Perseverance -- Takes Not Knowing!

Perseverance is difficult, for a fundamentally understandable reason: we don't know whether we'll succeed or not!

I'm more and more convinced that this is at the core of the human experience.  Our lack of knowledge about success, and our willingness to continually try to find success, even when we don't know that what we're doing will give it to us.

This is particularly acute in developing years, when options close down because of self-selection.  How I wish now that I didn't do what I spent 5 years doing!

I'm not one to gloss over this fact (REGRET) with an easy melody, one that follows the rhythmic intonation: "I had to do that to get where I am today."  Nope, don't buy it.  You, or I could have just wasted time given our goals now.

This kind of drives me nuts because it is an argument for paternalism.  At least until a certain age, people should be told what is good for them, because they simply don't know.

Then again, maybe I'm still being highly romantic in that I think there are a lot of options for most people. Maybe I'm wrong in this sense even though I want to be right.

Showing Off? How do you it do it?

If you know the classic ways that most people show off, how do you actually go about showing off?

Do you chose to abstain entirely?  I'm not sure I think it possible.

Do you show off in a way that is entirely different, or just compete with others that are showing off?

Do you find a way to show off to an elite group of distinct group?

If you don't like the idea of showing off, do you think it is a waste of time?

If you don't have the means of showing off, it is really easy to justify how superfluous showing off is.

Intense Emotion - Admirable, or Scary?

What distinguishes reverence from fear, precisely?

Why follow or run?  Where's the distinction?

As a quick guess, I'd say that intense emotion is revered when the person we observe is already in some sort of authority position, especially if the position is tied in with their uniqueness, like a Professor, perhaps.   Another piece toward taking intense emotion seriously would be whether other social indicators (perception of friends we're familiar with, attentiveness of strangers) align...

Buy In -

It is the ambiguous psychological concept of mental involvement, wherein critical faculties don't reset themselves and scan the situation for something suspicious--it is, in short, when we believe the narrative presented, or a version we've created that is close to the one presented.

There are implicit presented narratives everywhere, and there are multiple stages of buy in. A lot of the narratives are associated with products, sure, but there are broader cultural beliefs all over the place that are reflected in products, status symbols, etc.

One question is this:  must we have psychological buy in to succeed at the narrative we observe.

For instance, is it best to buy into a meritocratic type system and work hard with our heads down, or is it worth it to back up and see which narratives different people believe in, and somehow use that knowledge to one's advantage?  Is it worth it to be meta-aware in this sense, or better to pick a narrative and keep digging in?

Do we reward more the person who preserves in one narrative, or the person who knows to switch narratives early on because of foresight of coming events?

I have no clue.

Global Warming - We could just stop all this living, or . . . Honesty?

I'm not sure there's a better place for the slippage between our innate fear of grand scale shit, morals, science, and group think, than Global Warming.  What I find innately frustrating is that we chose sides as if all of our related sides correspond to our explicitly stated preference.  For instance, if I'm against global warming, then I must also be for locally  produced food (whatever is in season and not more than 200 miles away?  whatever arbitrary category you desire, though, really), low emissions (i.e. carbon conscious), slightly left or progressive politically, and the list goes on.  Essentially, once I state that I'm against global warming, the slippage for other preferred items is great, and the fit gets to be less and less important, as long as there is a plausible connection.

Once you subscribe, it becomes almost sacrosanct to say something like, "well, I like the the things that cause global warming," like fancy cheese, from france, or steak dinners (especially of the rainforest depleting kind), feeling safe in my SUV, or just driving instead of walking places.  But it doesn't make sense.  Because we obviously do very much like the things that cause global warming.  

What I'm frustrated with is the ideal that behind global warming is something more important than our own future survival or stability, or simply, the capacity to continue to enjoy the material pleasures that we do enjoy--the ones that cause global warming in the first place.  I'm upset that people don't explicitly state that, yes, they are selfish, and their selfish desires contribute in some way to this big amorphous problem that we don't really have any answers for, and no, they're not going to completely stop doing the things they enjoy.  I'd much rather we were honest about our desires with other people. Who knows, maybe we are doing something that causes a lot of global warming, but we're ashamed to admit it, so we secretly enjoy it simply because it is supposedly bad, and not because we innately enjoy it?  I mean, I don't know, but I think frank talk is better than talking about how many miles my broccoli came before it landed on my plate.  I'm not an expert in greenhouse gases, but it possible that longer distance traveled doesn't always equate with higher emission of greenhouse gas.  

One other connection with global warming that needs to be made, quickly.  To buy into it, we must, simply, believe in the future of humanity, and care about those people slightly more than we otherwise would have if we solely considered our own satisfaction.   That might strike a lot of people as an obvious thing to believe in, but I'm not precisely sure it is, outside of a disney movie.

I don't want to get through today just to get to tomorrow, and live through tomorrow just to get to the next day.  And live through this week just to get to the weekend.

This strikes me as incredibly depressing, this pattern.

The crux of the matter is this: we need to figure out what it is we enjoy doing, and aim ourselves in that direction.

But, the problem, or barrier: if we delude ourselves about what we enjoy, then when we attain it, we won't actually be there, be happy, be fulfilled, however you want to say it.

Which is weird.  Because we, individually, should be able, if anyone at all is, to say what makes us happy, individaully.

Could it be that what makes us happy changes so often that once we attain that which we thought would do the trick we no longer want it?

If that's the case, then we've got some thinking to do about courtship.

And all achievements, really.

What we have to do, in short, is to figure out what we will want WHEN what we DO want doesn't give us what we expected.

AND THIS IS PROBLEMATIC.  Because now we're telling ourselves we want something we don't want, just because we know that what we do want is something we don't really want!

And that's the problem with intuition, for however many advantages it has.

Avoiding Hard Stuff.

For a long time in my life, I avoided any heavy lifting.

I used up most of my effort to make believe that I was involved in heavy lifting.

But I was, internally, at least, doing quite the opposite.

I avoided anything that confused me, or took a few steps to figure out what didn't come naturally.

I got off on indignation, and the naturally aspirated rants of my own youngish brain, which were many and diffuse.  Diffuse enough to get me into a mode of very deep self-deception.

If, for instance, I could line up a number of achievements on my mental shelf, or my actual shelf, by way of academic accolades, for example, than I could have it.  Meaning.  Pride.  The rewarding stuff that matters.

But, oh, sweet blog, life was just as empty as sin.

And I continued head first into it, even, after all of two graduate degrees, applying for a phd.  For what?  For status.  For status, and to continue the illusion that I'd accomplished something in my life.

To continue to believe that I mattered, de facto.

And this de facto importance is a problem, I think, because it enforces a culture of predestined privilege.  That I, for instance, so savvy to signal intelligence, should actually play some role in the world, as in, making decisions that impact lives.

I think it a familiar pang I felt, those days, adjusting down to zero.

And I recognize that zero isn't a healthy number to stay at forever.  No, I don't desire it.  No, not at all. But I don't get anywhere automatically, either, and I don't ultimately think anyone does.

Anyway, the point is only to say that, while I avoided stuff that didn't come naturally to me, I also avoided really trying at the things that did come naturally to me, because I didn't want to reveal to myself that I wasn't totally perfect with those things either--i.e. that my sheer natural ability was lacking in some minute way.

And I don't think I'm alone.  It seems unnatural to face challenge and embrace it, but I'm almost positive now that doing so actually opens up the world, instead of closing it, and frees us from the emotional bondage of vanity.

At least for a few moments of fresh mountain air, until we submerge down to the  muck again.