The More Arrogant, the Less Convincing
The idea is that with age comes experience and with experience comes wisdom.
That’s the idea, anyway.
I am a huge Survivor nerd. I’ve watched every episode of every season with relish. Yes, it is acknowledged that it is reality television and is highly curated to tell a story of heroes and villains. It is also an incredible opportunity to see society in a microcosm (with super cool obstacle courses that end in puzzles).
While the producers and editors can craft the narrative, they cannot craft who gets voted out and why. It is the why that fascinates me. If there is a lesson in watching the game it is this: those who are the most confident and openly exude that feeling without reflection or humility almost always lose.
I would never win the game of Survivor. Not because I’m so fucking honest or due to my strong ethical center. I would lose because I am self-confident and in every word and deed. I am often adamantly convinced I am right about most things and have no qualm about letting you know that I am. In the long list of qualities about me, those who find me most awful, it is my intellectual and verbal bludgeon that tops it. Even when I’m trying to be more humble, it shows in my tone of voice, in my facial reactions, in my manner.
As I turned the corner from my forties to my fifties (and specifically once I realized I no longer was interested in playing the game in Chicago anymore) I decided to actively focus more on my personal Spock than Kirk; more stoicism than bravado. It turns out that fundamental change is REALLY. FUCKING. HARD.
Now, life as a manager in a casino has a certain set of limitations. My job is, in part, being hospitable to people I don’t know well so they stay and gamble. This is done through conversation. Fist bumps. Smiles. Inquiries about their lives. It is absolutely not accomplished by sharing my political views. The job often requires me to listen to all manner of horseshit conspiracy theories, borderline bigots, passive misogyny, and a view of the poor in the world as simply lazy.
The Kirk in me wants to double-fist punch some players (set to the orchestration of early Star Trek fights—Bada da da da bada da dum timpani timpani timpani) but I struggle to find my Spock every time. I know that if I let on that I think these goons are morons, the jig is up and I am now one of those liberals. Talk down to guest, lose his business.
Sure, my moral compass screams in my snake brain that standing up for what I believe in is righteous but I’m old enough (and wiser, maybe) to enjoy the food and roof over my head to dismiss the paycheck at the end of the exchange for that non-paying sense of self-righteousness. Let those who don’t wake up with random neck pain and the potential for colon cancer engage in that soft pursuit.
Once in awhile, however, I can’t help but be the arrogant know-it-all who I have been in my past.
It was his insistence on calling it “the Chinese virus” that set me off. After a week straight of doing my level best to keep the staff onsite of the closed down casino from falling into dual pits of despair and panic, I was drained. His repeated use of the phrase took advantage of my weakened state and I lost my shit. I spoke to him the way most of the Twitter Left communicate to the Right and all of the die-hard Bernie supporters bark at everyone: arrogantly and with the tone of an angry lecturer.
He was “a racist. A piece of shit. A bigot. A Trump trolling moron.” I couldn’t stop myself. It was if the months doing my best to channel Spock had pent up my Kirk and he burst forth in full swagger and self-righteous speechifying.
The worst part was not that I lost it or that I wept in my car on the way home. The worst part was that, in my certainty and conviction, my tone of over confidence and quasi-intellectual jargon, I did not in any way convince him not to use the phrase “the Chinese virus.” I’d guess that all I did was cement him in the use of that noxious Trumpian phrase.
And I did not succeed in my job.
I would never win Survivor. My arrogant, impulsive Kirk is kind of always waiting in the wings. I see him in so many people, absolutely convinced of their own critical thinking skills while mostly reacting from a highly emotional and kneejerk place. I hear it in the tone of voice—believe me, regardless of gender, plenty of fucking people can’t help but #mansplain.
But I’m trying the best I can in my elder statesman phase to access the Spock especially in times of stress. Pragmatic. Logical. Calm. Kirk is always there but the parts I try to embrace are the optimistic. The Adventure. The Joy of Discovery.
Maybe with enough practice I’ll be ready for the show. Maybe not. The point is improvement, after all. With age comes experience, with experience comes wisdom. Am I wiser? I hope so.
