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Tag: psychology

A Quiet Disdain

The violence that makes it to the headlines is what gets people’s attention.  It is the kind of thing which sells us on psychopaths and a solely black/white divide.  But to anyone who has faced it in their community or abroad, a quiet disdain – the ice and not the fire – is the far more prevalent atrocity and more atrocious when it is systematic.  This is not something faced by one type of person and not another – and it is a greater difficulty when one is very much isolated, even should they have faith.

Islam and Homosexuality

Homosexuality is a victimless crime, if it were a crime at all.  As such no self-respecting libertarian would consider making it a crime.  Additionally, homosexuals are a fact of life.  There are people who prefer the company of their own sex for sex.  So the short answer to anyone who does not like homosexuality is: deal with it.  The long answer is that we should welcome the day when we ask someone of their sexual orientation and they respond with an answer which we believe and have no reason to doubt – and have no real interest in unless we ourselves are sexually interested or know someone who might be.  Not only is this a reprieve from deception, but it would give those who wish to manipulate with what-does-not-matter-in-the-first-place less ammunition.  It is a sad fact that although the western world is largely able to see the progress in this direction, the eastern world does not.  The eastern world, at least as represented by the Arabic countries, largely allow for – if not dictate – the persecution of people based on their sexual orientation.

I have been a long time supporter of Islamic Americans.  They have quite clearly drawn the short end of the stick.  But there is a fact of intolerance in antiquated Sharia law which the Arabic countries must overcome in their quest to catch up to the western world.  And it should be said that despite the intolerance, there is this ambition.  The Islamic world has been trying to catch up and we should not hesitate to help them, but they remain woefully behind if this map from the Washington Post has any credibility.

But therein, too, is the problem.  The Washington Post does a lot to overemphasize the importance of homosexuality to the Islamic world.  They say nothing of the actual convictions for homosexual behavior and instead are inciting the flames against Islam at a very critical moment.  The shooting on Sunday of this week cannot be thought of anything but the worst of intolerance, but we cannot let the shooter himself speak for Islam – doing so stinks of the very kind of manipulation which the US is being accused of overseas.

In this you can make for yourself a wonderful world

Having been thoroughly beaten up by your own concerns of reputation, there comes a time where you must no longer live only in the eyes of your fellow man, but live for you.

I have lived in various lands and mingled with various people and with me now is a shield which fends off all comers from my inner peace.  It is something earned with experience and missing in youth (unless egregiously optimistic).  The protection  may amount to “easy-come, easy-go”, but it is more from the subjective perspective.  It is a freedom earned with trial by fire, and an honor bestowed on one from above.

The ability to love, without possessing; the ability to perform to your best, without concern for excellence; the ability to forgive as human and harmless, what society may nonetheless despise – in this you can make for yourself a wonderful world, even should your past experience be grim.

Ego

I have a large ego that I protect vehemently.  In reality, it is barely a bigger ego than I had when I was 7.  It does not grow and does not shrink.  It does take a beating, however, and need too much time to heal.  For this reason I protect it and do not properly develop and share. 

I am jealous with my time.  I am jealous with my energy.  I am jealous with my image.  I am jealous with my knowledge.

It is not such a vulgar ego.  It is a quiet ego.  It is a confidence.  For reasons of preconceptions and my own isolation, it may be mistaken for arrogance, but it is not haughty, even if I am oft too cranky and quick to criticize.

It is a possessive ego.  It is not so with others, but it is with itself.  It does not “waste” itself on others and it does not open itself to the criticism from the too-quick-to-judge-unknown, though it demands little of anyone else.

The age after youth should be time for sharing.  Your experience rich and talents still in their prime.  I envy those who just live who they are in every moment, without selective display.

I may understand from where this comes, but it does not stop the fear.  I press on to encounter the unknown.

The Torture of Mistrusting Yourself II

I have spoken of the torture of my excursions into research and writing when all commitments are broken, as though by the call of God to take up my pen; that state that makes me so wretched, which I try so much to defend; that time when all things make sense, and yet there is but disarray around me – to which I am oblivious until I must try to excavate my kitchen from garbage and grime. There is more to it, unfortunately.

