I feel like writing today for the first time in weeks so please forgive me if I just start overloading this page with with my rabblings.
Some of you will know that I have a tendancy of reading the descriptions of personality disorders in Wikipedia and making out a list of people I suspect might have these traits. Fewer of you will realise that my personal opinion is that most of these personality disorders are not psychological in nature, but physiological. I don't actually think people can become selfish through life experience rather I believe people are born selfish and the environment influences how selfish they eventually become. The same with kindness; I think some people are born with the potential to be kind and some people just have to learn (or not learn) through social pressure.
I know this kind of thing upsets a lot of people. Generally the kind people because the selfish people don't care as they're happy with themselves and they just wish everyone else was too.
This is really a typical viewpoint from a neuroscientist and one that psychologists stay up late at night worrying about. The fundamental difference between a psychologist and a neuroscientist is that a neuroscientist is a biologist and a psychologist is an academic. I'm not saying that psychology is useless, it has many various uses for our society. However, when psychologists call themselves scientists they are making a huge mistake. They have two claims to being a science: 1) they use statistics and 2) they study the nervous system.
1) Accountants, sociologists, anthropologists, lawyers, politicians, marketers etc all use statistics and we don't seriously think they are scientists so why should we think of psychologists as an exception?
2) The study of the nervous system is by definition neuroscience not psychology. If you're calling yourself a psychologist and studying the nervous system you need to reconsider how you identify yourself.
So, back to the topic of interest. I've been spending a bit of time recently reading up on the cluster B personality disorders: Borderline, Histrionic and Narcissistic in particular. What fascinates me is how similar they all are in that the person with any of these disorders lacks or has severe deficits in empathy. They inflict enormous pain and suffering onto other people in their lives but have very little idea of how much hurt that they have caused. If you ask them to describe how much they have hurt someone they usally have no idea what you mean or just a vague notion of having upset someone. Then they'll explain how hurt they are... hmmm... this one-way awareness of psychological pain seems unimaginable to the great majority of people who have empathy. But really, we all take for granted that most other people recognise easily when we are psychologically hurt. When we come across a person with a personality disorder (from cluster B) we are taken by surprise that anyone could be so blind to another person's emotional well-being. But really, should we be? Empathy is a very complicated and advanced process. It is remarkable that we have empathy at all much less to the extent that most people have it.
Empathy isn't simply the awareness of how other people feel. It is our ability to understand and get inside someone else's head. It is our ability to absorb other people's emotions and feel them as though they are our own. It is our ability to feel connected to a friend or a lover. It is our enjoyment of conversation and the ability to learn to speak at all!
That's why I find people with deficiencies with empathy so interesting. They aren't actually unhappy most of the time with lacking empathy, rather they seem to find it liberating rather than lonely which most people with considerable empathy generally feel when they don't have someone to connect with them.
It is hard to say too much empathy is bad for someone because empathy is the perfect tool for manipulating and controlling people. Just think how easy it is to control someone whom you know so well that you can accurately predict how they would respond to a given situation? Yet ironically perhaps, because empathy can't be switched off, the person doing the manipulation is going to absorb the hurt and pain of the person they're manipulating when they find out they've been betrayed. Of course hating someone is a great inhibitory pathway against feeling any concern for the injury that they've caused... but yet again having high empathy increases the capacity for forgiveness and thus makes hate a short lived phenomenon in that person's mental life.
(A good rule of thumb is to be careful of anyone who hates anyone for a prolonged period of time)
I think most of the problems people with empathy have is that they can't imagine a person who has serious deficiencies in empathy. I think narcissists, for example, would stop being narcissists if they could balance their sensitivity for their own feelings against an equal sensitivity for other people's feelings. But if their own feelings sound like a siren and other people's like a whisper then they're going to spend most of their time and effort taking care of themselves and neglecting their friends.
With histrionics they over act their emotions. They dramatise their feelings. The DSM-IV gives no clue as to why they do this but I think it is rather clear. They have trouble picking up on other people's emotions because the pick-up volume has been turned down on their empathy microphone. So I imagine that they feel they need to 'speak' louder (emotionally, as well as literally!) for other people to pick up on how they are feeling. Interestingly, highly empathetic people are usually calm and self-restrained even when being intensely emotional precisely because they don't want to overwhelm their listener with the full force of their emotionality.
