On pissing people off

I’ve a remarkable knack for it. Perhaps it’s a blinkered unpleasantness I don’t intend and am not always aware of, or a dogmatic approach to arguing a point that many fail to understand- or perhaps would rather not. In the past, it has certainly been about power and jealousy, a sort of mob reaction to a threat in the pack. Now, it is more likely a reaction to my aversion for doing what I’m told if I don’t agree with the teller. I’d rather be right than be liked.

Is that such a bad thing? Throughout history phrophets and martyrs get cut down for standing up for an unpopular view. It’s not that I see myself as a zealot, more that I like to uncover truths others prefer hidden. It’s not an easy path to tread, and I’ve lost many so-called friends in the process. I’m not immune to sadness about it, but I’m inured to it. I represent so little threat to anyone in reality that I believe I’m only isolated in a pantomine of pulling rank.

Perhaps I can be boring though, my concentric circles of thought tend to halt at absolutes. For those that stay, there is unwavering loyalty at the end of it, the lack thereof I can’t account for in others. In the end, everyone has their agenda, and perhaps, I have to tell myself, it’s one in which I don’t figure. In my blinkered way of viewing the world, I’ve learned to be ok with that.