Am I an Asshole?

Well yeah - of course. I have that capacity.

But most of the time I don't think I am one. I think I'm a swell guy. I aim for a good joke here and there, and comedy is truth, but who doesn't like hearing the truth? At some point everyone gets a little bit touchy of course.

It really comes down to who takes themselves seriously or not. How are people's blood sugar levels? How is there emotional state? Do they have PMS? Has their cat just died?

Perhaps I can write off the 'being offensive due to trying to bring humour to the world' as an acceptable sacrifice. I think I have a reasonable level of emotional intelligence, I don't make fun of someone's shit new hair style while they are telling me that their mother just had a serious operation. I'm not a monster.

Am I vindictive? An eye for an eye leads the whole world blind. The best game theory strategy is tit for tat with forgiveness. I aim for mindfulness, not being attached to societies 'goals for me'. So yeah - I think all in all I'm not vindictive. I generally want the best for people. Actually I generally want the best for me, the best for me is positive relationships, and I'd rather ex communicate a sh1t person then get caught up in their world.

Am I selfish. Well yes - but I think a good form of selfishness. I am assertive and will push for what is good for me based on priorities -> higher stuff, energy, health, family, wealth, social etc. If someone wants to have a conversation with me, it is important to them, but its a drain on my energy, then fuck them its not happening. I've also dumped a load of boxes into an office once to give the signal to the current occupier that she needed to get out as I was pulling rank (she swiftly moved after dawdling for a week).

Linked to selfishness is agreeableness. It is hard to get a sense of ones own agreeableness. A family member recently sent a request (demand) to everyone to sign a petition for some misguided cause. Many signed. I did not. I don't believe in the cause - I think it is a waste of energy. I caught flack from the other family members for not placating. Still didn't budge. I admit that a little part of me was welcoming the challenge of debating as to whether it was a worthy cause or not. 

I've had practice having taken crap from everyone for approximately four years for favouring a controversial politician (who didn't fuck up a recent demobilisation out of a country), so plenty of experience being the 1 in the 1 vs 6 or 7 in the room. I'm probably towards the right of the agreeableness normal distribution (ie a little bit more disagreeable then the average bloke), which makes me quite a bit disagreeable in the whole scheme of things (women are on average more agreeable, so being just over average disagreeable for males is more disagreeable then usual for whole of society).

Now the interesting part. Am I an asshole on purpose to fend off future issues? Kagan wrote an interesting book 'On the origins of war - and the preservation of peace'. One of the main points he was trying to get across, based on his study of history, was that sometimes you have to front up and fight. You are fighting, not because you want destruction to happen, but you want to prevent the possibility of a higher order of magnitude of devastation from occurring. 

You notice Hitler has remilitarised and annexed Austria. It is not time to move - to fucking take him down. Not appease, let him annex Czechoslovakia (including obtaining all of their armaments and tanks), and then look stupid and be caught on the back foot for when he invades Poland.

Peace and non violence don't work for 100% of the time. You might not pick the way of the warrior, but even as someone who picks a more peaceful path in life, sometimes you have to fight.

This is the tricky one. The art in the crazy unpredictable world. A shot across the bow can be just what the doctor ordered, or launch a thousand ships. Will people forgive you? Do they understand tit for tat with forgiveness. Perhaps if they won't - then it is a good thing to root out early. So you know when to bail.

Someone did something today which undermined me. This person is a bit of a loose canon. Do they know what they are doing? Is retaliation in some form required? If I let this slip does it set a precedent. Is there a middle ground? Assertiveness  is the key here. Point out error and request explanation. Then go from there. 

The really important thing is to drop the hot rock straight away.