What is interesting with sociopaths is that they can accurately interpret other people's behaviour and thoughts but are completely unaffected by their emotional state. Instead of feeling disturbed by a struggling victim as they knife them to death they feel exhilaration!
Which kind of pushes us onto the next topic: emovores (I can't remember if I made this word up or not as I've been using this word for many years).
Emovores are people who cannot maintain their psychological equilibrium by themselves. That is, when alone, away from safe comfortable environments etc... they can't 'hold it together' and start to fall apart psychologically. How they deal with this is to latch onto another person and depend on the other person's intrapsychic ability to maintain their own psychological equibrium.
(Now everyone feels like they can't "hold-it-together" sometimes and this is generally due to a traumatic experience but if no traumatic experience is present and there is no clear objective reason why they would be struggling to maintain emotional equilibrium then they just might be an emovore... but on further reflection the best guide is their profound lack of guilt when hurting/inconveniencing someone giving them the impression of having a strong sense of entitlement)
For a person with narcissism... they can't maintain positive feelings about themselves continuously so they seek out a person who will help keep them feeling 'good' about themselves. For a person with histrionic personality disorder the story seems to be much the same. As for a person with borderline the situation appears to be much more desperate. They need constant interaction with someone intimate to keep themselves stable by maintaining an elaborate fantasy about themselves and cannot handle even short periods of separation.
I think the emovore threat is real enough that people should be warned early in life that some people need to feed off other people emotionally. I'm not saying this without compassion. These people clearly have the psychological equivalent of paraplegia. But it is not clear what counselling would do for them because the affirming attention of a counsellor is precising what they want and only reinforces their harmful behaviour. True, some people with these disorders are very smart and learn to be more balanced in their dealings with other people... while I've also witnessed anti-depressants work at taking the edge off their emotional cravings.
However, I'm sure the cause and cure for these disorders won't be found in the psychiatrist's chair but under the microscope in my lab. Until then I think we should be more aware of these people and how best to handle them so they don't cause genuinely kind and caring people unnecessary suffering.
Finally, I should bring this random post back to the stated aims of this blog. I'm deeply concerned about the dogmas surrounding mental illness and of which psychology as a profession is full of. I want to strip these dogmas away and bring these topics of interest of psychology into the every day speech of all people as awareness of the issues raised in this post would be greatly beneficial as common knowledge taught in classrooms instead of being the privy of a few uni students. I know some of you reading this are psychologists and will feel the need to defend yourselves... please don't... there is nothing dangerous in questioning the usefulness of your profession... actually it is very enlightened for anyone to do so, whatever your occupation. It is called forward thinking. I think you'd also have to concede that distance between psychology and neuroscience is getting smaller ever year and it is entirely foreseeable that we'll be using exactly the same research methods in the future, so I don't see us as enemies or rivals... just players on the same team except you probably should stop being so shy of the microscopes and sharp cutting instruments.
PS: I didn't mention this but I have been reminded that sometimes ordinary sensitive caring people manifest these disorders as a result of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I must admit I have been negligent in discussing this in this post and hope to fix this up in a later post as this is a clear instance of an environmentally induced personality disorder and one that one can potentially recover fully from. One should therefore consider, due to my negligence, that this article is only about people who in the absence of a traumatic event in their lives nonetheless manifest these traits and cannot be reasoned with regarding them. Also my jabs at psychology are more playful here, I most certainly don't want to see psychology destroyed or treated as a pointless field of study... I'm just worried about anyone who calls themself a scientist but doesn't actually practice true science.
03 February, 2010
02 February, 2010
Beauty and Truth
"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).
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).
The Self-Destruct Instinct
The recent death of my father has forced me to come to terms with an uncomfortable truth. Although my father didn't consciously acknowledge that he was doing this, he effectively killed himself. Through smoking, alcohol abuse, bad eating habits and a sedentary life-style my father had removed 20-30 years from his life expectancy.
