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On knowing how to work
Apr. 25th, 2015 01:40 amOne of the odder things about having to read Phil's biography is his being described as having a mercurial temperament. The dictionary definition of this is, of course, "characterized by rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood." The definition that presents itself when confronted with Phil's actual behaviour is "being an infantile idiot who is only happy when things are going exactly his way" because he's great company as long as no one puts any sort of obstacle in the way of getting what he wants, damn the rights, wants and needs of everyone else. The reason that I mention this is the irritating habit he has of describing Mike as devious and fiendish for not immediately understanding something that took him years to master. This makes Mister Mercurial yet another idiot adult who expects immediate perfection from a mere child when he himself spent years honing his craft.
This is not a good situation for the boy because he has two imbecile parents who combine perfectionism with an appalling refusal to admit that expecting instant excellence from him is perhaps logically unsound and morally questionable. Worse, they share with Phil the logically unsustainable and inhumanely stupid idea that since they themselves are no longer children, the fear, confusion and depression they themselves felt have been abolished forever so any claim that he feels lost and overwhelmed is a horrible lie calculated to trick them into feeling bad about an ungrateful wretch who doesn't have nearly enough stress in his life.
It becomes worse when you remember that these are the least organized set of imbeciles to ever have lived. We thus not only have to deal with the Mike of the Early and Middle Years being hectored to lift higher than the person screaming about weakness, laziness and selfishness can lift, carry more than an adult can carry and work for more time than a grown man can, he also has to run around in circles like an imbecile because of the mercurial demands on his time. The end result of all of this is that he has a verkakte work ethic that confuses quantity with quality. This habit of his of taking pride in churning out abysmal nonsense by the terabyte is akin to how it's probably a dead certainty that Elly's last thoughts will be of how great it is that she did all that laundry ineptly and how vigorous she was in the pointless task of sweeping a back porch no one sees.
This is not a good situation for the boy because he has two imbecile parents who combine perfectionism with an appalling refusal to admit that expecting instant excellence from him is perhaps logically unsound and morally questionable. Worse, they share with Phil the logically unsustainable and inhumanely stupid idea that since they themselves are no longer children, the fear, confusion and depression they themselves felt have been abolished forever so any claim that he feels lost and overwhelmed is a horrible lie calculated to trick them into feeling bad about an ungrateful wretch who doesn't have nearly enough stress in his life.
It becomes worse when you remember that these are the least organized set of imbeciles to ever have lived. We thus not only have to deal with the Mike of the Early and Middle Years being hectored to lift higher than the person screaming about weakness, laziness and selfishness can lift, carry more than an adult can carry and work for more time than a grown man can, he also has to run around in circles like an imbecile because of the mercurial demands on his time. The end result of all of this is that he has a verkakte work ethic that confuses quantity with quality. This habit of his of taking pride in churning out abysmal nonsense by the terabyte is akin to how it's probably a dead certainty that Elly's last thoughts will be of how great it is that she did all that laundry ineptly and how vigorous she was in the pointless task of sweeping a back porch no one sees.
