cultural paranoia
background
I would say I work in an industry where if you are successful, you have cultivated a certain amount of paranoia about all the ways in which some people are going to be evil at you.
For a long while now I've assumed that this is the reason I am the way I am, and whatever makes my colleagues be paranoid but (to me) insufficiently so is just a difference in exposure.
I was wrong
culture
Recently I've been made aware, again, of the fact that I grew up in what I'll just call a multicultural family. It's influenced large parts of my life, a lot of which I'm still discovering even years after I became an adult.
paranoia
Some amount of paranoia is something that is cultural to my family and it's surroundings. That has combined with my professional deformation into something that's normal to me. Normal to my family. Incredibly alienating and weird to anyone in the country that I actually grew up in.
I'm calling it "paranoia" but I think it is important to say that that isn't what it is: it's a word I use because the vast majority of people likely to read this are going to have some understanding of what that means. But it's a word that's meant to describe something that is an illness, a problem to make go away.
To us it's just normal. It's what you do. Obviously. Anyone can see this is what you do. You drink water when you're thirsty, and when you go outside someone might murder you. This is a thought you have, like seeing a cloud and thinking "this is a cloud".
It's not only a cultural artefact of past experience, it is also the truth. The things we consider are things we know are likely (the murder example I chose because if I get too specific about this I will dox myself or at least my heritage. I don't want to do that, because it's not safe. The real examples are more nuanced). They're normal, ordered thoughts.
culture shock
I'm comfortable with culture shock. I have and have had many friends from different cultures, I've dated outside of the country where I grew up. It comes with I think pretty unique challenges that can be really rewarding to learn to see. It gives you a new perspective on yourself, and this initial barrier you have with someone else actually makes you be deliberate in how you interact.
In a good situation, this means that you can become excellent friends. Or excellent partners. A lot of the small ways that people tend to not align in are things you have stumbled across in your journey past the big things. Amazing, beautiful.
In the bad case, you aren't surrounded by humans that want to invest any time understanding you (or anyone, really). So all the effort is yours. When you are uncomfortable, it is made out to be your problem. You're weird and unusual, so it has to be your fault. When they are uncomfortable, it is made out to be your problem. You have inflicted it on them, because you're strange and esoteric. Your difference is "charming and valuable" right up to the point where they may have to spend time considering other people. Then it is a threat.
The good case is amazing and very rare. The bad case is deeply isolating and alienating. And very common.
so now what
I don't know. I'm trying to fall asleep but I'm not feeling well. And this is a theme that has been bothering me for the past few years. I just want to write about it to get it off my chest.
When I started to recognise that it happens to my family. Very obviously if most people can tell they're different (facial shape, accent, skin colour, etc). But also subtly. Even when someone "fits in", they do not. Because they're culturally wrong. And most of their peers have no interest or patience for anything other.
I think the ... Majority here saying they "don't approve of" racism are probably full of shit. It's something they say, but it doesn't mean anything for them. They don't want to take the time to bridge that gulf so they have never really seen it. So they stay a part of the problem, all the while thumping their tambourine of virtue.
I don't know how to solve it. I see it now and that helps, because I know I'm not the problem. I'm just me. But now I am confronted with yet another big issue that is intractable. I don't know how to solve it. I don't think I can.