As a child growing up I struggled with the irrationality of my father's self-destructive habits. I felt deeply hurt by his self neglect because I felt it had a negative impact on my life and happiness. When I grew older I came to understand my father better. He was a dazed and blinded soul who had lost much of his will to live. Certainly, he was neither suicidal or aware of having a self- destructive nature. Yet I feel certain that my father hastened this death considerably through his day to day decision making.
My father was not alone. Millions of people smoke, drink too much, take drugs, don't eat properly and fail to exercise enough. Millions? Billions is more accurate. We as a species have a curious habit of destroying ourselves.
As a biologist the first question I must ask is, what is the survival advantage of having a tendancy to neglect and harm ourselves? The truth is that not all self-destructive behaviour is considered bad.
Enlisting in the armed forces or police force of your country is a sure way to put yourself in harm's way. Doing a PhD, quitting your job, having sex with a stranger and going on a hunger strike are more ways one can harm oneself.
The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this tendancy to harm ourselves is very important. Not simply because it makes us capable of heroic sacrifice but on a more sublime level it gives us a sense of free will. I know scientifically speaking absolute free will does not exist, but I don't want to go into that topic today (but be assured this is a topic I definitely want to cover in the future).
Instead consider an animal that can only act in its best personal interests. Such an animal is not capable of giving freely (they would always be expecting an equal or greater reward for their generousity else they are being self-destructive). They would also not be capable of making a choice, as a choice requires more than one option. If the only option is self-preservation then one isn't capable of considering radical solutions to problems like turning around and facing the problem head on in spite of the risks.
I enjoy watching David Attenborough's wildlife series but I'm always frustrated whenever I see ten thousand impalas or caribou flee a hunting dog or a solitary wolf. If the herd turned on their predator they could easy trample and kill it by sheer weight of numbers. But clearly these animals have no choice because they very predictably flee from a problem they could easily solve with a small amount of intelligence. Tragically, the few smart prey who do turn around and fight are rare mutants that don't occur spontaneously in large enough numbers to be effective and so the gene pool is kept clean of rebellious elements.
I postulate that a delicate balance of self-preservation instincts versus self-harming instincts is inside all of us. I believe this is both natural and desirable to have. I also believe our ignorance of our own tendancy to harm ourselves by investing more than we should into a project or relationship is more harmful than not having the ability to put ourselves through difficult experiences like post graduate education or raising children.
Today I have been thinking about all the ways I induce pain on myself and why. Poverty, so that I may follow a dream to become a scientist. Physical exhursion so that I might become fitter and stronger. Helping people out so that I will have people willing to help me when I need it.
No wonder we can't tickle ourselves, it is all so it won't hurt so much when we decide to harm ourselves for our own good. Gosh we're a complicated species.
As a child growing up I struggled with the irrationality of my father's self-destructive habits. I felt deeply hurt by his self neglect because I felt it had a negative impact on my life and happiness. When I grew older I came to understand my father better. He was a dazed and blinded soul who had lost much of his will to live. Certainly, he was neither suicidal or aware of having a self- destructive nature. Yet I feel certain that my father hastened this death considerably through his day to day decision making.
My father was not alone. Millions of people smoke, drink too much, take drugs, don't eat properly and fail to exercise enough. Millions? Billions is more accurate. We as a species have a curious habit of destroying ourselves.
As a biologist the first question I must ask is, what is the survival advantage of having a tendancy to neglect and harm ourselves? The truth is that not all self-destructive behaviour is considered bad.
Enlisting in the armed forces or police force of your country is a sure way to put yourself in harm's way. Doing a PhD, quitting your job, having sex with a stranger and going on a hunger strike are more ways one can harm oneself.
The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this tendancy to harm ourselves is very important. Not simply because it makes us capable of heroic sacrifice but on a more sublime level it gives us a sense of free will. I know scientifically speaking absolute free will does not exist, but I don't want to go into that topic today (but be assured this is a topic I definitely want to cover in the future).
