http://xkcd.com/386/
(I'll give xkcd a break after this ... promise!) Dangerous spaces to be ... look around you, are you safe? 1. Writing blogs as if you know what you're talking about, or as if anyone cared. 2. To ignorant to know it. Uncommonly known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, you get a lot of this in armchair advisers, political commentators, unmarried marriage counselors, climate change denialists, and Fox news experts. Basically, too incompetent to know you're incompetent. This has the effect that you make a fool out of yourself and don't realize it (conversely, one of the signs of competence is an increasing awareness of your own shortcomings). This is also why democracy almost always elects mediocrity. 3. But I've still got questions. When you don't like something, you defend against reality with "well, that may be, but I've still got questions". Get over your pretentious intellectualism. The universe doesn't care if you've got questions, its going to carry on happening regardless. You're finite, so unanswered questions are an inevitable fact of life. Are you going to ignore gravity till you understand it. Will you avoid love until you can explain it? Will you deny your selfishness till you can defend it? You know you're in the agnostics heaven when you hear "but I've still got questions". Sitting on the fence is a painful position. 4. Casual confidence. Confidence is one of the hallmarks of western society. Built on the deception we instill in our kids that you can do anything you put your mind to, this leads to the fulfillment of Darwin's principles. It's deluding, and we find it expressed through phrases "Of course I could jump across that", "Oh yeah, anyone with half a brain knows it's really a plan to overthrow the government", or "It's my right to do what I want with my guns". How do you recognize casual confidence? If you're not embarrassed when you get found out, or simply shrug your shoulders if your lie is exposed, when you dismiss others pointing out your mistake, or you have no worries about mocking others, and you simply move on to your next epic failure. 5. Timidity and pride. People often think that humility goes hand in hand with timidity, and pride is the opposite of humility. Actually humility is best seen in realistic confidence. I know what I am, I know my limits, and I don't pretend to be less than I am, or more than I am. Timidity is believing I am less than I am. Pride is believing I am more than I am. Either way, you're living in a fantasy world that can get destroyed by any puff of realism. 6. I'm right, and yes, it's really true that I 'm right. Sometimes I may be right, actually right. Sometimes. The glorious explosion of realization that I'm finally right about something is a real blinder to nuance. Nuance is the essence of seeing the big picture. Seeing the big picture is perspective. Perspective is the beginning of Wisdom. So when I'm right, thats the time to pause and see what else I've missed. "I'm definitely right, that's the way we have to go, turn left". "Oops, sorry, I missed that there was a cliff in front of us" 7. Stepping off the arrow of time. Living in the past while the present begs you to take the opportunities. Hoping for the future and falling into the chasm of now. Are we the only creatures on the planet who live trying to avoid the instant? People say this generation lives in the present. I'm not so sure, I think they're trying to leap out of the present so fast so they can reach a fantasy future, that they miss what really lies ahead ... aging, ill-health, and inadequate retirement funds while your kids live in another city.
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Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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