{"id":697,"date":"2009-01-06T23:23:01","date_gmt":"2009-01-07T03:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/2009\/01\/06\/the-irrationality-of-defining-others\/"},"modified":"2018-08-22T22:19:56","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T02:19:56","slug":"the-irrationality-of-defining-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/?p=697","title":{"rendered":"The Irrationality of Defining Others"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If someone defines you, even in subtle ways, they are pretending <\/em>to know the unknowable.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a quality of fantasy to their words and sometimes to their actions.\u00c2\u00a0 Even so, they are usually unaware of the fact that they are playing “let’s pretend.”\u00c2\u00a0 They fool themselves and sometimes others into thinking that what they are saying is true or that what they are doing is right.<\/p>\n

When people “make up” your reality — as if they were you <\/em>— they are trying to control you, even when they don’t realize it.<\/p>\n

When people attempt to control you they begin by pretending.\u00c2\u00a0 When they define you they are acting in a senseless way.\u00c2\u00a0 They are pretending. . . .<\/p>\n

We know that they are pretending because in actual fact, no one can tell what you want, believe, should do, or why you have done what you have done.\u00c2\u00a0 No one can know your inner reality, your intentions, your motives, what you think, believe, feel, like, dislike, what you know, how you do what you do, or who you are.\u00c2\u00a0 If someone does pretend to know your inner reality: “You’re trying to start a fight,” they have it backwards. <\/em>People can only know themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t work the other way around.<\/p>\n

Since only you can define yourself, your self-definition is yours.\u00c2\u00a0 It isn’t necessary to prove it or explain it.\u00c2\u00a0 It is, after all, your own.\u00c2\u00a0 Self-definition is inherent in being a person.<\/p>\n

Despite the evidence, it is difficult for many people to realize that the person who defines them is not being rational.\u00c2\u00a0 They feel inclined to defend themselves as if the person defining them were rational.\u00c2\u00a0 But by trying to defend themselves against someone’s definitions, they are acknowledging those definitions as valid, that they make sense, when they are, in fact, complete nonsense….<\/p>\n

Millions of people try to defend themselves from abuse and describe the altercations as arguments.\u00c2\u00a0 Are they?\u00c2\u00a0 I think not.\u00c2\u00a0 I see them more as a struggle to retain one’s own reality when someone else has stepped into it.<\/p>\n

— Patricia Evans, Controlling People, <\/em>p. 58-59<\/p>\n

[Photo: South Riding, Virginia, May 3, 2014]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If someone defines you, even in subtle ways, they are pretending to know the unknowable.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a quality of fantasy to their words and sometimes to their actions.\u00c2\u00a0 Even so, they are usually unaware of the fact that they are playing “let’s pretend.”\u00c2\u00a0 They fool themselves and sometimes others into thinking that what they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,27,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing","category-relationships","category-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}