"One often hears beautiful people in the media talk about how ambitious they are. Overstatement? Maybe... but what could be more ambitious than making a living out of being useless?"
An acquaintance of mine is exceptionally beautiful. Both her body and face are equisitely shaped and chiselled. In the myth of Narcissus the young boy spends all day staring at his reflection longingly. That is precisely what my beautiful acquaintance does.
It didn't catch me by surprise to hear that there is some evidence that the fusiform (part of the temporal lobe specialised for recognising faces) is also responsible for our appreciation of beauty. Nor did it surprise me that heterosexual men and women can identify physical beauty in both sexes (although only get aroused by the opposite sex). What does surprise me is that beauty appears to be very much like a narcotic but before the age of 30 people seldom seriously talk about beauty like this (and they don't actually use the word 'narcotic', they usually refer to it as being 'deceptive').
(Alert readers will pick up on the similarity between 'narcotic' and 'narcissist')
When I think of my beautiful acquaintance looking at herself admiringly in the mirror I am reminded of myself on a warm summer's day at the university admiring the hundreds of well-shaped and proportioned young women. It is important to note that even without any intention of chasing and sleeping with all of these women there is still pleasure just in observing their physical beauty. I know some women definitely feel the same way as I do when they observe physically beautiful men and I also know some men who just don't get why looking at physically attractive women is that exciting.
However, for many people, probably the majority, looking at physical beauty is exciting. So what happens when you're physically beautiful like my acquaintance? I suspect that you simply fall in love with yourself. I think it becomes so exciting to admire oneself that one begins to have fantasies about oneself like one often does about that proverbially attractive person in the office who smiles and says 'hi' to you each morning. Fortunately, that very beautiful person in the office is capable of rejecting us and returning us rudely from a daydream back to reality. But if you're in love with yourself there is no one to who can wake you up from this daydream, except perhaps old age... but really by this stage the narcissist has most likely fucked their life up.
From a biological perspective it is interesting to note that human beings did not evolve in the presence of mirrors and therefore there is no biological beneficial role in this kind of behaviour.
From a sociological view it is interesting to note that most attractive people are more confident and outgoing than less attractive people. Most likely because they get so much positive feedback from other people who really just smile and say nice things to them simply because they look beautiful and not necessarily because they have earned it.
I should mention that if it sounds like I have an axe to grind against beautiful people that's partly true. I know a few people who are both beautiful within as well as without but the majority of attractive people I know are deepling in love with themselves to the point where even having a friendship with them is inevitably unbearable and boring. I know in some of the exceptions I have met they have a low opinion of themselves because of abuse they have suffered as children which probably stopped them from falling in love with themselves because they had so much negative self-talk going on inside their heads by the time that they could admire themselves in a mirror. Other rare cases just seem very down to Earth, yet gorgeous and not self-hating... truly lucky people.
I guess I should make it clear here that my belief is thus: beauty is (generally) a curse.
Anything that makes you feel good without a rational reason will introduce delusion into ones thinking. Sure, if you realise this and have some form of emotional counter balance (not necessarily from abuse but also from more positive sources like an aethestic appreciate of internal virtue) then you're capable of admiring your own beauty without becoming delusional from it.
Delusions are harmful precisely because they feed us false information about the world we live in. If you have a false perception of what's important in life then you're going to make decisions that are far less likely to result in the desired outcome. For example, I might admire a beautiful person and it makes me feel excited to be with them... but if I give too much value to their beauty and marry them because of it then I'm running the risk of either finding their personality hideously ugly or ceasing to love them once they grow too old to be attractive anymore.
Why am I spending so much time on this topic which is really starting to be obvious to every person near and after that age of 30? Well simply because the age of 30 is far too late to be understanding how harmful beauty can be to oneself and others. Sure, it really does help with breeding more people and increasing genetic diversity in tempting married men and women to cheat... those really are great biological benefits and our genetics are well ahead of us there.
The thing is, our genes don't care about our happiness at all, they only care about their own survival. What's good for our genes isn't necessarily good for our long term happiness. From a biological point of view we can be utterly miserable but our genetics will be thriving. This is a serious problem for any sentient being as it puts limits(/threats) on our freedom to act rationally.
I don't feel comfortable saying these behaviours are right or wrong. I'm sure in other cultures many of these problems aren't issues at all. But what is wrong is that we aren't encouraged to look at this problem of beauty seriously when we're teenagers and only just discovering physical beauty in a new and exciting way. If we have all the facts and the philosophical tools to use them properly we could avoid a lot of pain later in life.
