NaDiWriMo Day 1

It occurred to me an interesting thing to do for nanowrimo (um, in addition to a cut down nanowrimo), would be to write an actual diary every day. Not like my previous "blog on a topic" in December which was also fun, but just "what I'm doing today". It's not worth doing that all the time, because there's a lot of repetition but for one month, describing my normal life sounds quite interesting. And it should be fairly easy because I know what I need to do anyway.

This is more like, what's *scheduled* for the day than what I *did* on a day.

Today, before work:

Text "Rabbits" to mum for the first of the month. Apparently some people think this is a superstition? But Mum said it was a tradition, so I'm following mum's lead :)

Tidy so cleaner can clean. I still feel guilty that everything isn't tidy *every* day, but I hear that's fairly normal.

Today, at work:

In theory I get up at 8 and get to work for 9, or maybe ten past. But this is slipped later to somewhere more like 9:20 - 9:40. And I leave pretty much on time. Which is pretty good, and better than previous jobs, where my whole day has been later, which is traditional for programmers but didn't actually suit me that well. But I wish I could be just that last little bit more efficient and arrive at a time which isn't "I can't be later than this or it would look bad".

My actual work is a mix of "these things which are good but not quite on the critical path" and "starting one of the bigger chunks of work on the critical path but need to talk to people about it first"

After work:

I (and hopefully Liv) will go to poly meet.

I am doing a cut-down nanowrimo this year. My goal is to do 1000 words a day for the first half of the month, on a combination of short stories. I'm deliberately setting a goal I hope is easy, so if I run late I can still be successful. But I'm hoping that if I do well I can keep that pace up for the rest of the month.

So I need to start writing today.

Being shouted at

If I'm sure someone is unreasonable, or just that I don't want to listen, I can withstand them very effectively. I'm not *great* at social interaction, but when it's blatantly clear someone else is ignoring normal-polite-convention, I don't feel a *moral* imperative to hold up end. Like, maybe you should never be deliberately hurtful to someone, but if you tell someone fifteen times that you're late for something important, and they keep saying, "oh, I just remembered", etiquette is clearly on YOUR side when you say you need to go and walk off, even if they keep shouting a conversation at you as you walk away. It may be HARD to do that, if society trains you not to, but it's *OK*.

But in many other situations, basically whenever anyone expresses something forcefully, with hurt or anger, I always feel obligated to agree with them immediately. And indeed, it feels hypocritical to exaggerate my agreement, so I feel like I need to agree -- and then make sure all the rest of my brain is updated accordingly, I can't go back to ignoring it afterwards. For a long time I rationalised that as caring about them, and not invalidating them (after all, trusting someone when they tell you about something they're really angry/upset/passionate about is usually a good thing).

But I have to admit, that rationalisation, even if it might be more flattering, is not exactly true. I feel obliged to agree a lot more urgently when someone is forceful about something, even when I'm *not* more sure they're right.

What made me realise was interacting with young children, old enough to talk clearly but young enough to occasionally have angry meltdowns where I could understand the cause even though I couldn't fix it. That just being shouted at gives me an intense urge to cave in, even though I know with complete confidence that (a) I couldn't have averted the problem in any way (b) the anger comes more from hunger, frustration, or general overwhelmedness, not the particular thing (c) being reassuring is more help than anything else. And indeed, if it happens, I do deal with it the right way and it is ok after, and it's not their fault, it's the fault of the situation.

But it made me realise, that it wasn't anything about other people, a bit of my brain is just programmed to stop standing up to people when they shout at me, and even though it performs a useful function, it's can often be a really bad thing and I shouldn't let it run rampant.

But I don't know what I SHOULD do with that bit of my brain. It's not exactly, "I will agree with people even though they're wrong if they shout". It's like, "if they shout, then my brains assumes they can't possibly be wrong". And often that's good -- if someone has a legitimate grievance, it should be on me, not on them, to make understanding happen, so blank-check agreement could be necessary. But I also know, many people may not play by the rules -- may simply have learned that making a fuss gets their way, and not necessarily be more right, and not standing up to them is more like cowardice than justice. But I don't want to stop in the moment to debate if someone's grievance is justified (unless I already know in advance).