The Simplicity in the 'Difficult'

The Simplicity in the 'Difficult'

Virtues: stubborness, respect, communications, selfish behavior

The 'Difficult' can be described as those people that are problematic & troublesome to deal with; they put up a hassle, they b*tch, complain, argumentative, slightly to severely irrational, and have an insurmountable level of the quality of stubbornness. The stubbornness is the inability or unwillingness to change and/or embrace a new idea or concept; and stubbornness relates to inability to understand where another person is coming from and not listening to what they are saying. The 'Difficult' are all around us - at the office, school, family, friends; they all at some point will find a situation where they will only care about their self-serving interests and will ignore/disregard what you are trying to say.

Varying Degrees of the Difficult
The difficult have to be one of two people; either they are very cunning and crafty OR they are very ignorant and lack comprehension skills. Either degree of the two can create headaches and problems for the individual that is dealing with this difficult specimen of human; I mean, after dealing with difficult people, many experience nausea, high blood pressure, bewilderment, and even rage. Going back to the degrees of the difficult that I outlined, the cunning & crafty difficult person is difficult because usually it ties into some logical plan that they have outlined - and they wish not to deviate from their plan. However, the ignorant and lacking comprehension skills of the difficult is usually tied not to logical thinking, but to selfish motives; the "I want to do it my way" school of thought. This group of the difficult usually can not provide logical reasons for their actions, and the only reasons they can provide are self-serving and selfish.

Dealing with the Difficult
I used to think that I am a difficult person to deal with (keyword for you mofo's is 'used'), but I had to privilege to listen in on a conversation with two people that were having a logistical/business discussion. To surmise promptly, the difficult person had gotten himself into some trouble with what he had promised without consulting his business partner; the business partner explained to the Difficult as to why what he had promised could not materialize - there must have been 10 explanations with different visual examples, but the Difficult did not get it or choose to ignore. The Difficult continued to ask the same question(s) over & over again. The business partner had to eventually come off the phone as it was raising her blood pressure and she was becoming increasingly enraged.

The whole time I was observing, I was like 'wow', dude is very difficult - he is not or is unwilling to understand simple things. Furthermore, these simple things that he was not understanding was because if he chose to understand, it would make him look very asinine ... his behavior appeared to be very difficult, but the reasons for him behaving as such were simple - he was in a jam/mess, and was trying to get out of it the best way he can.

So in the dealing with the difficult, it can be a simple process, and its not anything really profound or deep, you just got to tell the difficult how simple it is to resolve your problem, and it starts with accountability, then grows to compromise.

Explain it once, maybe twice, after the third time, let 'Mr. Tone' do the talking, first name 'dial'.

.:: d.b ::.

Silly Monkeys! Part 2: Its 'Jart' Bitch, the 'fly designer'

Silly Monkeys! Part 2: Its Jart Bitch, the 'fly designer'
Virtues: respect, responsibility, ethics, 'cant tell me nothing' syndrome
Read Part 0, the Abstract & Part 1, Strong-Arm Mike the Banker


Jart is a graphic designer. He thinks that he is very trendy and hip. Jart has a funky style; his clothes are a bit different in the cut, design, and the colors. Jart's musical tastes are very trendy as he stays away from 'mainstream' music; Jart's not into the current hip-hop/rock, but more into classic/underground hip-hop, trance, house, and other rare music. Jart's differences makes him unique; and Jart uses such differences to set him a part from others, because not only dp his differences in his personality deviate him from the norm, but his skills/abilities are also in a 'class of their own' - or so that is what Jart believes. You see, the combination of good skills/abilities with his unique distinction from the norm makes Jart a 'gassed' individual, Jart thinks he knows much more than you, Jart believes that he is superior to you - and most times, hey, Jart could be right (that's sarcasm for you). You see, over the years Jart has been told how much his work is 'hot' and 'nice' and other accolades; thus Jart does not know how to handle adversity well; you see, Jart believes that any static with a client is not because Jart is doing something wrong, but because the client does not understand Jart's greatness.

I knew a Jart, he was definitely a Jart; to the 'T', from the tight pants, neon pink shoes w/ matching hat, MacBook Pro, and backpack. This Jart was commissioned to design an interface for my company, he was going to be well compensated for his work (he was), but this Jart was a Bitch - couldn't handle criticism, when we pointed out flaws in his work, he couldn't accept that he did anything wrong, but blamed the problem on us. Jart ducked meetings, lied about things, didn't write down our notes (even though we asked him too), and Jart avoided certain members of my group (including me) because we were too critical of his work. What killed me is that this Jart Bitch was being paid handsomely for work (Jart got paid consistently and on time), and yet he treated us like ... well, you know (Check the title of this piece). One of my associated blasted Jart in an introspective essay, a blast so hard that I felt sorry for Jart, and Jart is a bitch; in the fact that he treated us with dis-respect, and took us for fools.

In retrospect, I've learned some things about Jart; his behavior, movements, and other nuances. Jart's experience with us was not pleasant, but I don't know if Jart realized the error in his ways in his tight-ass pants and pink attire, but I do know that Jart will think twice again before he treats people like silly monkeys.

Peace Jart, Bitch.