As for the beautiful people who have fallen in love with their reflections with a glazed look in their eyes... I can't help but feel sorry for them like I would a heroine addict. Just because something feels good doesn't mean it is good. These people have a seriously problem and our continued admiration of them only makes things harder for them. They need tough love, but sadly unless the great majority of people agree around them they aren't likely get enough to help them come back to reality... and really, why would they? Physical beauty is power (erotic capital).
Showing posts with label delusion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label delusion. Show all posts
02 February, 2010
15 January, 2010
The Myth of Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is a term used by almost everyone these days. I often find myself talking to people about this concept but very quickly realise that neither the person that I'm talking to nor myself have any idea what precisely we mean by this. So do we mean that a person thinks highly about themselves because they do? Or do we mean that everyone has a scale somewhere in their mind where they measure their self worth at any given time based on what other people think about them? Or something else entirely?
Over the years I've started to build up a mental list of the properties that self-esteem has:
1. It distorts reality
2. It varies from day to day, place to place
3. Too little is very painful
4. Too little makes people act in desperate and self-destructive ways
5. Too much makes a person very difficult to deal with
6. Despite being called 'self'-esteem most people don't give it to themselves.
7. The qualities that a person has that boost their self-esteem are quite subjective.
First I want to talk about where people get self-esteem.
Some people just seem to be content and happy with themselves and their lot. Others are disappointed and with their bodies, lives and lot in life. There are lots of theories as to why self-esteem varies so much across the population. Most of them relate to how our parents raised us, did they encourage and praise us as children or were they jealous and over critical? Others suggest that it is a genetically determined trait and that naturally some people think they are awesome and others think that they are trash.
I'm not completely satisfied with either of these viewpoints because self-esteem can vary a from day to day and sometimes minute to minute. Therefore there is definitely some plasticisty in self-esteem. When I'm poor I don't feel very attractive, but give me a wad of cash and I instantly feel sexier. Also, when my friends hug me and tell me how much they appreciate me I feel much happier about myself. Also, when people don't smile at me or respond when I say 'good morning' to them I often feel low for the rest of the day.
For an interesting article about how happiness spreads click here.
So it would appear we get a good portion of our self-esteem from other people. This is a very important point... having friends and family who reinforce a positive self-image is something one can control to a degree. As always with these things one would want friends to reciprocate any pro-esteem building activities in as close to equal measures as possible. But at the end of that day this is the reason why 'no man is an island' <-- a great deal of our happiness depends on positive communications and experience with other people.
Then there's the fact that ones perception of the world is altered dramatically depending on how much self-esteem they have. People with low self-esteem under estimate their value, over estimate the importance of other people, deny themselves things other people would freely take and often develop a cynical and bleak view on relationships. Whereas people with high self-esteem will over estimate their importance, dismiss other people as being less valuable and feel entitled to give themselves more breaks and perks thn other people. They will also think life is pretty damn good to them except for all of the other useless people getting in their way, perhaps.
I find changes in my self-esteem level disconcerting because I can see how they alter my spending patterns and decisions in relationships. Again, I'm a bit of a control freak and desire consistently in what I do so changes in self-esteem make me feel doubtful about my intellectual and creative abilities. Although really, unless the change is dramatic it doesn't appear noticeable to most people and I really do enjoy the odd spending spree!
When one has very low self-esteem one is left virtually defenceless and continuously embattled in relationships... it seems like a cruel trick because just having higher self-esteem can rescue struggling relationships but low self-esteem seems to destroy them totally even if the initial problems weren't that serious.
So surely it is best to have high self-esteem rather than low self-esteem? Well... I think the dangers of suicide and emotional trauma are lower for people with high self-esteem but at the same time everyone has worked for a boss whose high self-esteem does nothing back create frustration and inefficiently in the work place. Some form of moderation for self-esteem is needed. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest we just ditch this whole concept of self-esteem because it just isn't helpful: it is unclear what it means and actually serves to create more confusion about where real problems lie.
The more I think about it the problems of self-esteem are all just problems of relating to people. Fix your relationships with people and the esteem problems will disappear. The key to having good relationships is having them rooted in honesty, empathy and mutual reciprocation of needs. These elements all help to curb delusion and get things into perspective.
To illustrate what I mean by the lack of perspective and the delusions of self-esteem let's look at the things that boost people's self-esteem.
