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I Find That Mollycoddling!
Nov. 25th, 2025 05:48 am They say the quietest people have the loudest minds.
I have a complicated relationship with language.
One the one hand, it helps me understand. On the other, it detaches me from the present moment. Thoughts become a filter rather than a tool, a crutch instead of an option.
I was here once before, saying I'm done journaling because of how hollow it made me feel. So why am I still doing it? Did I betray myself? Or was I simply embarrassed? Or is English the wrong language for my temperament? Like the kanto and kansai dialects of Japanese, which are as different from each other as night and day; one reflecting the sophisticated and emotionally stiff culture of Tokyo, the other the friendly and emotionally colourful culture of Osaka. I had been learning French but ran into a similar issue with all the dialects that exist, and the learning curve was too steep for me. Japanese is much easier, some of the kanji aside. Russian as well. I've never learned a language fluently because you need to use it frequently to get good at it. I learned Spanish and Gaelic Irish in school and forgot all about them, apart from a few key phrases and the Our Father prayer. Like so many hobbies, I never had the patience to pace myself. The real reason Japanese is so easy for me is because the culture is so rich and fascinating, I'm always engaging with it one way or another since my early teens.
Unless I'm caffeinated or impassioned, I'm a person of limited conversation in real life. I don't talk about myself, I'm very guarded. I prefer to listen. Even with family and friends I know well, I prefer to be low key and to listen instead. How to bridge the gap between my online and offline persona has been a challenge I thought I had long overcome, funny that it has come up now. In reality I'm quiet, stiff and sometimes rehearsed. I can go months not talking to someone until I feel like I have something to say to them. But more often than not, my attentive demeanor traps me in conversations with people who crave to be listened to. And God help me if I engage with a man between 25-40 years old. They do not know when to shut the fuck up.
But now I'm in a situation where, for probably the first time ever, I'm the one who puts too much importance on words. I keep trying to say something without being able to say it directly, using a myriad of expressions to dance around the point as if it will cut me. My words feel so hollow coming out of me. Too logical? Too safe. Trying to make myself seem more in control than I am. I think I am a little afraid. Afraid of saying the wrong thing or afraid of being misinterpreted, so I compose and polish and refine until there are no cracks or creases that I can perceive. I want every base covered, every potential question answered. But by doing so I discourage conversation; I become an echo chamber impossible to connect to on an emotional level.
Just because I'm trying to take it easy doesn't mean it's easy; overcoming persistent and useless thinking is a process not a switch. The attitude is the switch, it is the determination to be free of limiting patterns of thought. The tendency to be excessively verbose is the mind's attempt to protect my heart or psyche. That's what it was always about, of course. There are layers to this thing and even though my mind is totally calm, it still leaps to defend when there's no actual threat. Some fears are too deeply embedded. They're locked in their bunkers and vaults, believing there's still a war going on. Language is the bridge. It's the phone line. Some lines are censored and composed as if at gunpoint. Diplomatic, measured, final. My thoughts no longer trap me like before, but as I feel my way around, I sense parts of me have developed a kind of Stockholm Syndrome - parts of me don't want to be free, or they don't know they need liberation. "These walls aren't trapping me, they are keeping me safe." They seem to say. I am reminded of The Handmaid's Tale all of a sudden. This and the line about the difference between freedom to and freedom from. So, I ask myself - what am I keeping myself "free from"? I'm not afraid of being misunderstood or causing negativity or being disliked.
The answer was instant - I am afraid of hurting someone else. I am afraid of my own sharp edges. So, I soften my roughness. I know I mean well, that my intentions are good, but what would become of my gentleness if I allowed myself to be cruel, even for a moment? I seem to take a measure of pride in my curated nurturing persona, even though that's an illusion. Like the moon, I soften my deadly craters with a sunlit glow. "I mean no harm or disrespect, please believe me."
When I was eleven years old I entered a talent show at my school. A girl who was meant to go on stage before me was stalling. She had stage fright and started crying about it while everyone flocked over to soothe her and encourage her. Meanwhile, I leaned back, rolled my eyes and said "it's gonna be a looong night." I thought it was pathetic and stupid, like why would you enter a talent show if you're afraid of being in front of an audience? She obviously didn't mind the attention she got from crying. Another girl who was soothing her shot me a venomous look "don't be so mean." It kind of made me feel like shit, I thought maybe she's right. I can't remember if the girl went on stage or not, but I won first place after my performance.
