Before I get into this, I have to mention that Gloria liked crows. She considered them the Bikers of the avian world. They were big, and ugly, and they didn't care. Gloria always had a bit of a thing for the "bad boy." (Which sometimes makes me wonder why she married me ...)
Today I saw, on Instagram, a posting, about crows versus eagles. Well, it wasn't really about "versus," as such: it was about how eagles basically ignore crows. Crows attack eagles. Not exactly *attack*, either. They will peck at the eagle's neck, and sometimes they'll even grab onto the back of the eagle, while they're pecking on the neck. The eagle, basically, ignores this. (Again, I'm not quite sure about that, because I've seen crows dive bombing eagles, and the eagles don't seem to appreciate it very much, and try and get out of the way. But that's as may be.) At any rate, this video goes on to say that the eagle doesn't do anything in particular about getting rid of the crow: it'll just keep on flying higher and higher. And, as the eagle flies higher and higher, it gets to a level where the crow runs short on oxygen, and basically has to let go and fall off.
(Again, I rather question this. I don't know that eagles would get much higher than about ten thousand feet. And ten thousand feet isn't really enough for oxygen deprivation. Yes, it's high enough that if you are exerting yourself, you will find work difficult. But if you are simply hanging on to something, it shouldn't be a problem. Birds, probably eagles or condors in the Himalayas, do get up to the twenty-five thousand, and even thirty thousand, foot range, in specialised cases. But that isn't the bald eagle and crow situation that the author of the video is talking about.)
At any rate, it's not the problems with the video that the video got me thinking about, but rather Gloria.
Gloria used to get very annoyed, on my behalf, at people who would attack me in various ways. Sometimes it was people who would steal my work. Sometimes with people who would interfere with my projects because they wanted to take them over. And Gloria would say, "Doesn't that make you angry?"
My first response to this was generally along the lines of, "What good would that do?" If I get angry at these people, are they going to stop? No, of course not. They probably don't even think they're doing anything wrong. the Kruger-Dunning effect takes over, in this situation, and they think that they are more competent than I, even though they are not competent enough to be able to judge my competence. They think they are better, and smarter, and more qualified than I am. Oh, well. Does my getting mad help to change their mind? Of course not. If I get mad, it simply confirms, in their minds, the fact that I don't have the patience and tolerance necessary for a project of this calibre.
So, it's not going to change them. Does it do me any good to get mad? No, it just means that I'm angry. That may be somewhat energising, but it has a number of downsides.
Gloria would sometimes push at this reaction. Wasn't it unjust that mean people were working against me, were attacking me, were stealing my thoughts, projects, or opportunities? Yes, it's unjust. What can I do about it? There isn't anything that is going to change the situation for the better, for me. So, why fight it?
But when Gloria was really annoyed at someone attacking me, I would go to my main argument, which was that these people are desperate to take over, or were desperate to steal something of mine and make it theirs, or were desperate to be more important than they actually were. They were fighting hard against me because whatever they were fighting for was the biggest thing in their lives. Whether it was status, or a particular position, or being tied to a particular idea or project, it was huge to them.
It wasn't necessarily to me.
The thing is, I had a larger world, and a larger world view, than they did. Sometimes even though they were more important, or richer, or had more social status than I had to begin with. That didn't matter. I had the larger view. I have participated on a larger stage. I had more perspective on what was important and what wasn't.
They were crows. I was the eagle.
My world was bigger than their world.
They needed to fight terribly hard to try and steal or take over what I had started or had created. It was vitally important to them, because they had little or nothing else.
The thing is, it didn't matter as much to *me.* Even though I had created it, and may have loved it on that basis. Yes, I had put some work into it. But if they stole that idea, well, yes they had stolen some of my time. But that wasn't all that I had. I had other projects. I had other ideas. I *always* had other ideas and projects. I always had other possibilities. And in a sense, I was sorry for these people. Because they *didn't* have other possibilities. They couldn't generate ideas. They couldn't create something of their own. They had to steal what I had started, because they couldn't do it themselves.
At the moment I've got at least half a dozen writing projects and ideas that I could be working on. If someone decided to somehow steal *this* particular idea, and pass it off as theirs, well, okay, that's annoying. I have lost a few hours that I spent working on it. But it's not the end of the world. I can just go to the next idea on the list and pick up there.
It's not that it doesn't matter at all, to me. It does. I don't like people wasting my time. I don't like being disregarded or disrespected or having my work ignored. And, generally speaking, when somebody else steals my work they do a bad job of it, and the idea gets trashed because they didn't do a good job of developing it. But it's not the end of the world, for me. I have other options to try. I have other projects to work on. I have other ideas to develop.
My world is larger. I am the eagle.
The crows are annoying. Yes, sometimes I wish they weren't around. And, very often, I wish that they wouldn't have ruined a good idea that they took over and trashed. But what good does it do me to get mad about it? It doesn't help the world. It doesn't help me. It doesn't help anybody. Much better to just go on to the next idea.
And hope that nobody notices until I get it started ...
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