Instead consider an animal that can only act in its best personal interests. Such an animal is not capable of giving freely (they would always be expecting an equal or greater reward for their generousity else they are being self-destructive). They would also not be capable of making a choice, as a choice requires more than one option. If the only option is self-preservation then one isn't capable of considering radical solutions to problems like turning around and facing the problem head on in spite of the risks.
I enjoy watching David Attenborough's wildlife series but I'm always frustrated whenever I see ten thousand impalas or caribou flee a hunting dog or a solitary wolf. If the herd turned on their predator they could easy trample and kill it by sheer weight of numbers. But clearly these animals have no choice because they very predictably flee from a problem they could easily solve with a small amount of intelligence. Tragically, the few smart prey who do turn around and fight are rare mutants that don't occur spontaneously in large enough numbers to be effective and so the gene pool is kept clean of rebellious elements.
I postulate that a delicate balance of self-preservation instincts versus self-harming instincts is inside all of us. I believe this is both natural and desirable to have. I also believe our ignorance of our own tendancy to harm ourselves by investing more than we should into a project or relationship is more harmful than not having the ability to put ourselves through difficult experiences like post graduate education or raising children.
Today I have been thinking about all the ways I induce pain on myself and why. Poverty, so that I may follow a dream to become a scientist. Physical exhursion so that I might become fitter and stronger. Helping people out so that I will have people willing to help me when I need it.
No wonder we can't tickle ourselves, it is all so it won't hurt so much when we decide to harm ourselves for our own good. Gosh we're a complicated species.
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.
12 January, 2010
Hiatus
Dear fans and followers,
Although I'm bursting at the seems with ideas to write about, current events in my life are too overwhelming for me to find the time write another installment just yet. Be assured though that once I'm fully rested with some spare time I'll tell you what I've learned recently.
Yours sincerely,
Aristotle
Although I'm bursting at the seems with ideas to write about, current events in my life are too overwhelming for me to find the time write another installment just yet. Be assured though that once I'm fully rested with some spare time I'll tell you what I've learned recently.
Yours sincerely,
Aristotle
02 January, 2010
In the Absence of Fear
I was thinking about my next thought experiment last night. It is a simple but profound one. Imagine yourself in a situation, maybe with a friend, talking to a superior, shopping or planning your next life changing decision. Think about what you would normally do in this situation. Then think about what you would do in that situation if you had no sense of fear.
When I find the actions of myself and my friends predictable it is only because I have gotten acquainted with what scares us. Knowing what scares someone allows one to accurately predict their reaction to a situation... but I think you'll find as I did after running that thought experiment through your mind a few times to its logical conclusion that the end result is extremely unpredictable and even suicidal in behaviour.
But it is interesting, yes? Just how many of our decisions in life are made out of love (in this sense our desire to do something we personally believe in) and how many are made out of fear (in this sense our desire to manage our insecurities)?
I have developed this model of insecurity management vs creative adventurism to explain human decision making.
Insecurity management is about making decisions to placate our fears relating to death, harm, loss, rejection, ostracism and uncertainty. These fears could be real, such as avoiding walking across a floor covered in glass shards with bare feet, or they could be imaginary, such as fearing that someone is telepathically reading your mind. I personally think purely imaginary fears are quite rare and the vast number of fears people have do have a rational basis. What I'm far more concerned with is over expressed fears. That is fears we respect even though the consequences of ignoring them are next to harmless or less severe than if we did otherwise.
Self-consciousness is a good example of this. A person may fear that they have a physical defect, which honestly, we all have physical defects so that is a rational fear, so they avoid social interaction because they're afraid of people not accept them because of it. While it is quite distressing to realise that you might have a physical defect that limits your enjoyment of life compared to other people, the consequences of fearing that other people will reject you and thus avoiding social interaction altogether are far more harmful than ignoring that fear.
Just to clarify I'm being very broad in my definition of physical defects in the above paragraph, I'm including beauty spots, facial assymetries along with more serious ones like heart and kidney defects. Defects that make us less than perfectly beautiful are present in everyone and the source of much anxiety for most people - even though they are hardly life threatening by themselves. They are far more dangerous when we over express our fear about their impact on our lives.
