Everything we do is to feel good about ourselves, even at the expense of real things like health. We’ll screw up our lives if we think we’re doing something good and feel good doing it and we’ll ignore any evidence to the contrary. The people who buck this trend are the most remarkable of all. In his prime era, Lee Kuan Yew didn’t give a fuck about good feelings. He was committed to doing shit that worked empirically, even if it was ugly. I think tremendous respect is due here from a decision-making perspective. Even if you disagree, a lot of disagreement tends to be rooted in the fact that Statesmen have to make decisions no private individual wants to make, and indecision can be more damaging than a decision that harms a few. Elon Musk notably preaches the need to seek out negative feedback- he is sensitive to bullshit and innoculates himself against it. That’s how you build something of significance- a commitment to truth, however inconvenient.
I am going to repeat myself again about the impossibility of saying everything that ought to be said, all at once. I am doing this to help rewire my brain, to get comfortable with revealing thst I’m not as smart as I present myself to be. These vomits are unstructured, non-linear, more noise turn signal. This is necessary.
I had a friend who was a smartass like me on Facebook- only smarter, and more of an ass, and he used to do this thing where he’d summarize the thoughts of others and mock them for taking the long way. I used to get worried and upset when I was on the receiving end of this. “Oh no, I’ve been bested! I’m such a rambly annoying bastard!”
But I was conflating so many things in my naivete. Yes I am a rambly bastard but that’s okay as long as you do it in private, or on a personal channel that others can choose to opt-in to. This is where social media is a bitch and ruins friendships because it sells itself as networking but it’s really closer to publishing, and the effectd of publishing to a ready audience has interedting effects on people. It makes ud performers, more combative, eager to win the cheers of the crowd that’s watching.
Second, it’s always easy to summarize thoughts on hindsight. Tl; drs are easier to write at the end of a post then the start of it, because when you’re starting you don’t know where you’re going. You just flow to the next most interesting or relevant point. Some points might be weak or relevant and get eliminated in the final summary- and the summarizer looks really smart and witty for doing it. The summary itself is a public service and everybody should get in the habit of summarizing their thoughts. Hmm. Maybe I should, too. That will make sifting through 1000 vomits a lot more palatable.
Returning to the identity creation/feel good idea. My poor idealistic wife is often horrified at how poorly things are run, or how people often pay lip service to things- and sometimes people put so much effort into the lip service that they might as well literally have done the work that they were putting off. (This was the case for me and my band- we spent time promoting ourselves which, on hindsight, shouldve been spent practicing.) She gets flustered and frustrated. Why are people so silly/stupid/ignorant? Why are things (education, for instance) so bad?
Simple answer: most people care more about feeling and looking good than actually making a significant, measurable difference. The wayang way. This isn’t a malicious, malingering sort of active subversion. People aren’t out to screw and mislead each other on purpose. We do it because we believe our own bullshit. was one of them- and I still am, and always will be if I’m not careful. So a lot of my haters were on to something- I was full of shit. I probably still am. But I’m trying to clean that out now. I believed my own shit. Probably still do.
What got me out of it? To answer the question would be to partake in narrative fallacy, but why not. I believe it might’ve been my boss that got past my defences. I would attribute it less to his qualities and more to his station in life- he has nothing to gain in terms of personal identity/utility from mocking or insulting me, so he doesn’t, so he doesn’t trigger my knee-jerk identity-protection reactions. (My wife and some of my cloe friends unfortunately had to deal with this shit from me- our relationship got so toxic over time that it became impossible to separate genuine concern and goodwill from selfish self-glorification or caustic abuse.) My boss was a new figure in my life and we had no history of oneupmanship or back and forth, so neither of us has any incentive to be anything but honest with each other. While he does gain from me being a more effective and efficient employee, he could very easily get rid of me if he’s not satisfied- something that friends and family cannot really do.
This is why I’m starting to see how therapy is a good idea. Alternatively, everybody needs friends or peers who aren’t a part of their socisl group.
Is this narrative accurate? No, it’s probably bullshit I made up to feel good about myself. The challenge is to rip it to shreds and start over. I will do that. I already sense the weight of some of the bullshit that’s already slipped through the cracks. So let’s get bsck to basics:
1: I am a bullshitter who does and says things to feel good about myself
2: So are you and so is everyone else
This has implications. Especially on how we should spend our time. For me, this means practically never posting another Facebook status update ever again, and probably more fasts and absences in the future. There is quiet and serenity to be found at the bottom of the sea, away from the crashing waves… and down there, dark and deep, you can hear your heart beating.