Being physically attractive
Being appreciated for kindness
Being listened to / respected
Being accepted as a valuable part of a community
Being talented in a rare or unique way
Physically attractive people feel good about themselves because everyone around them treats them with special attention and admiration. Not because they deserve it but because they might have won a genetic lottery. I'm unconvinced by this genetically superior argument as a great number of important people in history were physically ugly, infertile or homosexual and not beautiful heterosexual models of physical perfection. Rabbits demonstrate to us that want breeds quickly and efficiently isn't necessarily useful or desireable to civilisation. If you want to know more about how physically attractive people are really a burden on society read this article carefully.
So really, what all of these things point too is that by treating everyone with kindness, respect and dignity we can eliminate all self-esteem problems. By treating some people with special reverence simply because they are higher up the heirarchy or they look like great sex warmed up then you're unwittingly creating/perpetuating the very social order that grinds down on everyone. While investing time into developing a useful skill or talent is a sure way to boost your happiness.
I'm an atheist and I've just argued through reason that kindness, respect, understanding and self-discipline are universally good ideals to strive for. I did this without appealing to a supernatural entity. What's more, my explanation why it is so can be tested by experiment and observation. Also that maybe we should seriously consider deleting the concept of 'self-esteem' from our lexicons because it moves the focus away from what we can do to what we are. We can't change what we are, but we can change what we do.
Over the years I've started to build up a mental list of the properties that self-esteem has:
1. It distorts reality
2. It varies from day to day, place to place
3. Too little is very painful
4. Too little makes people act in desperate and self-destructive ways
5. Too much makes a person very difficult to deal with
6. Despite being called 'self'-esteem most people don't give it to themselves.
7. The qualities that a person has that boost their self-esteem are quite subjective.
First I want to talk about where people get self-esteem.
Some people just seem to be content and happy with themselves and their lot. Others are disappointed and with their bodies, lives and lot in life. There are lots of theories as to why self-esteem varies so much across the population. Most of them relate to how our parents raised us, did they encourage and praise us as children or were they jealous and over critical? Others suggest that it is a genetically determined trait and that naturally some people think they are awesome and others think that they are trash.
I'm not completely satisfied with either of these viewpoints because self-esteem can vary a from day to day and sometimes minute to minute. Therefore there is definitely some plasticisty in self-esteem. When I'm poor I don't feel very attractive, but give me a wad of cash and I instantly feel sexier. Also, when my friends hug me and tell me how much they appreciate me I feel much happier about myself. Also, when people don't smile at me or respond when I say 'good morning' to them I often feel low for the rest of the day.
For an interesting article about how happiness spreads click here.
So it would appear we get a good portion of our self-esteem from other people. This is a very important point... having friends and family who reinforce a positive self-image is something one can control to a degree. As always with these things one would want friends to reciprocate any pro-esteem building activities in as close to equal measures as possible. But at the end of that day this is the reason why 'no man is an island' <-- a great deal of our happiness depends on positive communications and experience with other people.
Then there's the fact that ones perception of the world is altered dramatically depending on how much self-esteem they have. People with low self-esteem under estimate their value, over estimate the importance of other people, deny themselves things other people would freely take and often develop a cynical and bleak view on relationships. Whereas people with high self-esteem will over estimate their importance, dismiss other people as being less valuable and feel entitled to give themselves more breaks and perks thn other people. They will also think life is pretty damn good to them except for all of the other useless people getting in their way, perhaps.
I find changes in my self-esteem level disconcerting because I can see how they alter my spending patterns and decisions in relationships. Again, I'm a bit of a control freak and desire consistently in what I do so changes in self-esteem make me feel doubtful about my intellectual and creative abilities. Although really, unless the change is dramatic it doesn't appear noticeable to most people and I really do enjoy the odd spending spree!
When one has very low self-esteem one is left virtually defenceless and continuously embattled in relationships... it seems like a cruel trick because just having higher self-esteem can rescue struggling relationships but low self-esteem seems to destroy them totally even if the initial problems weren't that serious.
So surely it is best to have high self-esteem rather than low self-esteem? Well... I think the dangers of suicide and emotional trauma are lower for people with high self-esteem but at the same time everyone has worked for a boss whose high self-esteem does nothing back create frustration and inefficiently in the work place. Some form of moderation for self-esteem is needed. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest we just ditch this whole concept of self-esteem because it just isn't helpful: it is unclear what it means and actually serves to create more confusion about where real problems lie.
The more I think about it the problems of self-esteem are all just problems of relating to people. Fix your relationships with people and the esteem problems will disappear. The key to having good relationships is having them rooted in honesty, empathy and mutual reciprocation of needs. These elements all help to curb delusion and get things into perspective.