The other day I was remembering a really good book I read and reread a few times, "I Find That Offensive!" by Claire Fox. In it, there was a part where she talked about how schools in recent decades have expanded and redefined what bullying is. It went from physical violence, to mean words, to exclusion from activities. She believes it's become excessive mollycoddling, creating thin-skinned children who grow into adults terrified of challenging ideas. They become easily triggered by words, to the point where Harvard law professors had to make study in rape law optional and heavily filtered because it's too sensitive for some students, causes them to have panic attacks. "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me." Is considered an archaic and damaging saying, when its function is profoundly empowering. But I grew up in a generation where insults can be just as damaging as physical harm, if not worse. Kids kill themselves. Violence in school has changed from getting your head shoved down a toilet to being broken down verbally. And instead of teaching children self-defense, we tell them to "not be mean". I was literally raised to be a people pleaser. Honesty was never rewarded, only punished, unless it was filtered through gentleness and lots of positive affirmation to protect the fragile ego of developing minds. Bubblewrap that shit. But there's a difference between someone who is honest because they know you can be better, and someone who is brutal because they want to knock you down. I think in that moment, when I mocked that crying girl, something twisted in me. I didn't want to be mean. I didn't see her as a threat to me, I was borderline arrogant in my confidence to go on stage. But I did think her crying was a waste of time. Either go perform or don't? Why make a big drama out of it? Nothing personal I just wanna get it over with and go home? What's more narcissistic and selfish than holding up literally everyone with your crying? I saw it as "tough love" but I came across as a bitch. Bitches have no friends, not as far as I knew, and I didn't want to earn a bad reputation while I was still fairly new at this school. Since then I could never be totally honest with anyone except maybe myself. I've always been harsh on myself, I've even been told so by others, though I never saw it that way. The positive self-affirmation shit makes me cringe, I don't care if talking nicely to yourself in the mirror is "backed by science" or whatever. Even when I was getting assessed for depression psychologists struggled to understand that my condition was not because of negative thoughts about myself, not because I actually heard my inner voice berating me or anything. They were literally just feelings, I just felt like shit about myself and my life, whether or not I was actually thinking about anything. They signed me up for CBT which is literally just institutionalised self-gaslighting. It pissed me off. And the only reason therapy worked was because the person didn't shove their ideas on me and let me work it out myself with a little nudging in the right direction. I needed an objective observer, basically.
"If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all." Was another thing I was raised to obey since childhood. So now I do one of two things - I speak nothing of the truth, or I use a lot of careful words to mask it. If the truth is not unpleasant or potentially harmful to anybody's ego, I speak it immediately, however.
At the core of my fear is an instinct to defend my pride, my reputation. School is over but I still act like I'm there, about to be branded a bully because I said what I was thinking. Funny how small things like that still stick in my mind, even after nearly twenty years. If you're going to be so sensitive over everything like that, how can you be truly moved by anything that actually matters?
I have a complicated relationship with language.
One the one hand, it helps me understand. On the other, it detaches me from the present moment. Thoughts become a filter rather than a tool, a crutch instead of an option.
I was here once before, saying I'm done journaling because of how hollow it made me feel. So why am I still doing it? Did I betray myself? Or was I simply embarrassed? Or is English the wrong language for my temperament? Like the kanto and kansai dialects of Japanese, which are as different from each other as night and day; one reflecting the sophisticated and emotionally stiff culture of Tokyo, the other the friendly and emotionally colourful culture of Osaka. I had been learning French but ran into a similar issue with all the dialects that exist, and the learning curve was too steep for me. Japanese is much easier, some of the kanji aside. Russian as well. I've never learned a language fluently because you need to use it frequently to get good at it. I learned Spanish and Gaelic Irish in school and forgot all about them, apart from a few key phrases and the Our Father prayer. Like so many hobbies, I never had the patience to pace myself. The real reason Japanese is so easy for me is because the culture is so rich and fascinating, I'm always engaging with it one way or another since my early teens.
Unless I'm caffeinated or impassioned, I'm a person of limited conversation in real life. I don't talk about myself, I'm very guarded. I prefer to listen. Even with family and friends I know well, I prefer to be low key and to listen instead. How to bridge the gap between my online and offline persona has been a challenge I thought I had long overcome, funny that it has come up now. In reality I'm quiet, stiff and sometimes rehearsed. I can go months not talking to someone until I feel like I have something to say to them. But more often than not, my attentive demeanor traps me in conversations with people who crave to be listened to. And God help me if I engage with a man between 25-40 years old. They do not know when to shut the fuck up.
But now I'm in a situation where, for probably the first time ever, I'm the one who puts too much importance on words. I keep trying to say something without being able to say it directly, using a myriad of expressions to dance around the point as if it will cut me. My words feel so hollow coming out of me. Too logical? Too safe. Trying to make myself seem more in control than I am. I think I am a little afraid. Afraid of saying the wrong thing or afraid of being misinterpreted, so I compose and polish and refine until there are no cracks or creases that I can perceive. I want every base covered, every potential question answered. But by doing so I discourage conversation; I become an echo chamber impossible to connect to on an emotional level.
