be nice at home

love it when you say my name it sounds so sweeeet
coming from the lips of an angel... (:

im just done with Dreaming of a Stranger, Sheila O'Flanagan's debut novel. yays love it that i got time to read again, and love the author; and i absolutely love her characters (it's usually the modern working female kinda thing) and the fact that her novels are always set in Dublin :D dont know why haha.. it's just a thingi like. :) got to hunt for more of her books... much thanks to liy, for spreading the love <3

anyways, i was about to update yesterday when my mum decided to use the laptop. purely by coincidence, i was typing smtg about how i feel family should be nice, not mean, to each other. and i suppose she read it cos i din close the window; i'd thought (wrongly) that she'd only be awhile... oh wells i hadnt devulged much yet.

yea as i was saying. there's a few worlds we each live in- for me right now i guess there r only (a pretty sad) 2- Family and School. within Family, there's my nuclear family. and i've this new thought that we should be nice, not mean to each other at home. instead of the competitiveness and 'always trying to be the right one' thing that's been developing at home recently, perhaps it's better for the home to a getaway from all the sarcasm, outwitting and competition that already and inevitably goes on at work/school. me, i've somehow become one to either not say much at all or say smart-sounding things wherever i am depending on the company, but maybe i should cut back on that when im home and just let everything flow about smoothly. they wanna say, let them say. unless of course the ocassion is precisely an intellectual discussion about smtg that matters, then it'll only be right for me to contribute by thinking smart right.. maybe this means i should be figuring out what matters and what doesnt; what calls for me to think and what calls for me to just entertain. ok back to the point, i came up with 3 reasons for niceties at home.

1) the saying: it all begins from home- if u think abt it and turn it over and over, it seems like things you do at home are further built upon when you're not at home. so if you're nice at home, might make u an even nicer person outside. but if you're all sarcastic and mean (so as to appear snart) at home, add to that the lots of outside influence and even neccessities sometimes that make u act mean, then you might well turn out to be a really mean person outside. i hope im making some sense.

2) when we're outside and we say something mean to someone (i think... i often do this.), somehow it gets deflected into the atmosphere most of the time (am i making excuses for myself?) , and the lasting impression is something like 'oh she said something smart/stupid/mean' rather than 'oh when i said bla bla bla, she said that i was more bla bla than i think i am' (ie. the idea rather than the content.) but when it's said at home, due to the smaller community and fewer people to bounce those types of remarks upon, each receives a bigger proportion of impact from those words, and they might leave a deeper impression. plus the fact abt proximity- you're physically close since u live under the same roof, and that helps to contain and inflect around the place whatever's een said/done.

3) we've already got so much of it outside, do we really need more of that at home? it's not exactly the most pleasant type of thing to say to people; i think it's mostly for the sake of self-esteem/outlook u know, u wanna tell urself/show urself as being smart, so one way is to throw smart words that half the time is at the expense of someone else (that's just how it works, unless u hv some great knowledge database and can instead show ur smartness by rambling about ur thoughts on the nes US foreign policy amendment or some shit but even that gets boring as it isnt spontaneous), but is that really necessary? to show urself as being smart to ur own family? if u think abt it objectively, the answer is a clear no. but the reality is, in an increasing number of households, self-centredness, competition between siblings (see how siblings hv become competitors just like everyone else out there, from once being our playmate, our companion...), independence, is making it a 'Yes'- that it is neccessary and important to show urself as smart to ur own family.

it used to be, even within the community, people worked together. 'against' an outside force. they did friendly business with each otherwithin the town- if u were frens with the butcher he gave u 5% off while u charged his wife cheap for the hats she buys at ur shop. or smtg like that. then it became about making money, about rising in status and a bigger house and so on. business became more unfriendly, more cutting. if u'r my fren, then u'd understand that i need to earn money too, u know; cant go around giving freebies to u just cos i know u get what i mean? somehow the family remained as a unit. and then there's now.. with the emancipation of women, independence in youngsters, a more liberal society, people are thinking more and more about themselves rather than as a unit with they're parents and siblings or even with they're husband/wife and kids... they might not talk about/admit it, damn i'd take a bet most of them arent even self-aware of it, but this very indifference might just be what's deteriorating us as a civil society, and whats burning out our relationships.