To illustrate what I mean by the lack of perspective and the delusions of self-esteem let's look at the things that boost people's self-esteem.
Being physically attractive
Being appreciated for kindness
Being listened to / respected
Being accepted as a valuable part of a community
Being talented in a rare or unique way
Physically attractive people feel good about themselves because everyone around them treats them with special attention and admiration. Not because they deserve it but because they might have won a genetic lottery. I'm unconvinced by this genetically superior argument as a great number of important people in history were physically ugly, infertile or homosexual and not beautiful heterosexual models of physical perfection. Rabbits demonstrate to us that want breeds quickly and efficiently isn't necessarily useful or desireable to civilisation. If you want to know more about how physically attractive people are really a burden on society read this article carefully.
So really, what all of these things point too is that by treating everyone with kindness, respect and dignity we can eliminate all self-esteem problems. By treating some people with special reverence simply because they are higher up the heirarchy or they look like great sex warmed up then you're unwittingly creating/perpetuating the very social order that grinds down on everyone. While investing time into developing a useful skill or talent is a sure way to boost your happiness.
I'm an atheist and I've just argued through reason that kindness, respect, understanding and self-discipline are universally good ideals to strive for. I did this without appealing to a supernatural entity. What's more, my explanation why it is so can be tested by experiment and observation. Also that maybe we should seriously consider deleting the concept of 'self-esteem' from our lexicons because it moves the focus away from what we can do to what we are. We can't change what we are, but we can change what we do.
23 December, 2009
Discogia and Becoming an Atheist
When asked why I became an atheist I usually answer with a stock standard answer like, "There just isn't any imperical evidence for the existence of god and there are far more likely explanations that fit the facts and evidence that is available and these explanations do not require the existence of god to work,"
This statement might well be true but it doesn't actually convey any of my personal or emotional experience with coming to terms with living in a universe without a god in it. In truth my loss of faith was driven not my intellectual needs at all, but by emotional forces at work within me.
To understand why it felt so unbearable being a Catholic one first needs to understand the concept of cognitive dissonance. Notice that the feeling doesn't have a specific name, instead they just refer to it as involving a mixture of secondary emotions like: anxiety, guilt, shame, anger, embarrassment and stress. However, none of these secondary emotions adequately describes the primary feeling. I have adapted the term 'discogia' to describe this feeling.
As a young Catholic I spent a great deal of time worrying about whether or not I would go to hell if I died. See, although many people say that I was a quiet well behaved child I nonetheless knew better. I had frequently lied to, stolen from, harmed and decieved many people (including my own family), albeit these were petty crimes typical of a child in retrospect. However, it was very clear to me that I had committed serious crimes and injustices to other people. God was very clear on this and he watched everything that I did and he knew my thoughts so I couldn't lie to him. I had no explanation for my actions except that I was evil. Therefore I was going to hell. When I confessed my sins to the priest he assured me that my sins were not that important and I would be forgiven.
This is where I started to feel discogia creeping into my life in a big way.
See, god hates sin, god is perfect, god created man, god created hell to punish sinners and god loves us. Why then would got create man in such a way that his natural tendancy is to sin? Then after he has sinned throw him into a lake of fire to burn in torment for all eternity... but still love him?
Also, if god created man why make him capable of sinning so easily? If he was perfect and all powerful surely he could have at least done a better job? As for free will this puzzled me the most because I was in love with science at the time and science could predict the future, albeit in limited ways, but the fact that science works at all implies that free will can't actually be free.
I remember being in grades 5 and 6 worrying frantically about this problem. I tried over and over again to write stories that were original... but everything was copied from something I'd seen, read or heard before... all I was doing was reproducing somebody else's ideas and mixing them with another persons. The creativity needed to produce truly free will didn't exist. In retrospect the knowledge and power needed to achieve free will is on a scale well beyond human capability. The conclusion was stark... I was just a machine. Worse than that, a sinful machine doomed to hell... because apparently a loving god had created me this way just for this purpose.
At the time my solution was clear, become a priest so that I could get on god's good side and it would all be ok. Although... god wasn't exactly someone I felt comfortable trusting either. I had been very disturbed by the angel of death killing all of egypt's first born. In mass I had heard that god asked Abraham to kill his only son as a sign of faith, true, he stopped him but later on God would actually kill his only son and I never could understand why he did that. God was actually scaring me quite a lot. Could my father kill me like god did? Just to make a point about how far he could go? Or what really confused me at the time was why would god deliberately forced his son to get himself killed (it is mentioned in the gospels that Jesus had the option of escape but god pushed him into it) then get angry with humanity for killing his son?