I fail myself also in how I make my plans. I typically overestimate my abilities to produce. If I am energetic when making the plans, I presume I will be energetic at all times covering the scope of the plan. If I lack energy, I presume I will have far more energy to do things at a later time. This can also be said of how I make commitments to others, but it is different as applied to myself in that, I know this of myself, and can use this as an excuse to abandon plans. I can say “I was simply being overzealous” and feel no guilt and suffer no other direct punishment, if the plans are for myself.

I may fail myself in my health. Particularly when under stress or sometimes in my moments of concentration. I can fail to eat well. I can fail to sleep well. I can fail to exercise at all. I may put on weight I cannot spare. I may drink more caffeine than I can handle. I may consider myself invincible and allow myself more beer than is conducive to the next day’s work. I may fail relating to people and treat them all as part of a scenery to which I’m oblivious. I may not bother to love or reach out or care for others only to find myself soon thereafter alone and lonely. I may disregard prayer or meditation. I may not think twice about the hole I am digging for myself.

Then again, I may be riding high; I may be at the top of my game; I may be reaching out to others; I may be happily making progress in the right direction; And I may for reasons unfathomable to me, be struck by a migraine which sidelines me for two days with blurred vision, sensitivity to light and sound, disoriented thinking, and a temporary imprisonment I can’t possibly deserve.

All you can do is endure, and first do no harm. But I also fail myself when the excursions are over and the migraines subside, because I too often forget where I left off. I do not remember what had been on the agenda or bother to pickup with the tasks I had missed. I simply start anew, as though the excursion and migraine had wiped away all of what I was working on and towards. It seems like such a simple thing to accept your former self as you. The same you which committed to doing things for themselves and others now. It is a part of integrity which I struggle with more than ethical or logical integrity.

These intervening moments like migraines and excursions form a schism between my past and current selves. I never considered myself “flaky” and I must say, I never want to have to. But I let myself down in another way, in how I compensate for this difficulty. Instead of making commitments and sticking to them, I am reluctant to make commitments. Being non-committal protects me from breaking more commitments than I would otherwise, but does not help me toward succeeding in the areas I wish to succeed. To do this, I can’t avoid commitments altogether.

To find success, I must work on both the deliberateness of my commitments and carrying out my commitments deliberately.

The Torture of Mistrusting Yourself

To determine the conditions in which I have failed myself, is in some ways more difficult than the task I have addressed in How I Have Failed Others. It sounds nice and philosophical to say the tasks are simply the same, but I don’t believe they are, primarily because the commitments I make to myself rely on me to an extent which other commitments do not.

As with others, I fail myself, principally, in failing to keep to the plans which I make for myself. I do this largely because I get over-committed, things come up, and I make honest-though-mistaken use of my time. These are standard and apply to commitments to others as well. I also fail myself in the other two ways which I mention in the previous post. I fail myself in the games I play with myself and I fail myself by flights of fancy, temporarily abandoning all structure. These two, however, are distinctly different when the commitments are only to myself.

Generally my problem is not that of playing tit-for-tat with myself, and therewith breaking commitments as retribution. My problem is, instead, that of *not* playing tit-for-tat with myself. When I do let my former self down, there are rarely any immediate consequences – any consequences within my window of association – which train me to fulfill my commitments to myself. There need to be legitimate punishments.

In fact, the moments of “flight” I have spoken of are quite the opposite. In those moments I am taken by an idea in need of investigation or something in need of writing, I break commitments to seek a sort of near term fulfillment, which rewards me for breaking my commitments to myself. I do not simply stay at home to drink beer. Rather I do something far more satisfying, which I can also justify as of much deeper and greater significance than mundane commitments – and a deeper and greater significance to me. Because they are of deeper and greater significance to me and I am breaking commitments to me, I do not have that guilt of being mistaken or selfish. But if those moments come at the wrong time – and I cannot well time them – they promise me far greater trouble than success.

What it seems I need is likely what many people need, but is hard to achieve: good planning/resource allocation and an appropriate system of rewards and punishments for breaking commitments. In this, a valid system of rewards and punishments is crucial. But for me it is always undermined by chasing nobility, those matters of greater and deeper significance.

