Tags
all scientists are black belts, Asians, beloved friends, college, cowardice, douchebaggery, foreign kid, friendship, fun with foreigners, hillarifying, Joey Park, Ricky Ricardo, South Korea, ugly Americans, well-deserved beatings, why am I so loutish?
By Tardsie
In which I avoid the beating I so richly deserve.
And if you haven’t already checked out Part I and Part II, you should. I think I come off looking like a pretty cool guy.
The Image Seen Here Has No Relevance Whatsoever To This Post.
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Look, If He Hasn’t Killed Me Yet, He’s Probably Not Going To.
Dedicated with love to my brother “Joey Park.” I’m a richer man just for having known you, and obviously, I appreciate you not handing me my own ass that one time. We are forever Feds. ∞ T.
Promethean Times 
After hearing what you said to him, I kind of wish he had kicked your butt. For himself and for all the women who hate that stupid phrase. Go Joey! (Wait, here it comes: 😉 )
Oh, I’m not stepping into THAT trap. But that–of all the reasons Joey might have had to perpetrate violence on me–THAT’s the reason I deserved a beating? The world is made richer by humanity’s many opinions.
Whatevs.
I kid, but it’s not a phrase I care much for either. And it’s funny, if you’d asked me (independent of the memory of this story), I’d tell you that I’ve never liked that phrase. And yet I distinctly remember using it in this instance. I have a feeling that I’m suffering from a culture-created memory (my term; I don’t know the technical term, although you might), whereby a person remembers himself/herself as he or she would LIKE to be. A great barometer of this is gay marriage. I think most people who support gay marriage honestly believe they have always supported gay marriage, although opinion polls from the last couple decades say differently.
It’s disappointing to find that I’m subject to the same memory tricks as the rest of the population. I pride myself on introspection. Which, I hasten to add, is not at all the same thing as introversion. Because, you know…
Introverts often excel at introspection. Which is apropos of nothing, but I wanted to throw it out there.
Well, without taking anything away from your statement, I think people have the idea that extroverts (or at the very least non-introverted day-walkers like myself) aren’t introspective, which I don’t think is true at all. Nor do I really think they’re any less introspective.
I actually think that most people are a lot less introspective than they think. I think there’s more to introspection than just being up inside your own head. True introspection involves the uniquely human activity of thinking about your thoughts and actions, your motivations. Understanding why we think and act the way we do, beyond even the simplistically prosaic emotional explanations (because I was mad, because I was stupid, because I’m in love, because that’s just the way I am) to understand the factors influencing our perceptions and decision-making. To some degree I think it’s something of a discipline or a learned skill, not something we do instinctively.
I couldn’t agree more.