The feelings of discogia just got worse and worse as I grew older. But I didn't want to give up on god. So I started off by deciding that the old testament was garbage and focussed only on the new testament... then I started to get bothered by inconsistencies between the gospels which could only be explained if the writers weren't perfect/inspired by the holy spirit but just ordinary men. In which case they could have got it wrong. I also remember being bothered by Jesus' complete lack of a comprehensive schema or world view. His message was devoid of detail and practical advice. By my teenage years I had come to realise how childishly simplistic the words and messages of the bible were compared to the sophistication of later authors. I had to wonder if these were learned men at all writing it.
So eventually I turned to deism. God existed, but it was not for me a mere mortal to interpret his will. Then gradually the importance and role of god in the world grew less and less as I dealt with each remaining instance of discogia by putting in place scientific and rational ideas that dealt with the facts better than the religious one - although by this stage I was in university studying philosophy. When I started philosophy that's when I started gaining serious ground on the overwhelming sense of discogia that I had been ensared in. But that's still too simple an explanation for an emotional level.
It hurt.
Losing god in my life hurt me a great deal... it must have taken me 1,000 steps to get from Catholic to atheist. I was a wiccan in between and a pagan between that. For each step I removed one unpleasant feeling of discogia and replaced it with a sharper more painful realisation of my limitations, mortality, ordinariness and insignificance.
To become an atheist I had to give up these things:
That I was special and unique because I was part of a brilliant plan.
That my body was a work of art, not a randomly arranged set of genetic instructions.
That I would live after death.
That I would eventually see my friends and loved ones again.
That I could achieve anything because god doesn't make junk.
That there was justice in the universe.
That I would always be rewarded if I did the right thing.
That there was such a concept as a 'right' thing.
That I was loved no matter what I did.
That humanity was being looked after and cared for from above so it would all work out in the end whatever happened.
That good things will just come to me if I wait for god to deliver them.
^ That's an awful lot to lose. It hurt. It hurt so much one month I just couldn't sleep at all from fear of death. It hurt because religion had been my iron shield against insecurity in my life. Once I lost that shield I felt tiny, helpless and small. Becoming an atheist was not a quick, easy or effortless task. In this short passage I cannot describe how painful it was. I wasn't suicidal, rather the opposite... I was scared of stepping outside my door in case a car hit me on the foot path and it was all over.
Life after god was only painful to reach because I had had my hopes raised to outrageously high levels by religious education beforehand. If the feeling of discogia hadn't been so awkward (it wasn't painful, just awkward) I never would have given up on religion because those defences against uncertainty were wonderful.
So, for me, I became an atheist not because I thought more clearly than others... but because I felt more strongly than others. I find it awkward telling people that's there's no god or religious dogma is bad. Not because I don't believe it... but I know that every time I say it I'm pushing someone down another of those 1,000 steps that eventually leads to peace of mind... but every step hurts a great deal too and unlike god, I wouldn't wish that pain on anyone.
This statement might well be true but it doesn't actually convey any of my personal or emotional experience with coming to terms with living in a universe without a god in it. In truth my loss of faith was driven not my intellectual needs at all, but by emotional forces at work within me.
To understand why it felt so unbearable being a Catholic one first needs to understand the concept of cognitive dissonance. Notice that the feeling doesn't have a specific name, instead they just refer to it as involving a mixture of secondary emotions like: anxiety, guilt, shame, anger, embarrassment and stress. However, none of these secondary emotions adequately describes the primary feeling. I have adapted the term 'discogia' to describe this feeling.
As a young Catholic I spent a great deal of time worrying about whether or not I would go to hell if I died. See, although many people say that I was a quiet well behaved child I nonetheless knew better. I had frequently lied to, stolen from, harmed and decieved many people (including my own family), albeit these were petty crimes typical of a child in retrospect. However, it was very clear to me that I had committed serious crimes and injustices to other people. God was very clear on this and he watched everything that I did and he knew my thoughts so I couldn't lie to him. I had no explanation for my actions except that I was evil. Therefore I was going to hell. When I confessed my sins to the priest he assured me that my sins were not that important and I would be forgiven.
This is where I started to feel discogia creeping into my life in a big way.
