Perceptions

Right. Note to … uh … just about everyone I know. Just so you know, I’m going to equalise you all: your name is Bob, you’re an industrial-gothic rock journalist action-RPG fanboy, and a big fat slutbucket to boot.

Here’s a rant, perhaps because I’m tired … perhaps because I was awake half the night with near-hurricane-force winds battering the house … perhaps because I’m signed off with flu and feverish … or maybe just because there’s a running theme here.

Just reading an exasperated message on Twitter. Another person trying to manage everyone else’s opinion of them, about who they are and about what they do. He’s maybe the third or fourth person this week to do that. To correct a name, to challenge an expectation or to try to control the way another person views them. Just like every band who’s ever tried to divorce themselves from the genre with which they are associated. How do you do that?

Answer: you can’t. Any time you walk into a room, the people in that room have made up their minds about you before you even open your mouth. Perhaps you can alter it … God knows, I’ve heard “You’re not like I expected you to be” enough times in my life – generally from anyone who’s formed a negative impression without even bothering to say hello. Does it worry me? No. Because your opinion of me is your problem, and my trying to force that into a particular direction is like trying to push water uphill.

Whatever reputation or label you are trying to fight against, arguing about it is never going to make people represent you the way that you want to be represented. All the breath you waste in resisting something that is by its very nature completely outside your control is breath you should be spending on proving them wrong simply by being something else. Don’t worry about what they’re thinking; chances are, they’re only worried about your own opinion of them.

xkcd: duty calls