How do I hold onto my last shreds of whatever threadbare humanity I have left that's keeping me from becoming a completely misanthropic nihilist
More difficult.
I am a pretty smart dude. *pats self on back*. It is assumed that being smart grants additional advantages, and this was implied heavily towards me while I was younger. This was not true. I got 100, other kid got an 80 -- but we both moved on in grades. The minor details would show me as doing "better", but the grand movements of life had me in the same general current as everyone else. This was incredibly frustrating to me. That's what being smart as a kid was -- frustrating and lonely.
It's way better now as an adult because while most people I meet are still lower on the bell curve, they aren't lower
in their respective environments. An experienced parent who couldn't talk logic for more than 5 minutes without having an emotional outburst could run circles around me in terms of "how to raise a child", a nurse who can't figure out how to add e-mail onto her phone could accurately diagnose, treat, and care for a diseased person that I may not even notice as diseased, etc., etc.
But even if they weren't, my frustration didn't come as a result of me being
smarter than someone else. It came from me having pre-set expectations as to what reality should be and thus coming into conflict based on biased expectations (specifically, my biased expectations). I assumed my "general intelligence" (which, wtf is that anyway?) merited some sort of increase in quality of life when in actuality it was merely a gateway to doing such a thing. It wasn't a problem with other people or with reality, it was an inside-my-head problem. This, it was an inside-my-head solution.
Since understanding this, I have been able to put my intelligence to use as a tool to improve my quality of life rather than expecting it to just DO something for me (which is a very, very dumb thing to think!).
I have learned to paint -- never picked up a paintbrush in my life, then just decided to do it.
http://imgur.com/a/xOLY6
I've learned to program games in Unity without any prior knowledge. I learned to make bead art and bleach shirts, I've done repairs to my house, I've focused on becoming financially independent as quickly as possible, I learned how to play classical guitar, I learned how to be helpful to other people, I learned how to design board games, I learned to "turn off" my desire to be 'doing something' and instead visit my grandma on Thursdays for distraction-free family time, etc., etc.
It was an inside-my-head problem that caused me to walk around with the mindset of "everyone is dumb but me" in high school that I was able to dismantle and take apart. Now I can be a happy dude doing all sorts of neat and interesting stuff and what other people are doing doesn't really matter to me that much, even when it affects me.
Why? Because I don't come in with expectations.
A lot of this can be learned in various religious teachings, but was most clearly illustrated (to me) in Buddhist teachings.
“Oh ****, this is a Buddhist post!” you say aloud because you’re easily excitable. It’s not. But we are going to steal some of their wisdom because they did get some stuff right. Or at least right enough. To cut it off at the pass, no this doesn’t mean you have to remove the desire for money or be at perfect bliss while in a job you hate. That’s crap. If the secret to making life simple was “want nothing” then it’d be easy as hell to go through life, but everyone can go through life expecting nothing and they can still be disappointed. That **** happens all the time. No, what we’re gonna talk about is Buddha’s three poisons. You didn’t know Buddhism has poisons. You learned something today.
The three poisons are what Buddhism blames as the cause of suffering. That’s a gross oversimplification, but it works well enough because I don’t care about getting things exactly right. Just right enough for my purposes.
Simplify, right? **** works. Besides, they think the poisons block the flow of energetic wind through energy channels in your body and that’s Grade A nonsense. Like I said, bull****. Anyway, the three poisons are ignorance, attachment, and aversion. Ignorance being when you just don’t know or refuse to know something, attachment when you desire or fixate on something, and aversion being hatred and other angry thoughts. Those three things can be considered to be the “source” of all of your problems. Fix them, fix your problems.
Ignorance
An example of ignorance would be a problem like, say, “my stomach hurts’ or “I can’t sleep very well at night” when in reality both are caused by drinking two energy drinks on an empty stomach before bed. You just don’t know any better and this results in bad **** happening to you on a regular basis. The solution is pretty simple: stop drinking two energy drinks on an empty stomach before bed. Despite its simplicity, it will
never be solved because the entire problem is that the afflicted person doesn’t know what’s causing it! You’ve probably met people who have a ton of problems stemming from ignorance. I say “tons of problems” on purpose, because once you stop and think about it you’ll notice that problems stemming from ignorance are never alone. The person who drinks two energy drinks before bed and doesn’t have the capacity to realize this
probably has more problems, you know?