Pushing against insecurity management is creative adventurism. This is our desire to explore new experiences. New romances, deeper connections with existing relationships, new hobbies, new interests, new ways of doing the same thing. Basically our desire to be creative and inventive. From fixing a squeaky gate to changing our career. This is our desire to grow, explore and live.
This sounds really beautiful, and it is because this is where we get our enjoyment out of life. Pushing new frontiers. This is what makes life worth living.
It is also the biggest source of insecurity in our lives.
It is the source of our desire to put ourselves into harm's way, it is our desire to stop an abuser, it is our desire to risk our friendships and money for something that very likely will not be worth the cost of losing that money or those friends. It is our desire to challenge our society, parents and leaders... which might lead to greater freedom, happiness and prosperity... or to brutal and fatal retaliation from them. Making the first move into unexplored territory is always the scariest venture. Even if just for the risk of putting in weeks, months or years of effort into a project, book or relationship only to find it leads nowhere.
So... insecurity management is important... it keeps us safe, and our lives stable and predictable. But it doesn't make us happy either.
Then there's creative adventurism which offers us all the thrills and excitement of living. But it just might kill/destroy/harm us in the quest for a better life.
Clearly the two sides of this see-saw need to be in balance somehow. We need to work on our insecurities and discover if we over express them or if we have too many that they cripple our ability to enjoy life. Sometimes we need to look at our desire to challenge and attack the status quo and ask if you're investing your time in a rebellious act that is actually helping yourself, your friends and your community... or just creating new problems for them?
This is all about becoming less ignorant about why one does certain things so that we can both be more productive and enjoy our lives more.
When I find the actions of myself and my friends predictable it is only because I have gotten acquainted with what scares us. Knowing what scares someone allows one to accurately predict their reaction to a situation... but I think you'll find as I did after running that thought experiment through your mind a few times to its logical conclusion that the end result is extremely unpredictable and even suicidal in behaviour.
But it is interesting, yes? Just how many of our decisions in life are made out of love (in this sense our desire to do something we personally believe in) and how many are made out of fear (in this sense our desire to manage our insecurities)?
I have developed this model of insecurity management vs creative adventurism to explain human decision making.
Insecurity management is about making decisions to placate our fears relating to death, harm, loss, rejection, ostracism and uncertainty. These fears could be real, such as avoiding walking across a floor covered in glass shards with bare feet, or they could be imaginary, such as fearing that someone is telepathically reading your mind. I personally think purely imaginary fears are quite rare and the vast number of fears people have do have a rational basis. What I'm far more concerned with is over expressed fears. That is fears we respect even though the consequences of ignoring them are next to harmless or less severe than if we did otherwise.
Self-consciousness is a good example of this. A person may fear that they have a physical defect, which honestly, we all have physical defects so that is a rational fear, so they avoid social interaction because they're afraid of people not accept them because of it. While it is quite distressing to realise that you might have a physical defect that limits your enjoyment of life compared to other people, the consequences of fearing that other people will reject you and thus avoiding social interaction altogether are far more harmful than ignoring that fear.
Just to clarify I'm being very broad in my definition of physical defects in the above paragraph, I'm including beauty spots, facial assymetries along with more serious ones like heart and kidney defects. Defects that make us less than perfectly beautiful are present in everyone and the source of much anxiety for most people - even though they are hardly life threatening by themselves. They are far more dangerous when we over express our fear about their impact on our lives.
Pushing against insecurity management is creative adventurism. This is our desire to explore new experiences. New romances, deeper connections with existing relationships, new hobbies, new interests, new ways of doing the same thing. Basically our desire to be creative and inventive. From fixing a squeaky gate to changing our career. This is our desire to grow, explore and live.
This sounds really beautiful, and it is because this is where we get our enjoyment out of life. Pushing new frontiers. This is what makes life worth living.
It is also the biggest source of insecurity in our lives.
It is the source of our desire to put ourselves into harm's way, it is our desire to stop an abuser, it is our desire to risk our friendships and money for something that very likely will not be worth the cost of losing that money or those friends. It is our desire to challenge our society, parents and leaders... which might lead to greater freedom, happiness and prosperity... or to brutal and fatal retaliation from them. Making the first move into unexplored territory is always the scariest venture. Even if just for the risk of putting in weeks, months or years of effort into a project, book or relationship only to find it leads nowhere.
