I like to be polite. Why? I am not totally sure but it feels good.
If I pass by you, I will excuse myself, if I want to take something, I would ask you, if you need help, I will offer it to you kindly. This is how I have been operating for basically my whole life. But recently, things are changing.
This is one of the things that I'd put on the bell curve. We have the same behavior that is arising among two extreme sides of the population; in this case, politeness happens among people who do it for survival reasons and the ones that have chosen it.
An example:
Z is a girl grown up in a suppressive society where she feels threatened everywhere outside the house. She has learned that being curious, beautiful or different, puts her in danger. So she adapts various self defense mechanisms to stay safe. She subconsciously figures that being kind and polite makes it less likely to get harmed, so she is extremely kind to everyone, sometimes even the ones who don't deserve it, to mitigate the harm. At some point, she can't tell if this is her identity or it is driven from fear. She could only question it after leaving the harmful society into a safe one with rules and prosperity.
Z2 is another girl who has born in Oxford. Her curiosity and liveliness was welcomed and nurturned by the small community of the city. She was exposed to different people from all over the world and had the opportunity to be kind and unkind. Z2 experimented different levels of kind and unkindness while traveling while she took some courses on anthropology, behavior and philosophy where professors offered her the opportunity to question it.
She connects the dots of her lived experience with the memories of others and comes to the conclusion that there are ramifications to the good and to the bad, she knows how excessive kindness can harm a society and she is also aware of the damage unkindess could cause to a single person which would translate to a social level and we us all, including herself. She chooses kindness, but she is not sure whether she is being selfish or she is doing the right thing and why does it feel better to do so. She does it anyway but she makes sure not to lose the ability to be harsh when needed.
Z and Z2 are both kind but for different reasons and capabilities in various possible scenarious.
Recently, I am meeting impolite individuals in the restaurant job. They are too tired to care about another person. Their behavior resembles to the very knowledgable people who are extremely productive and don't have the time or capacity to be polite. These people also shape a bell curve. Restaurant workers and high functioning productive people, with the same behavioral outcome by different reasons.
I find myself cutting the crap as well, out of tiredness. I am physically and mentally incapable of exchanging social pleasantaries I was able to offer before. I feel that I am shifting in the curve but it is not clear to me which side I am moving toward.
Am I cutting the crap to save energy to be more productive or am I cutting the crap because I am selfish with a tiny self sustaning world that feels like a trapped space?
I am between the worlds ... again, I am somewhere without category. Is it because I am the experiencer which makes it hard to distinguish or am I in the middle of a shift and becoming someone, something new?
Non liquet.