You’ve met these people before. Like the guy who speeds and drives super aggressive. We all know he’s going to get in a car accident one day, but he doesn’t completely understand that. It’s not intuitive to him. He’s just thinking “gonna go
fast” and so he does and then one day he gets in an accident and says “how could this happen to me?!” and thinks life is unfair. Probably blames another driver. There’s so many of these people that are disgruntled solely due to their own ignorance. They don’t understand the cause and effect of their unhappiness. They’re not stupid, they just don’t think things through clearly. They don’t have their **** together, as displayed by their constant “string of bad luck”. They don’t have bad luck, they’re just ignorant of the giant red flags that warn them something bad is going to happen. The person who signs onto a 30 year mortgage that takes up 70% of her income gets bitter when she can’t make ends meet because she’s being “screwed by the system”. The old person at work who is constantly at odds with the slightest change to technology. The grumpy person in a drive-thru who complains because things cost more than they used to and he doesn’t fully comprehend why, only that it is affecting him in a negative way. The college graduate with a degree in something esoteric who can’t find gainful employment and is caught completely by surprise. You know the type. Most people have
been that type at one point in their life – nothing wrong with that, except that some people don’t grow out of it.
Ignorance is a cancer. It spreads rapidly within a person because no one ever really likes to be wrong. No one likes to be considered dumb. We respect intelligence, but not the path that leads to intelligence. When you read about the “two energy drinks” problem you probably thought that no one could possibly be that dumb and congratulated yourself on not being ignorant like
that hypothetical guy. Maybe you felt good about yourself when reading about the hypothetical person who constantly is speeding despite the fact that, statistically speaking, half of the people that read this post regularly speed on purpose, knowing full well it makes accidents more deadly. It probably gave you a mental pause when you saw the 30 year mortgage taking up 70% of the person’s income. You might not have a mortgage or, if you do, it might not take up that much of your income. But you probably have student loan debt or credit card debt. Maybe a car loan. Maybe you pay more than you can afford on rent. Maybe all of that debt combined takes up 70% of your income – bills, bills, bills. One way or the other, you’ve likely had money problems that stem from monthly expenses and you can relate to the hypothetical hyper mortgage person who has a crippling death pledge. That’s what mortgage means. Death pledge. ****’s French. If you were born around the mid 1980’s to 90’s or so, you likely had an inner voice screaming when you read the “college degree and can’t find gainful employment”. The point is that everyone, and I mean
everyone has problems that stem from ignorance. But no one likes to admit it, which is why it is so prevalent. Once you are able to convince yourself that you know something it becomes easier and easier to convince yourself that you know the next thing even when there is no evidence that you do.
Admitting that you are ignorant is the first step towards solving that ignorance. If you feel that you are an expert in a situation then you’re going to be close-minded and avoid seeking out new information. Why would an expert driver need to be told that speeding is involved in a third of all driving-related fatalities? There’s a ton of ways you can stop yourself from being that ignorant guy. You could quiz yourself or do continuous research on absolutely everything. You could give yourself a hypothetical “bar” to pass, like “if I really knew everything I needed to know about this, I could start a business in this field”. That’s a pretty good rule of thumb, there’s probably more. You could think of your own. But remember:
simplify. You’re ignorant. Not just of some things, of
all things. Forever. There is an infinite amount of knowledge for every subject and you will only be able to scratch the surface for most of them. You will always, always be missing something and that could be the root of your problems. Most people don’t think that way; they think of external forces being the cause of their issues. Even those that believe it’s an internal issue still think it’s something vague like a “personality flaw”. It rarely dawns on people that they’re just missing information. Avoidance of ignorance won’t solve all of your problems, but it gives you the tools to start. Energy drinks on an empty stomach and cause a stomach ache. Speeding and aggressive driving contribute greatly towards the chance you’ll be in a damaging accident. Incurring a large amount of debt for a house, car, college degree, or anything without much wiggle room is a ball and chain that is nearly impossible to reliably deal with, meaning that even minor and predictable issues like ‘I need new tires’ can be crippling. You won’t always be able to have the knowledge that will help you, but just assuming that you are missing it will help you a ton in life. That’s another rule –
Always a
ssume you are lacking helpful information. Put it on your wise-man index card that you are surely making right now.
Now that you’re assuming you’re lacking helpful information, you are open to the possibility of fixing all sorts of problems! Simply adding “…and I don’t know why” to the end of all of your problems can put things in perspective. Try it.
“I can’t save any money…. and I don’t know why”.
“I don’t have a significant other…. and I don’t know why”.
“I can’t lose weight…. and I don’t know why”.
