't enough.

it's a toss up I guess. Any place I go I'll do my best but I could equally sink or swim - by my best efforts - based on how organized or how much of a madhouse these places are.
Don't take this the wrong way, I'm only trying to motivate you, but I didn't hear you.

Yes or no, could you have done her job?

User avatar
Cybernetic_Jazz
Forum Member
Forum Member
Posts: 1219
Joined: Thu Sep 26, 2013 9:12 pm
Location: On a play date with the Universe.

Re: 2+2=5 if someone who can destroy you says so

Post by Cybernetic_Jazz »

magari wrote:
Cybernetic_Jazz wrote:Don't know.

Things get iffy based on neurological issues - ie. fatigue, needing to examine things ad nauseum because instinct doesn't make up the difference, and it takes people a while to understand what I'm saying - I understand that in the corporate world if you put so much as a 'the' in the wrong place people act like you brought the apocalypse; writing for 3rd grade vocabulary level still isn't enough.

it's a toss up I guess. Any place I go I'll do my best but I could equally sink or swim - by my best efforts - based on how organized or how much of a madhouse these places are.
Don't take this the wrong way, I'm only trying to motivate you, but I didn't hear you.

Yes or no, could you have done her job?
I don't know.

It would depend on how many kinds of stupid I ran into and that's something I can't predict. A straight-forward task is easy, political creole's a different story.

Without the human element - yes, easily.
With the human element - no clue.
You don't have to do a thing perfect, just relentlessly.

User avatar
magari
Forum Member
Forum Member
Posts: 824
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2014 3:43 am
Location: Colorado

Re: 2+2=5 if someone who can destroy you says so

Post by magari »

Again,

Not good enough.

You never know until you try.

Seems like it doesn't matter now, but my management style would recognize that whatever it was you were doing wasn't your best work. Doesn't mean you're to blame, but perhaps there is something else you would be better at.

I also encourage people to step outside of their comfort zone. You never know until you try.

If you were aware enough to recognize the politics of the situation why didn't you place yourself in a position to go above and beyond your current job description, perhaps save the company money and earn a promotion at the same time?

Takes some courage, but thats life.

User avatar
Cybernetic_Jazz
Forum Member
Forum Member
Posts: 1219
Joined: Thu Sep 26, 2013 9:12 pm
Location: On a play date with the Universe.

Re: 2+2=5 if someone who can destroy you says so

Post by Cybernetic_Jazz »

magari wrote:Again,

Not good enough.
I didn't feel like cutting up a piece of paper and reaching into a hat.
magari wrote:...You never know until you try.,,
Feel like we pulled this one way outside the context of what my OP question was about. I was willing to give you some time to draw out your point to see if it would circle back.

To leave on the side whether I'm at a company as a temp, as a full hire, whether the ability to go to higher ups and tell them that someone above me (whatever their senority) is bad at their job, and whatever their reaction would be to that; the context is that while I'm willing to work right at the intersection of maximum effort without damage or in other words doing things that cause residual anxiety and neuropathy. If I do the later I should probably consider selling my mystic/yogic books on Amazon, quitting the orders I'm in, and perhaps turning on the TV instead - in that case wait till I'm wise enough to balance my life in such a way to get results. In less spiritual times of my life I used to ignore that limit under pressure, was willing to power myself through anything, at the most I'm realizing that might be appropriate for a company emergency, otherwise I'm either a) in the wrong field or b) pushing my way into a Paxil prescription if I don't listen to my body. If there's an emergency in the company where we all have to put our best forward - I need those reserves to get the job done properly at that point, if I do it almost every day I'll have crap left.

As an aside you don't need to be able to relate to what I'm saying nor believe that my self-assessment is correct or realistic, I'm not demanding that and being that there's no way of passing along life experience that's not within someone else's scope I'd have no means to demand it. I just want to keep the question within the parameters.

The question - life will throw situations at you where your best won't be good enough and you will have someone riding you about it. What kinds of internal logic can you apply to keep from knuckling yourself down or worse?
You don't have to do a thing perfect, just relentlessly.

User avatar
magari
Forum Member
Forum Member
Posts: 824
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2014 3:43 am
Location: Colorado

Re: 2+2=5 if someone who can destroy you says so

Post by magari »

Roll with the punches.

Life is about how fast you get up.

It will kick you, punch you, spit in your face and kick sand in your eyes, guaranteed.

Get up, keep moving, look up and forward.


Perhaps off topic:

Drop the temp gig. The greatest company in the world cant help you if your a temp. Become fulltime somewhere you have faith in the organization's performance and culture. Then when you have an opportunity to exceed the expectations you can actually be rewarded for it.

Just my opinion

User avatar
magari
Forum Member
Forum Member
Posts: 824
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2014 3:43 am
Location: Colorado

Re: 2+2=5 if someone who can destroy you says so

Post by magari »

Find what motivates you and surround yourself with it.

Post Reply

Return to “Reason and Unreason”