So... insecurity management is important... it keeps us safe, and our lives stable and predictable. But it doesn't make us happy either.
Then there's creative adventurism which offers us all the thrills and excitement of living. But it just might kill/destroy/harm us in the quest for a better life.
Clearly the two sides of this see-saw need to be in balance somehow. We need to work on our insecurities and discover if we over express them or if we have too many that they cripple our ability to enjoy life. Sometimes we need to look at our desire to challenge and attack the status quo and ask if you're investing your time in a rebellious act that is actually helping yourself, your friends and your community... or just creating new problems for them?
This is all about becoming less ignorant about why one does certain things so that we can both be more productive and enjoy our lives more.
01 January, 2010
Atheism and Ignorance
Last night someone I love told me that they had decided to marry someone they had first met about two weeks earlier and asked me to wish them luck. (Yes, this has happened to me before at least once). We've been friends for almost 18 months now and I've found her to be very thoughtful and intelligent on every topic... except romantic relationships. When a child talks about love at first sight and Disney-like fairy tales of meeting the handsome, dashing and perfect man it's cute. When someone with a post graduate degree talks about these things to me I quickly find myself pondering if maybe virginity is something that ought to be lost at the earliest convenient time in ones life.
She asked me to wish her luck... I couldn't think of a better way to describe the situation.
See this is where sexually knowledgeable and sexually ignorant cultures diverge.
A sexually ignorant culture prefers arranged marriages and people never talking about sex. Why? Because if you don't know anything about boys/girls and having sexual relationships with them then making a choice is very scary - thus having that choice made for you is something of a relief... especially since the people making the decision are sexually experienced (aka the parents). The next 'advantage' is that if one only has one sexual partner and one type of sexual experience then one will assume that that's all sex is. So when people talk about sex non-descriptively, that's what one will imagine it to be.
But what if you hear friends talking about their sex lives and they seem more interesting and exciting than your own? Once knowledge of other people's sex lives becomes known to you the tendancy is that one will start to compare ones sex life to theirs and start to wonder, "Do I have the best sex life I could have?"
How does a sexually ignorant culture deal with this? Demanding better sex? Demanding the right to explore their sexuality? Demanding to know what this sex thing is all about?
No. They simply don't talk about it. That's why we don't talk about sex with our friends over dinner. Because if we lose the protective shield of our ignorance about sex then we are going to be assaulted by our insecurities. We are going to start asking ourselves uncomfortable questions like:
I am a good lover?
Is my partner a good lover?
Is our sex life the best it could be?
Would I enjoy sex more with that person than my spouse?
People say that arranged marriages are more successful because they don't have as high a divorce rate.
I am aware that this is a ridiculous statement for many reasons but just for now I'm going to ignore most of them and focus only on one problem with it.
If you've only had sex with one other person, who's only had sex with one other person then your sexual experiences with that person define what sex is. If the sex is great, then you think sex is a beautiful positive thing you want your children to discover and explore. If the sex is bad then sex is a disgusting, horrible thing that you want to protect your children from. Hold onto this thought and keep in mind who decides arranged marriages.
Ok, the sex is great, great. But if the sex is bad, which is quite likely because while sex does come naturally, great sex requires practice, learning, dedication and knowledge... which is hard to get if no one talks or writes books about it (I'm so glad to live in a country full of magazines and books about sex, even though we don't often talk about it openly, because this means even two virgin lovers can potentially have great sex too) then we have a problem... but the marriage is fine.
Firstly, why is the marriage fine? Well, they're ignorant to how much better their sex life could be so they don't have any sexual problems in their marriage to worry about. So that's one less pressure for a marriage to end up in divorce.
Secondly, why is this a problem? People who think sex is bad tend to project that viewpoint into every aspect of their lives. I'm talking about people we all know: those who hate/despise sex workers, sluts, women, men, homosexuals, bisexuals, people who enjoy or are relaxed their sexuality etc...