.:: d.b
Read more Silly Monkeys! sagas:
Part 0, the Abstract & Part 1, Strong-Arm Mike the Banker

Silly Monkeys! Part 0: An Abstract

Silly Monkeys! Part 0: An Abstract
Virtues: 'Yuh tek man fi fool/joke', deceit, respect for others


Abstract: One day I was sitting in the offices of my business partners place of employment at an executive school. One of their co-workers who was an older white lady, let's say in their mid-40's made an off-color comment, it went something like, "What are you silly monkeys doing". Now, we are three young black men, and we have an older lady calling us silly monkeys - albeit she said it in a joking context. I had never met the lady before, but I took her comment as someone that was clueless to what that phrase signified to a black person. However, one of my business partner took gross offense to it - which I understood why, but deep down inside I believe that she honestly did not say those words in a racist context.

But the story mentioned above is not what this piece is about, at least not the historical/racist aspect of what 'silly monkey', 'monkey', or 'porchmonkey' means to the black community. I think silly monkey is an interesting concept that can be tied to when one treats another like an idiot; one whom is deceitful, manipulative to another, and they believe that the 'silly monkey' has no clue of what they are up to. I always had this concept in my mind, but I could not phrase properly - better yet, I could not phrase in such a sweet, concise catch phrase that captured the essence of the concept.

So thank you, middle-aged white lady who was trying to make a joke and be hip with her peers, you have armed me with a definition that is timeless, transcends races & borders, and describes a daily occurrence that I, and I think a lot of us have to go through - dealing with people that take us for joke.

.:: d.b

Violators

Violators
Virtues: objectification, respect, 'mack status', inequality

First off, you must admit that the picture above is hot.

And to get in to this piece, I know you all have seen it before: you’re in the club with the music jumping, alcohol bubbling, and ladies bumping to the vibes. What I find interesting are the violators - those that take free liberty in gratifying themselves by molesting others. I never could muster the courage/efforts to run my hands all-over a woman while I dance with her. Even if I know her very well, or if we had a personal relationship in the past, I can't 'disrespect' a woman like that in-front of others. So when I see this happening in the club, its kinda disgusting -- even if the woman is fine.

So progressing, I experienced a strange event one day in class; I was chilling beside two of my female classmates that I was cool with. I was in the middle of the two, and I noticed that they were mouth-whispering to each other about something; probably about me - but I didn't really care too much even though they had mischievous & devious looks. Then out of nowhere, I felt a soft hand quickly caress my man chest - I looked to the girl on my right as she giggled. And as my attention was preoccupied, the girl on my left carried out the same action as her accomplice. So I turned my attention to the opposite side & she also giggled too. Not like this was in an isolated room, at least 50 of us were in a lecture hall as this happened. I asked 'what are you doing? She replied 'just checking out the merchandise', I was taken aback. On the one side I felt like a mack as I had two moderately hot girls groping me, also, I felt like a piece of meat; a random object that these girls felt that they could just violate & objectify - that is a horrid thought, but on the flipside if I wanted to reciprocate the gesture it wouldn't be acceptable - I would probably be charged &/or accused of something.

I guess that’s equality for you - different codes of conduct are 'suitable', depending on the environment.

So ladies, if you go to the local night club, expect to be violated.
And fellas, if ladies are violating you OUTSIDE of a club setting, hey, take solace in the fact that you 'got it' & the ladies can't control their behavior in your presence ... that’s what I did.

.:: d.b

http://desieb.blogspot.com

The Good Piece?

The GOOD Piece?
Virtues: positive, goodness, humanism, respect


I was reviewing a couple of my blogs that I have written, and I came to the conclusion that I have been mostly negative - I'm always complaining, bitching, or protesting about something. Am I going to stop? No. But I am going to try to write something a bit more 'good' - in the sense of 'good' being good things and events that are all around us. Even when I'm reading other blogs from members of myspace or beyond, the mood is very pessimistic/cynic-like.

So what 'good' is out there in the world? We can all say that God is good, family, and friends - that should be understood by all, regardless of religion, race, or creed.

The Democratization of the Internet has been good; now any mofo can expose themselves to a bigger audience, and for the most part except for Internet service fees, the Internet is primarily free, and 'we' the people are taking control of its direction (kind of).

Hip-Hop, be that it is at a pretty shitty state at the moment, hip-hop culture is still a creative artform and expression for many.

Open Source, a wild and radical idea that allows programmers to share their code with the world. Many corporations frown upon this (as it is their trade secrets), but open source, or at least the initiative, has created many useful applications: Firefox, Picasa, wikipedia, etc., with a collaborative effort of many people around the world.

Google, not just for their simplistic search engine, but for their user applications; specifically, Google docs (trust me, you'll never want to use Word or Excel again).

Environmental push, thanks to man's self-inflicted problem of global warming, and high oil prices, we have taken steps to seriously create panels to discuss the future of our environments - perhaps those panels will actually do something ... we can only hope.

Goodwill, the Tsunami, Katrina have showed that even with all of the evils in the world, humans can still give and help out their fellow man in a time of crisis; whether it is food, money, or volunteering in disaster areas.

T.V., the quality of television has surpassed the whole movie medium (in my opinion). Shows confront risqué topics and push the boundaries and limits of the norm. Shows like the Wire, Sopranos, 24, Heroes, Weeds, and others make
it more worthwhile to watch a T.V box set, rather than go out to the cinemas to pay for too much popcorn and uncomfortable seats.

Stem cell research, even though Bush is against this, this research technology can eventually solve most of the world's illnesses. The ethical issue is whether it is just to take dead cells away from an organism to help save the life of another organism (I think that is what stem cell research is, in simplistic terms).

Wow, maybe my mind is blank or that may be all of the good things that I can
think of. Can y'all help a brother out and let me know what else is really good? (No pun intended).