Those three are some of the most common problems that younger people have in any developed country but I’d imagine when they’re phrased that way they seem pretty simple to you. It’s because you are no longer making assumptions that contribute to ignorance. When someone
else says “I can’t save money” you can lecture them on going out to eat too often, buying things they don’t need, having too small of an income, but when
you say “I can’t save money” you have all sorts of excuses. You
need your fast food and Starbucks and besides, it costs what, $5? You don’t take the extra step to realize that the $5 for your coffee every work day is $25 a week. Even if you can rationalize it by saying “$25 a week isn’t that big of a deal, I’d rather have coffee”, you still haven’t fully grasped the concept of how much it is actually crippling your ability to save money. $25 a week is $1300 a year. Even if the price of coffee didn’t increase (it will), working the standard 30 years to retirement means you’re spending around $39,000 on coffee. If you think that’s reasonable and you would rather not live without coffee that’s perfectly fine. Your call. But you have to be able to realize that if your problem is “I can’t save money”, a simple $5 savings every work day pays for a brand new car upon retirement. Is that worth it to you? Have you thought about it in that way before? If you haven’t, you were possibly being hurt by ignorance. Ignorance leads to lots of short-term decisions.
Just remember that there’s always some extra bit of information, some other way of thinking that can help you solve a problem in your life. We simplify all the time because it works really, really well – but that doesn’t mean it is flawless. Sometimes we simplify and forget to revisit a situation or habit. We make assumptions and when the dice roll poorly we don’t understand the cause that lead to the effect or, even worse, blame something else.
Always a
ssume you are lacking helpful information.
Attachment
Attachment could be called “desire”, but I won’t use that term on its own because it’s more than that. It’s a subtle yearning, a craving. Like being hungry. Have you ever skipped a meal and your body just kind of subconsciously drives your every action towards food? It’s not a conscious desire. You just find yourself in the kitchen eating the first thing you can find. You may get in the car and drive to a fast food place, even though it’s out of the ordinary and you hadn’t planned on it. You’re hungry, so you eat. You graze. You put your hand in the bag of chips on autopilot. The important part isn’t the how or why, it’s the doing. It doesn’t matter if you have consciously decided to eat less or if you know you’re going to dinner in an hour – you are constantly going to be influenced to eat. The poison of attachment is like that. It is
influence. You aren’t forced to do things against your will when you feel this tug of desire – your will changes to accommodate the desire.
When most people talk about desire in this fashion, they talk about strict materialism. They talk about attachment turned up to max volume. Impulse buying a 3D Printer because “it’s so cool”, buying a $20 T-shirt, buying too big a house or a fancy sports car, etc., etc. All around greed. This isn’t incorrect, but it’s the super obvious stuff. Yeah, people who spend more money than they should on expensive things they don’t need are going to be generally unhappy and have troubled lives. Not exactly a eureka conclusion. But attachment goes deeper than that. It doesn’t have to be that intense and in fact, rarely is.
When you get home from work or class, do you have a routine? What happens when that routine is broken? How would you feel if you suddenly don’t get to visit your family on Thanksgiving or Christmas, or your birthday isn’t celebrated by your friends? How do you feel when a tradition is not followed, or something you were expecting is missing? What if you go into work the next day and they tell you “oh, hey, we’re moving your desk to this awful spot out in the open with no windows” and you just have to deal with it? You’d be pretty upset at all of those, I’d wager. It’s not because they’re horrible things that destroy your life – you can be perfectly fine with your schedule two days before your birthday and have the
exact same schedule on your actual birthday and suddenly you’re upset because it hasn’t met your expectations of what your birthday should be. That’s attachment at work.
Breaking the subtle hold that desire has over your brain is one of the main keys to happiness. If you want something and don’t get it, you will, by definition, be unhappy with that outcome. The two solutions to this are to get whatever it is you want or to stop wanting something in the first place. Both are equally difficult, but in entirely different ways. Most of the “big” things are obvious to the people on the outside looking in, but quite hidden to those harboring these thoughts of attachment. The bigger, broader concepts also are those that typically lead to feelings of bitterness, depression, or frustration worming their way you’re your brain. That’s how attachment is so deadly – it becomes a part of you, a defining characteristic. When you don’t get “that thing” that you want, that you may have been searching or working towards for years, it can break your brain because it is complete and total failure in the most obvious of ways. Perhaps you’ve always dreamed of getting married but have never found “the one” and, as a result, feel despondent. Or maybe you’ve gone on lots of first dates, but very few second dates, because you have an idea of what the right person for you is and they weren’t it. It’s likely that you’ve always dreamed of doing something, but never quite made it and feel a little bitter. Could be playing an instrument or a sport at a high level, getting a specific job, travelling to a special place, whatever. These are all symptoms of attachment. Some may call it entitlement, or daydreaming, or childishness… all symptoms of attachment.