The torture of mistrusting yourself – using Nietzsche’s phrase – would seem punishment enough, but chasing nobility provides a near-term fulfillment, which rewards commitment breaking, and mistrust alone is not enough to offset it. And still, I struggle at this very moment to say I should not chase those moments. When I look at those things I have accomplished by chasing ideas whole heartedly in 10 day intervals – I have to say they are some of the things I am most proud of.

It is a kind of torture indeed.

How I Have Failed Others

I don’t intend to list the ways in which I have failed others. What I want to understand are the conditions under which I have failed them.

When I have a sense that people are judging me wrongly or with bias, I get defensive. When I am on the defensive, I may be quick to take credit where only partial credit is due; I may be more critical of others than they deserve; I may wallow in self-pity and give little of myself to anyone else; I am quickly indignant and questioning of motives; I am quick to accept adversaries as an explanation for what is wrong; I feel that “If I do not stick up for myself, who will?” overcompensating myself, for lack of a sufficient network to vouch for the credit I deserve. All my time and energy is spent on the ready, in a consistently heightened state. Perhaps unnecessarily so.

Logically, depending on the duration and the appropriateness, the above is an example from resources “diverted” or “misappropriated” or “over-committed”. I am not always so willing to use my resources, however. At times I can be petty. I can fail my commitments purposefully. I can feel slighted or not appreciated or annoyed, and intentionally not do something I committed to doing for the sake of “getting back” or “setting aright” or even revenge. I am not usually so callous. Rather, I let things slip, and do not feel bad. I put things on the back burner and never do get to them, because there were others I’d rather do things for. I may feel so personally unimportant to those I am committed to that I just don’t care whether I do what I said I would or not.

Other times I am aloof to the significance of keeping commitments. I don’t think at all about what I had said I would do that day. I am so easily diverted from any schedule that I don’t even look at my calendar and when I do, I push everything back or decide it was unimportant after all.

There are external and internal issues with resource contention, there are the games we play, and then there is that feeling like you are seeking that something or have found that something which is far more important than anything that could be on the schedule today. You can’t plot a course if the person steering the ship may very well at any time decide to go back to the dock and buy themselves a puppy.

Still, there are too often times that I feel I “just can’t” do something today and in reality I am much more energetic doing something else, that I give into the notion that it really is ok in such not-so-rare moods to give into commitment breaking. But if I cannot handle the commitments I have made, I should fulfill them and make commitments which end those kind of commitments eventually, in the future. I should not relent so whimsically to breaking the existing commitments.

Diversions and resource contention will always be an issue. One must always be judicious in their game play, but that will likely always be an issue too. I can, however, decide to stick to the schedule and not go fishing to try and reel in the big one. I am, after all, not easy-come-easy-go or happy-go-lucky, even if I sometimes can’t keep myself on track.

The Philosopher’s Eye

In the basic toolbox of any philosopher is the capacity to check the reasoning in an argument (validate a proof); the capacity to find counterexamples; and a third part which too many ‘thinkers’ lack. I call it “The Philosopher’s Eye” because it is more akin to the artist’s eye than it is to any deliberate peculiarity.

What they see could be seen by others, but it is not seen by others, because others have not fully practiced inference. In this, it is not unlike the person who first learns to draw faces. If you begin to draw faces (in an experiment which will not take more than a week to conduct) you will see faces different. You will note that perhaps you could have seen them that way all along, but that you now see them quite different. The bridge of the nose, the shape of the chin, the angle of the eyes… And if you are old enough, you will notice that what you had seen when you were drawing faces is something you may lose if you stop.

The Philosopher’s Eye could be understood like the scientists, who while studying or looking for a peculiarity, or testing a hypothesis, may literally see things others do not. But while the scientist may see things within their domain, the philosopher has no domain per se, and practiced in inference, applies that inference like the artist, everywhere.

The Philosopher’s Eye is not to be confused with the indoctrinated who cannot see things any differently than what a ‘theory’ or ‘philosophy’ tell them. Like the scientist’s eye, they are informed and on solid ground. But their foundation is on only the most general principles of logic, inference, and psychology – a solid foundation for an open mind. They can see, and quickly, to the deepest conclusions available from the surface by these basic principles. And are thereby able to quickly identify counter-examples and peculiarities which form the start of interesting theories.

Admittedly, all great thinkers do not and cannot live at all times with this Eye, less they go mad trying to reconcile all the peculiarities they have seen.

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