Trust your innate wisdom

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I was prompted to write this entry due to current events encompassing harassment, normalization of hate and bigotry, violence, false news, divisiveness, and an article shared on Twitter about how harassers use "gas lighting" to sow seeds of self-doubt on their prey.  The term gas lighting was also used a few hours ago by a writer (who identifies as a person of color) who decided to leave the online newsletter she used to work for due to the "hipster racism" that one of its creators represented.  

Gas lighting is a manipulative tactic employed by a person that begins with provocation (e.g. a racist remark) and then when called out on it will divert his/her action by stating that the provocation was not intentional or that the other person is over-reacting or making things up.  This strategy effectively causes anxiety and oftentimes (a sort of) submission by the manipulated person.  I have witnessed this and even experienced this through the years.  What my parents taught me was to trust my gut. 

My mother had excellent intuition--a lot of us think she may be of the supernatural kind, actually (haha).  My visceral reaction is what I (up to this day) trust.  If I feel I am being manipulated, there's a twitch that happens inside my head. I blink. Red light bulb flashes. It is not something you can read on, unfortunately, but really only develop after years of various interactions.  My simplistic course of action is to disengage cordially.  No volcanic eruption-type confrontation or pyromantics.  Honest words. The low-syllable count kind, if possible.  I often pride myself as being able to handle many difficult situations, negotiations, and confrontations in a sophisticated manner without being sly or dishonest. 

Dishonesty and sesquipedalian rhetoric--just not classy. Hah, I used sesquipedalian. Anyway, I do not mingle with the low integrity, insecure types. I would rather befriend an uneducated street sweeper (who, based on experience, tend to be the wisest kind of people you would meet) than a multi-hyphenate, multi-trillionaire, who owns multinational companies with the business acumen of Mojo Jojo....you understand my drift. I also detest witnessing a gas lighter gas lighting a gas lightee.  Ew.

Thought cloud filler: You can cover the smell of excrement with bottles of lysol, but really, excrement is excrement. Correct? High five.