When you think of desire as being “attached” to things, it can put things in perspective for you. It doesn’t necessarily make it easier to deal with, but it does make it easier to understand. I fully understand that a subtle desire forged from unfounded expectations can cause me to be bitter or depressed, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t have my mood tarnished if I expect a relaxing day and instead get a whirlwind of responsibilities. Don’t get discouraged about it, it happens. It’ll happen a lot, often outside of your control. Just accept that these things will happen and your expectations will often sour your mood, then move on. It is
okay to not get what you want. Think of all the times you haven’t gotten what you want – the store is out of milk, your night out is canceled due to inclement weather, your high school crush doesn’t feel the same way, your car stops working…. They all might have sucked at the time and may make you upset just thinking about it years into the future, but you’ve probably moved on by this point. Maybe you’re even okay with it now, possibly even joke about it. It’s completely and totally fine for things to go wrong and you not get what you are expecting. In fact, add it to your wise man index card that is being written in your head. It’s important.
Not getting what you want is okay.
Ways to deal with attachment are numerous, but they basically all boil down to two things: getting what you want or not wanting it in the first place. “Getting what you want” is simple enough, but not always possible. Sometimes you can stack the deck in your favor with proper planning, but it is still entirely possible you won’t get what you want. You could decide you want to go fishing and prepare by taking a vacation day from work, informing everyone weeks in advance with constant reminders that you won’t be available or take any phone calls, have all the supplies and backup supplies you’d ever need, and then on the day of your excursion there’s a torrential downpour with a dangerous thunderstorm that wasn’t predicted by any weather station.
In situations like that, knowing that it isn’t the end of the world is a good start. Having an alternative solution is also helpful. You might not get to go fishing, but you have a day to yourself – there’s probably something else you wanted to do. Not the same, but not awful. Why not enjoy it?
I rarely get to play Smash anymore, mostly because I hate the community's choices and had to make the decision of fighting it tooth and nail, attending anyway, or not attending -- the first was too time consuming, the second wasn't something I'd particularly enjoy, and the third would free up my time for other things. So now I only really play smash at my friends' houses. My wife became sick yesterday with a stomach bug and wanted me to stay home with her. I did, because I am a good husband. I had front-loaded all my responsibilities for the week so I could have that Sunday free, just so I could go play smash with some of my friends that I don't get to see that often and ten minutes before I was leaving that option was removed for me. I could have moped all day, but instead I downloaded Pokemon Blue on the virtual console and battled my brother and roomate (I won, with Raticate, Sandshrew, and Ivysaur for our 3-man level 20 cap battle). Not what I originally wanted, but that's okay because I
let it be okay.
Aversion
I won't got into as much detail for aversion as I did for the others... but don't be hateful.
It can come from all sorts of angles. Fear is a big one. Believing that things are being taken from you, that there is no hope for humanity (global) or no hope for yourself (individual), etc., etc. Ignorance and attachment can lead to aversion. Hatefulness often comes from not seeing someone's perspective, too.
I'm personally pro-choice. I don't like the idea of abortions taking place, but fully understand that banning them is a fool's errand. It is very easy for someone who thinks "abortion = murder" to hate someone like me, despite both of us being roughly on the same page -- I just happen to know that banning abortions causes more problems than it solves. A better solution would be to have a social structure in place to care for children that really need assistance, but there isn't a robust one in place for them.
Most don't see it that way, and it's really easy to villify those who get emotional just talking about it. But, putting yourself in their shoes and fully embracing the concept of "abortion = murder, even one isn't okay in any circumstance" helps you think from their perspective. Helps you be logical, less emotional.
If you saw a guy with a gun about to shoot a child, would you be willing to shoot him yourself to save the child?
Most would say yes, despite killing being something they disagree with.
Would you kill a doctor about to give an abortion?
For people who believe "abortion = murder" with no grey area or exceptions,
it is the same scenario.
It makes it harder to hate them when you fully understand their position, even if you agree with their choices and mindset.
But even then, it can be difficult.
I try not to let my facebook be an echo chamber, so I have many, many people on my friends list that disagree with me. One said, and I quote:
"I don't care about the environment. Why would I lower my quality of life
now just so someone else can have a better life later? Besides, God will create a NEW Earth with a perfect environment so what we do doesn't even matter."
Now, I'll admit, typing that out made me grit my teeth and I'm pretty sure a more impulsive Overswarm would write that guy's name in a Death Note just to be safe.
