Dejection, a Modern Epidemic

Dejection, is similar to rejection, but comes from within, sort of.  Dejection is a complicated phenomenon.  It is similar in character to despair, but dejection contains a more active or social element than despair does. It is almost like deliberately displaying despair so as to engender a change in your peers' behaviors.  You might think of a Mom saying to an upset teen, "Don't look so dejected....you can go out with your friends next time."  I think the idea of dejection is predicated on this idea of a "next time."  Additionally, its utility depends on a social environment which responds to it.  Which is why I think it is quite different from despair or rejection.  To me, it has quite a bit in common with rebellion.  It is almost like a passive type of rebellion.  (//disclaimer: this is probably not a surprise to anyone who has spent any length of time with me...)

Now that what I mean when I say "dejection" is clear, we can move on.  I had the idea for this post when I was riding bikes with my friend Jake.  We were riding down Westheimer and came to a light.  It was red for the vehicles like us travelling down Westheimer even though there was little to no cross traffic.  I saw it, and saw cars near by and though, I want to change their idea of who biker's are.  We are not a bunch of lawless hooligans.  He rolled through even though right before that we had been talking about cycling and how to better its reputation and popularity.  It is not that it was dangerous that made me think.  It was his disregard for reputation.  Now, I may have been looking too far into things.  But I hope you're getting the idea.  I think it was dejection that motivated his behavior.  Or maybe it was despair.  I think the line is thin between the two.  Maybe he thinks cars are never going to respect us, so fuck 'em.   I'll ride how I want.   I think what was interesting is that we clearly had two very different perspectives.  We come from two very different backgrounds.  Jake from low SES and me from a relatively high SES.  How much of a role that played I'm not sure.  Also, I am fundamentally an optimist, so I would lean more towards the idea that car drivers will come around to love (or at least cooperate with) cyclists and cycling.  Jake's behavior to me is a form of dejection, or at least a reaction to it.  This is not to imply that Jake ever does go or would go around jumping ahead of cars on his bike or running lights or stop signs when cross traffic is there.  Quite the contrary, he is very respectful as far as I have seen.    So one can imagine that this idea did not jump into my head on its own.  Again to the contrary, I have been experiencing dejection quite a bit myself lately.

I think my first idea of it came from my current work.  I won't give the name of my company here, but I will tell you it is a large residential construction company, and I build 500k to 1m semi-custom semi-production homes.  I work mostly with people who are good, well-intentioned people but who sadly have long-since grown weary of the idea that one could do something meaningful in a career or to truly help the people they work for or with.  I can't blame them for growing weary, construction is a wearing industry unless you are the boss.  I do blame them for forgetting there coworkers are people.  It seems that the only time they relate at all is to engage in what could most optimistically be viewed as venting but is most realistically just whining.  They share little about their families or lives.  It would be un-manly.  The most cheery they get is when talking about things like hunting.  Alas, I ramble, but I hope you get the picture of the world.  Well, in come I, a murse-carrying, coffee-drinking metrosexual.  My job, assistant superintendent.  My task, to clean up the tattered relationships and mostly built structures we call customers and houses.  Best yet, I get bitched at by the customers who already hate my company.  Then I get bitched at by my bosses for not cleaning up other peoples' messes fast enough.  But I have literally an entire neighborhood worth of houses to fix.  It is from this frustration that I first came to know dejection.  Dejection, to me, is just frustration made into a habit. Typically for frustration to develop into this it must be compounded by continual disregard to the conflict, abuse of some variety, and isolation.  This is most often then compounded by poor conflict resolution between the frustrated party and those causing the frustration and responsible for resolving their irksome habits.   Needless to say, I have very little motivation to maintain my current position, except that I need the money.  And while I give a good effort to my customers out of principle and follow the reasonable policies, I blatantly and tauntingly violate company policy.  Sometimes because I have to to make a customer happy.  Other times because I just don't like wearing khakis every day.   I categorize this behavior as dejection.  I really am hoping to show them something.  That their oppressive, old-school man's man mentality is dumb.  Or maybe I'm just despairing about a crappy job.  Again the line is thin.  But despair doesn't prompt behavior.  Maybe what I'm calling dejection is my passive social display of my despair.  But why show it.  It would be better for me, if I toted the line and followed the rules.  After all, I start graduate school as the first step to my dream job in August.  Who knows?? But I hope you feel my frustration.  What should one do when faced with such droll policies and bosses?  My answer is dejection...

Which brings me to what I think is the crux of the matter.  I read an article earlier last week about a inner city blacks in America, and what they face.  I strongly advise reading it. 

http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/the-secret-lives-of-inner-city-black-males/284454/

Now, I will not begin to speak about what black people face, especially in inner cities.  I would most assuredly make a fool of myself.  But what I can do is try to understand.  Try to understand why they act the way they do.  And try to understand why I act the way I do.  And to change it to better allow them to pursue what we all agree is good and healthy.   My suspicion is that it is dejection that motivates them to be permissive to most of the behaviors we all agree are not good.  And quite frankly, I can't blame them.  I can see why they don't care, and I can see why they would feel like they are not going to change the perception of them among the public.  It i maddening to be in that position.   And while sure, it is easy to say,  "Pick yourselves up by your bootstraps"  To say that is neither realistic nor helpful.

I have long believed that the key to all problems between people is to understand why people feel the way they do.  I think if we all did that, we could quite quickly solve the dejection epidemic.