Just because I'm trying to take it easy doesn't mean it's easy; overcoming persistent and useless thinking is a process not a switch. The attitude is the switch, it is the determination to be free of limiting patterns of thought. The tendency to be excessively verbose is the mind's attempt to protect my heart or psyche. That's what it was always about, of course. There are layers to this thing and even though my mind is totally calm, it still leaps to defend when there's no actual threat. Some fears are too deeply embedded. They're locked in their bunkers and vaults, believing there's still a war going on. Language is the bridge. It's the phone line. Some lines are censored and composed as if at gunpoint. Diplomatic, measured, final. My thoughts no longer trap me like before, but as I feel my way around, I sense parts of me have developed a kind of Stockholm Syndrome - parts of me don't want to be free, or they don't know they need liberation. "These walls aren't trapping me, they are keeping me safe." They seem to say. I am reminded of The Handmaid's Tale all of a sudden. This and the line about the difference between freedom to and freedom from. So, I ask myself - what am I keeping myself "free from"? I'm not afraid of being misunderstood or causing negativity or being disliked.
The answer was instant - I am afraid of hurting someone else. I am afraid of my own sharp edges. So, I soften my roughness. I know I mean well, that my intentions are good, but what would become of my gentleness if I allowed myself to be cruel, even for a moment? I seem to take a measure of pride in my curated nurturing persona, even though that's an illusion. Like the moon, I soften my deadly craters with a sunlit glow. "I mean no harm or disrespect, please believe me."
When I was eleven years old I entered a talent show at my school. A girl who was meant to go on stage before me was stalling. She had stage fright and started crying about it while everyone flocked over to soothe her and encourage her. Meanwhile, I leaned back, rolled my eyes and said "it's gonna be a looong night." I thought it was pathetic and stupid, like why would you enter a talent show if you're afraid of being in front of an audience? She obviously didn't mind the attention she got from crying. Another girl who was soothing her shot me a venomous look "don't be so mean." It kind of made me feel like shit, I thought maybe she's right. I can't remember if the girl went on stage or not, but I won first place after my performance.
The other day I was remembering a really good book I read and reread a few times, "I Find That Offensive!" by Claire Fox. In it, there was a part where she talked about how schools in recent decades have expanded and redefined what bullying is. It went from physical violence, to mean words, to exclusion from activities. She believes it's become excessive mollycoddling, creating thin-skinned children who grow into adults terrified of challenging ideas. They become easily triggered by words, to the point where Harvard law professors had to make study in rape law optional and heavily filtered because it's too sensitive for some students, causes them to have panic attacks. "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me." Is considered an archaic and damaging saying, when its function is profoundly empowering. But I grew up in a generation where insults can be just as damaging as physical harm, if not worse. Kids kill themselves. Violence in school has changed from getting your head shoved down a toilet to being broken down verbally. And instead of teaching children self-defense, we tell them to "not be mean". I was literally raised to be a people pleaser. Honesty was never rewarded, only punished, unless it was filtered through gentleness and lots of positive affirmation to protect the fragile ego of developing minds. Bubblewrap that shit. But there's a difference between someone who is honest because they know you can be better, and someone who is brutal because they want to knock you down. I think in that moment, when I mocked that crying girl, something twisted in me. I didn't want to be mean. I didn't see her as a threat to me, I was borderline arrogant in my confidence to go on stage. But I did think her crying was a waste of time. Either go perform or don't? Why make a big drama out of it? Nothing personal I just wanna get it over with and go home? What's more narcissistic and selfish than holding up literally everyone with your crying? I saw it as "tough love" but I came across as a bitch. Bitches have no friends, not as far as I knew, and I didn't want to earn a bad reputation while I was still fairly new at this school. Since then I could never be totally honest with anyone except maybe myself. I've always been harsh on myself, I've even been told so by others, though I never saw it that way. The positive self-affirmation shit makes me cringe, I don't care if talking nicely to yourself in the mirror is "backed by science" or whatever. Even when I was getting assessed for depression psychologists struggled to understand that my condition was not because of negative thoughts about myself, not because I actually heard my inner voice berating me or anything. They were literally just feelings, I just felt like shit about myself and my life, whether or not I was actually thinking about anything. They signed me up for CBT which is literally just institutionalised self-gaslighting. It pissed me off. And the only reason therapy worked was because the person didn't shove their ideas on me and let me work it out myself with a little nudging in the right direction. I needed an objective observer, basically.
"If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all." Was another thing I was raised to obey since childhood. So now I do one of two things - I speak nothing of the truth, or I use a lot of careful words to mask it. If the truth is not unpleasant or potentially harmful to anybody's ego, I speak it immediately, however.
At the core of my fear is an instinct to defend my pride, my reputation. School is over but I still act like I'm there, about to be branded a bully because I said what I was thinking. Funny how small things like that still stick in my mind, even after nearly twenty years. If you're going to be so sensitive over everything like that, how can you be truly moved by anything that actually matters?