I understand the guy's position, but he is still entirely bat**** crazy and selfish. There's no real worming around it for me. He's just
wrong. On a spiritual level he is incorrect -- even his own religious text tells him to care for the Earth, but he picks and chooses based on what is best for him and him alone.
I can't fully put myself in his shoes. It is just not within my power.
So what then?
Let it go.
It's completely, totally okay.
I have met dozens and dozens of people in my life who were just bad people. Just straight up "this is not a good person", no grey area, just worthless shells of a human being that have little to no chance of improving themselves without external influence. Despite these people existing, my life goes on.
Sometimes you have to distance yourself from them. Sometimes you can't -- if that guy above was my boss (he is not) I'd have a rough time distancing myself, but I could take steps towards finding employment elsewhere.
That's the second step.
The first is to just let it go. The second is to
take steps forward.
If you let hate dictate your mentality, your actions, and it isn't due to ignorance or attachment but rather the reality of a situation beyond your immediate control, the solution is to mentally let it go and then take one small step every day to move yourself forward out of that bad area.
"I don't make any money and I am bitter because I am poor"
I've seen that one a lot. I once spend $80 on chicken and bread and spices and eggs and whatnot for an entire house of friends who had no money, it fed 4 of them for over a week. They got really bitter because they didn't have money and they all pat each other on the back about the dumbest things. Hating cops, hating their bosses, hating job markets, hating their pay rate, whatever. Always something to hate. Like hate was a fuel.
They never "let it go". When I was playing pokemon red/blue instead of playing smash, I never once stopped to say "I really wish I could be playing smash" and never let it frame my current actions. It was "I'm playing pokemon with my friends" instead of "I'm playing pokemon with my friends instead of smash because...". I let it go. It was okay, even if it wasn't what was desired.
They also never took steps forward. "Boo hoo, I make $7.50 an hour". Yeah, it sucks.
Get a second job. Maybe another minimum wage job -- two full time jobs is now $15/hr, you've doubled your money. Less time, but doubled your money. That's a step forward. You can look for higher employment later.
Learn a skillset in your spare time -- no more goofball stuff, your free time is now learning to code or learning to clean mold out of basements or redoing a deck or painting a house or
whatever. You're going to learn something and have that skill to fall back on.
The important part isn't that the step you're taking be a "win/win" situation. Your second job might be flipping burgers or stocking shelves, maybe even the same thing as your first job. Doesn't matter if it is what you wanted, the point is
be one step closer to a better place than you were yesterday.
For most people, doubling their money for a 3 month period gives them a pretty nice emergency fund that allows them to crawl out of their hole and gives them options. It sucks for a while, but then one day you're in a better place than you were before and then you can work only one job.
Let it go, take a step forward, be in a better place than you were yesterday.
If you hate your environment, relax. Look into where else you would like to live. Maybe it's just a different building, maybe it is a different state.
If you hate your coworkers, relax. Maybe you can get to know them better, or maybe find a different job. It would take time, but there is no rush.
"But learning a new skillset or finding a new job will take months!"
Yes, it will. But those months are going to pass
anyway, so you might as well make use of the time so that you're in a better position afterwards.
If you have a global hatred ("how can people be voting for Trump, I thought we were done with this nationalist stuff"), just let it go. It's out of your control. If you want to contribute against it, donate to the opposition, do whatever you fancy. But let it go. If you have an emotional attachment to the outcome and allow hate to fester, it will drive you.
That's the big weakness with aversion.
With ignorance, you don't know what's happening.
With attachment, you know the end goal and are subtly influenced by whatever that end goal is.
With aversion, you know what is influencing you and you
embrace it.
Aversion has control over you and you not only approve of this control, you relish in it. You believe it makes you better, stronger as a person. It doesn't.
Hatred is always a source of weakness -- always. Let it go, then take a step forward to get out of that place of hatred. Be in a better place, mentally or physically, than you were yesterday.
Ignorance is horse blinders that you can remove in a matter of minutes.
Attachment is a routine that takes a few seconds to realize you're going it, then you just shake your head and step out of the routine again.
Aversion is a deep pit you can't climb out of. All you can do is dig with your hands into the side of the pit, slowly piling dirt until you find a way out.
I don't know your specific situation or if you were just being jokey, but the above should be a pretty good general guidelines for most situations.
~ Gheb ~ , I'm curious because I'm ignorant on the subject, what do you make of the possibility of a brexit?
Omni played against my smurf in League with ****ing jungle Teemo.
Overswarm
