There are so many conflicts globally nowadays: The coronavirus death count broke over 1000 today, while the cruise ship in Japan remains quarantined, the most recent Academy Awards had an issue of too few minority nominees, which somewhat overshadowed Parasite's win for Best Picture and Director Bong Joon Ho, airlines are now starting to ban passengers from watch porn while in flight (I really did not know that people did that), and I have a daily internal clash about whether to buy some TSLA stock or not despite already missing the huge move from 300 to 750 ( I AM happy that AMZN stock finally broke out and is moving higher steadily). Andrew Yang dropped out of the Democratic race for President after tonight's New Hampshire primary, while the remaining candidates are clashing during debates and online over issues such as electability, policies, and who said what. Nancy Pelosi and President Trump had a big public conflict during the State of the Union address last week where Trump refused to shake Pelosi's hand, Pelosi ripped up a copy of Trump's speech.
So many conflicts reported in the news, but most people are still preoccupied mostly with their own individual conflicts: with coworkers, with family members, with friends, with random strangers on the street, it's how we deal with those conflicts that largely defines who we are. It's all nice and friendly when you first meet someone, as we're mostly conditioned to give others the benefit of the doubt and to put our best foot forward to give a good first impression, but paradoxically the more we know someone the more conflicts develop, and personality clashes ensue. Accordingly, I often judge people and whether I want to continue being friends with someone based on how well they manage conflicts with others, or how often they have conflicts (the less the better, but if they handle those conflicts relatively well, it may mitigate the concerns).
My mom and I often have personality clash, butting heads since literally the day I was born about my school work, college choice, career choice, daily habits, etc., etc., etc. These problems creep up every so often if I visit on the weekends or on holidays, but are somewhat defused when I go back to my own home. If I stay for extended time with my mom......sparks could fly. Luckily, our relationship otherwise is strong enough to withstand the major personality clashes, but many times other relationships are not able to.
I work in a close office environment where most people are within sight (and smell, and hearing) of each other, and it drove a couple of co-workers who used to be friends to become enemies. Actually pretty sad, a pair of strong personalities who are otherwise nice but have personal preferences and hygiene issues and daily habits that drive each other insane, and suddenly it's become a huge issue that people gossip about and becomes uncomfortable for everyone else in the office.
Sometimes, as I tell MJ, it's not necessarily that someone is a bad person and can't get along with other person, or person A is normal but person B is bad, but rather that person A and person B just have clashing personalities. They just don't mix well, like oil and water. Mix them with other combinations of people and they get along great, can be great friends. Some common toxic combos are reserved v. outspoken, "loose and carefree" about cleanliness v. obsessively compulsive about cleanliness, vegans v. everyone else. Neither side is necessarily wrong, it's just that they can't co-exist.
The genius of Survivor the reality show (and part of why I liked it) was that they played off of this by forcing groups of people with clashing personalities to be stuck on an island together and have to live with each other. And be severely hungry (and hangry) all the time, causing their most basic instinctual personalities to come out and do battle with others' personalities, and the conflict makes for great TV. I'm convinced that Survivor, Big Brother, Amazing Race, all of my most favorite reality TV shows looked for characters who had clashing personalities so that they would get into disagreements and fights, which is part of the reason I never got cast: not big enough of a personality, and I pride myself on being able to resolve differences in personality by compromising. "Compromise" is not a great word for reality TV producers. However, some Survivor winners were really good at compromise enough to win the show, and this week they start Survivor 40: the winner season. It was the ultimate social experiment that really shows on live TV the perils of living too long with someone, having personalities clash and boil over, eventually driving each other insane. I just can't help but watch, as Survivor has been part of my growth into an adult for the last 18+ years, and it'll be a great way to end my social experiment-watching days.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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