Wednesday, June 01, 2016

I Have Robot Feelings

Lots of people have some personal thing they're spectacular at: remembering birthdays, or organization, or personal style (someone who always looks splendid, and she's fun to boot!  I envy her style skills while accepting that I will never be that person), or caring and empathetic (another friend who is always unfailingly kind).

Mine is robot feelings.  I have lots of feelings, obviously, but they don't need to influence my fact-based decisions.  Also, other people's feelings make me uncomfortable (in professional settings).   GOALS are important.  Turning in grades on time is important.  My dislike for [staff person] is irrelevant.  Everyone else's dislike for [staff person] is irrelevant.  Fire [staff person] or stop talking about it.

Or, to be more accurate, I am half-Vulcan.

What's your excellent personal thing?

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:57 AM

    You don't know how comforting it is to read someone else say this out loud on the internet. I've been mulling about related issues with the intent of writing a blog post...sometime. After I've turned my grades in on time. :)

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  2. Anonymous9:39 AM

    LOL! I envy you!

    My thing is organization, but it bites me in the ass because everything organization-related seems to fall to me because I'm a) good at it and b) care more about the details.

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  3. You and Patrick are definitely related to Spock. I admire you both tremendously, and am also continuously puzzled and surprised by your reactions to people. You're fun personalities to study.

    I'm not sure what is my excellent personal thing... perhaps my new-ish realization that if I want to become good at something I can do a bunch of research and practice. As a teenager I killed every plant I touched. Now people regard me as a plant expert. I did read practically every gardening book in the Cold City library system.

    I'm currently working on "personal style," "loving to run," and "home decorating/remodeling." It's going pretty well, I actually enjoyed sprinting yesterday. I should upload a picture of my recently completed library to Facebook. I'm quite proud of it.

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    Replies
    1. +++That worry is irrational. ++?????++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start. ++++

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  4. Snort! I have regular human feelings, but no patience for gossip or irrelvancies in the professional domain. I'm the one at the department meeting who is regularly heard to say, "Let's move on." So Spock feelings sounds awesome, because then I would not spend a lot of time being irritated. (I have a professional obligation to note that not all of our decision making is at the level of conscious awareness, though, so people who believe themselves to be rational decision makers--not you of course, those other people--are often surprised to discover what lies beneath.)

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    Replies
    1. Yes, yes, those other people! I was thinking more of simple decisions. Like: I feel sad when my kid is sad from getting shots. AND YET immunizations have more benefit than harm.

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