I’m gonna turn the question, as posed by Robert Walker’s article, “Confidence among Deafies.. or the lack of…“, around. Bear in mind, the reference to Deaf ghetto’s in Robert’s post, and my subsequent response.
Forget the social and cultural pressures that we are subject to from the day we are born [even before then, when we are nothing but a parental desire for a child]. Forget the gender and sexual politics that consume us. Forget the racial and ethnic forces that clash. Forget the social and cultural model of disability in eternal conflict with the medical and victim model of disability. Instead, think of your own unique self. Tune into your inner voice.
Do you have the courage to be yourself? Do you have the courage to sail against the prevailing winds of conformity, inspite of the empty rhetoric of democracy and freedom? For me that is the question, the central issue and the point!
You can’t talk about CONFIDENCE and his mates INITIATIVE, SELF ESTEEM, ASSERTIVENESS, MOTIVATION, without talking about the blocks and barriers that erected daily as a disincentive to freedom, and the discovery of your true self. These blocks and barriers are many. They range from the political to the social to the cultural the racial to the religious to the sexual to the personal. Then there are blocks and barriers that takes the most insidious form. That of the Projectionist.
I know the word is a noun and the person, you know how to search online dictionaries to find the meaning. I am using it as an adjective to describe a person who projects their own failures, feelings, desires, needs and wants onto another person. You know the type I mean. Good. Then we can dredge up examples of individuals who illustrate this concept. They can be your parents, your siblings or even your friends. Lord knows how our culture, inspite of its rhetoric for democracy and freedom of choice, hates the very thing. Human beings are not really very comfortable with difference. They find comfort in conformity. At least some form of it.
Parents? How often do you modify your own desires, to acquiesce to your parents wishes? How often do you stop doing something because of parental disapproval? How often do you do something to seek that very approval? Not only your parents, but your friends [peer pressure]. Actively cultivating the approval of outsiders, in preference to your own needs and desires, is to your ultimate detriment.
Back to The Projectionist. Have you ever had a friend, sibling or parent whose own self confidence [indeed, talent] so lacking, that they actively work against your own efforts to progress and grow [undermine your own self confidence]? They do this under various guises, the most common are looking out for you, highlighting the pitfalls, concern, saving you from disappointment, even saving you from yourself.
The Projectionist devotes quality time to projecting [externalising] their own desires onto an external object [friend, sibling, partner, child], sucking both themselves and their victim into a vortex of conflict and recrimination. The projectionist can take the form of an institution, an organisation, a culture or social group, and they can be more dangerous, as they have the ability to inflict damage on entire groups of people.
Yet the supreme irony [for me], is that all progress and growth towards enlightenment comes from the efforts of the brave individuals who buck the system and forge their own path. Now they may not go onto fame and fortune [there are too many bloodsuckers laying in wait], but they invariably have a large influence on culture and society. The good news is that not all of them end up in wrack and ruin.
You see my friends, the path to confidence and self awareness and self determination, starts with the words, “Fuck you. I’m gonna do what I want!”
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