This website was archived on July 21, 2019. It is frozen in time on that date.

Sonya Mann's active website is Sonya, Supposedly.

Efforts Toward Peace of Mind

"Constant vigilance!" Mad-Eye Moody from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Mad-Eye Moody from the Harry Potter series.

I try very hard to be patient and I try very hard to be positive. Succeeding — well, even attempting to succeed — requires constant vigilance. The world is naturally aggravating! Therefore it’s hard to stay levelheaded, compassionate, and cheerful. (Oops, I’m being negative again. Sorry, world, maybe I shouldn’t have criticized you…) Luckily, I am motivated to be easygoing and smiley. The reasons to keep striving are twofold:

  1. When I resist irritation and the impulse to complain, my life is calmer and more pleasant.
  2. The people I interact with are more likely to perceive me as calm and pleasant.

Both of these things are good. I want to feel better, and I don’t want to annoy my colleagues, friends, or family. Of course, my therapist would disapprove if I flat-out ignored my feelings, but I can acknowledge emotional reactions without letting them be in charge.

"The sink is experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by." Photo by Keith. Sometimes I am this sink.
“The sink is experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by.” Photo by Keith. Sometimes I am this sink.

Stomping on anger and frustration, pretending that they don’t exist, is not an effective coping technique. And yet neither is griping. In 2014 Fast Company talked to Jeffrey Lohr, who coauthored a study called “The Pseudopsychology of Venting in the Treatment of Anger”. Lohr and his fellow researchers found out that venting reinforces anger rather than relieving it.*

As Doctor Guy Winch writes on Psychology Today:

“[We] associate the act of complaining with venting far more than we do with problem solving. As a result, we complain simply to get things off our chest, not to resolve problems or to create change, rendering the vast majority of our complaints completely ineffective. Even when we do address our complaints to the people who can do something about them, we tend to be unsuccessful far more often than not.”

We’re not very good at talking to each other. According to Fast Company, “Instead of anger management skills, Lohr says people need to learn conflict resolution and communication skills.”

just listen to her
Listening is the most important part, yeah? Illustration by Rick and/or Brenda Beerhorst.

I’m no expert when it comes to communicating with the people who cause my frustration. But I’m pretty okay at communicating with my own brain. When I notice that I’m upset, this is what I tell myself:

“Everyone is doing the best they can despite their ignorance, weaknesses, and flaws. Respect that they’re trying. You have weaknesses and flaws too, Sonya, and you don’t know everything in the world, but you’re not a bad person. Neither is [whoever]. Respond with the kindness that all human beings deserve.”

My mantra isn’t always effective, depending on how annoyed I am and how preventable the problem seems, but at least it buoys the self I want to be. My knee-jerk reaction is, “Ugh, I hate these morons,” but my secondary reaction is, “This, too, shall pass away.” It helps when I remind myself that nursing anger doesn’t accomplish anything. I want to be forgiving. I want to be loving. Like I said in the beginning: patient and positive.

If only I could be totally stoked all the time like this somewhat unsettling "Happy Pill" by formatbrain.
If only I could be totally stoked all the time like this somewhat unsettling “Happy Pill” by formatbrain.

*Jeffrey Lohr’s paper “The Pseudopsychology of Venting in the Treatment of Anger” was published in Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice in 2007. David McRaney also wrote a good article about this called “Catharsis”.

The New Machine Has A Soul

You ask the computer to call you “sir”
and it doesn’t
because that was the wrong menu.
You’re frustrated
but you click around the options
and yell,
“Sir, sir, sir!”
The computer requests that you
please calm down.
You refuse.
The machine asks
would you like a lozenge,
for your throat,
because you sound hoarse.
The available flavors are cherry and lemon.

Your fingers on the soft keyboard
that you don’t dare to pound
even in your rage.
The anger is worst when the computer stays
so calm.

In the Future Everything Is a Committee

Recent developments in “trends I find disturbing”… Farhad Manjoo interviewed Stewart Butterfield, one of the co-founders of Slack, an intra-office messaging service that’s being touted as the replacement for email. I don’t really care about email being supplanted in the workplace. What bums me out is this description of Butterfield’s worldview:

“He is betting that solo work is on the wane and that as all of our jobs become more complex, more and more creative and technical feats will be accomplished by teams rather than lone practitioners.”

Ughhhh. This is just like high school, being forced to participate in endless group projects. I am a perfectionist—thus a control freak—when I care about something. Working with other people is the worst. We almost always have differing standards. I want to be a lone wolf! My concern is probably really immature, but I can’t help it. Collaborating is so fraught.

Printmaking Linocut Childhood Angst and Frustration
$20 print of Childhood Angst and Frustration by Stage Fort Press.

Freelancing Downsides

This post has been sitting around as a draft for more than a month. Whatever.

I’ve decided that I don’t want to be a freelance writer. Even if the effort-to-pay-ratio were better, I still wouldn’t want to freelance. I’m not interested in the kind of writing that brings in freelance money. (What’s lucrative? Business writing of various kinds.)

Freelance Ain't Free
Illustration by Mikey Burton.

I want to write to entertain, which means that I’m competing with a million other kids who can turn a phrase. We all want a slice of the limited pie. I have to figure out how to make myself prominent, how to jostle to the front. Consumers must be convinced that my work is valuable.

The original subtitle for this website described me as an “independent writer”. That’s still how I identify. It describes my outlook, both practically and philosophically: I’d rather control the whole process, without catering to anyone else’s strictures.

Obviously I can’t completely do that. For example, I don’t know how to build a website, so mine is made with Blogger. I don’t know how to make printer ink, so I buy it. The list of things that I can’t do entirely by myself is endless. Even when it comes to the simple writing, I need support. One or both of my parents will read each first draft; often Alex does as well.

Sign up for my newsletter to stay abreast of my new writing and projects.

I am a member of the Amazon Associates program. If you click on an Amazon link from this site and subsequently buy something, I may receive a small commission (at no cost to you).