See, god hates sin, god is perfect, god created man, god created hell to punish sinners and god loves us. Why then would got create man in such a way that his natural tendancy is to sin? Then after he has sinned throw him into a lake of fire to burn in torment for all eternity... but still love him?
Also, if god created man why make him capable of sinning so easily? If he was perfect and all powerful surely he could have at least done a better job? As for free will this puzzled me the most because I was in love with science at the time and science could predict the future, albeit in limited ways, but the fact that science works at all implies that free will can't actually be free.
I remember being in grades 5 and 6 worrying frantically about this problem. I tried over and over again to write stories that were original... but everything was copied from something I'd seen, read or heard before... all I was doing was reproducing somebody else's ideas and mixing them with another persons. The creativity needed to produce truly free will didn't exist. In retrospect the knowledge and power needed to achieve free will is on a scale well beyond human capability. The conclusion was stark... I was just a machine. Worse than that, a sinful machine doomed to hell... because apparently a loving god had created me this way just for this purpose.
At the time my solution was clear, become a priest so that I could get on god's good side and it would all be ok. Although... god wasn't exactly someone I felt comfortable trusting either. I had been very disturbed by the angel of death killing all of egypt's first born. In mass I had heard that god asked Abraham to kill his only son as a sign of faith, true, he stopped him but later on God would actually kill his only son and I never could understand why he did that. God was actually scaring me quite a lot. Could my father kill me like god did? Just to make a point about how far he could go? Or what really confused me at the time was why would god deliberately forced his son to get himself killed (it is mentioned in the gospels that Jesus had the option of escape but god pushed him into it) then get angry with humanity for killing his son?
The feelings of discogia just got worse and worse as I grew older. But I didn't want to give up on god. So I started off by deciding that the old testament was garbage and focussed only on the new testament... then I started to get bothered by inconsistencies between the gospels which could only be explained if the writers weren't perfect/inspired by the holy spirit but just ordinary men. In which case they could have got it wrong. I also remember being bothered by Jesus' complete lack of a comprehensive schema or world view. His message was devoid of detail and practical advice. By my teenage years I had come to realise how childishly simplistic the words and messages of the bible were compared to the sophistication of later authors. I had to wonder if these were learned men at all writing it.
So eventually I turned to deism. God existed, but it was not for me a mere mortal to interpret his will. Then gradually the importance and role of god in the world grew less and less as I dealt with each remaining instance of discogia by putting in place scientific and rational ideas that dealt with the facts better than the religious one - although by this stage I was in university studying philosophy. When I started philosophy that's when I started gaining serious ground on the overwhelming sense of discogia that I had been ensared in. But that's still too simple an explanation for an emotional level.
It hurt.
Losing god in my life hurt me a great deal... it must have taken me 1,000 steps to get from Catholic to atheist. I was a wiccan in between and a pagan between that. For each step I removed one unpleasant feeling of discogia and replaced it with a sharper more painful realisation of my limitations, mortality, ordinariness and insignificance.
To become an atheist I had to give up these things:
That I was special and unique because I was part of a brilliant plan.
That my body was a work of art, not a randomly arranged set of genetic instructions.
That I would live after death.
That I would eventually see my friends and loved ones again.
That I could achieve anything because god doesn't make junk.
That there was justice in the universe.
That I would always be rewarded if I did the right thing.
That there was such a concept as a 'right' thing.
That I was loved no matter what I did.
That humanity was being looked after and cared for from above so it would all work out in the end whatever happened.
That good things will just come to me if I wait for god to deliver them.
^ That's an awful lot to lose. It hurt. It hurt so much one month I just couldn't sleep at all from fear of death. It hurt because religion had been my iron shield against insecurity in my life. Once I lost that shield I felt tiny, helpless and small. Becoming an atheist was not a quick, easy or effortless task. In this short passage I cannot describe how painful it was. I wasn't suicidal, rather the opposite... I was scared of stepping outside my door in case a car hit me on the foot path and it was all over.
Life after god was only painful to reach because I had had my hopes raised to outrageously high levels by religious education beforehand. If the feeling of discogia hadn't been so awkward (it wasn't painful, just awkward) I never would have given up on religion because those defences against uncertainty were wonderful.
So, for me, I became an atheist not because I thought more clearly than others... but because I felt more strongly than others. I find it awkward telling people that's there's no god or religious dogma is bad. Not because I don't believe it... but I know that every time I say it I'm pushing someone down another of those 1,000 steps that eventually leads to peace of mind... but every step hurts a great deal too and unlike god, I wouldn't wish that pain on anyone.
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