These people are everywhere: doctors, teachers, priests, friends, etc...
These people are ignorant about sex, and sure, part of sex is uncomfortable, bad and harmful... but if it didn't have any good aspects we wouldn't care about it so much either. These people only know a small part about sex but the danger here is that because people don't talk about sex in detail there is a perception that this is all there is to know. Therefore these people feel that they actually know all there is to know about sex. That reassurance can give them the confidence to say and do harmful things to many people... not because they are mean people, but because they sincerely think they are helping them.
Ignorance is what enables good people to do and say bad things.
If you don't want to hurt someone, then you need to get informed.
But the death of ignorance comes at a price, just like in my earlier post describing my personal lost of religious faith.
If you're married to the only sexual partner you've ever had... and you somehow get a hint that something else is happening in the world of sex... maybe you heard the neighbours fucking next door. Maybe you heard to girls gossiping at the bus stop about penises. Maybe you heard a boy describing to his friends what happens when his girlfriend orgasms. Maybe your partner has had sex with someone else. Maybe you just have an intuitive feeling... what if there is more to sex than this?
Then each night, you might lie awake for awhile after sex and wonder. Is this all? Am I lucky? Am I even satified? Am I miserable because I'm not fully reaching climax? Is it normal the way I feel when I'm inside/penetrating them? Am I moody because I don't enjoy sex?
Such anxiety can be dealt with one of two ways:
1. Pathologically: fear, loathing, disgust, misery and hatred.
2. Growth: curiousity, exploration, courage to challenge the habits and the personal dogma of ones sexuality.
As an atheist, I feel that am committed to option 2. I will only live once and I will not let myself spend it hating myself and my fellow human beings. Why hate someone for simply being who they are? As if they had a choice in the matter!
It is now time to go back to why it was so apt for my friend to be wished luck.
When one makes a decision where one knows the situation, one does not ask for luck.
But when one is embarking on a dangerous and uncertain journey that one is helpless to influence the outcome of then one is left with nothing they can do but to wish, pray and hope for good luck.
This is the difference between ignorance and knowledge.
It is so simple. Ignorance is just intellectual laziness. If you take a stand on a topic or a decision without first considering all of the other possibilities and alternative within reach. Then you deserve the consequences of your decision... and even if you somehow stumble blindly onto a good fortune... do you honestly deserve to take the credit for something you didn't work for?
She asked me to wish her luck... I couldn't think of a better way to describe the situation.
See this is where sexually knowledgeable and sexually ignorant cultures diverge.
A sexually ignorant culture prefers arranged marriages and people never talking about sex. Why? Because if you don't know anything about boys/girls and having sexual relationships with them then making a choice is very scary - thus having that choice made for you is something of a relief... especially since the people making the decision are sexually experienced (aka the parents). The next 'advantage' is that if one only has one sexual partner and one type of sexual experience then one will assume that that's all sex is. So when people talk about sex non-descriptively, that's what one will imagine it to be.
But what if you hear friends talking about their sex lives and they seem more interesting and exciting than your own? Once knowledge of other people's sex lives becomes known to you the tendancy is that one will start to compare ones sex life to theirs and start to wonder, "Do I have the best sex life I could have?"
How does a sexually ignorant culture deal with this? Demanding better sex? Demanding the right to explore their sexuality? Demanding to know what this sex thing is all about?
No. They simply don't talk about it. That's why we don't talk about sex with our friends over dinner. Because if we lose the protective shield of our ignorance about sex then we are going to be assaulted by our insecurities. We are going to start asking ourselves uncomfortable questions like:
I am a good lover?
Is my partner a good lover?
Is our sex life the best it could be?
Would I enjoy sex more with that person than my spouse?
People say that arranged marriages are more successful because they don't have as high a divorce rate.
I am aware that this is a ridiculous statement for many reasons but just for now I'm going to ignore most of them and focus only on one problem with it.
If you've only had sex with one other person, who's only had sex with one other person then your sexual experiences with that person define what sex is. If the sex is great, then you think sex is a beautiful positive thing you want your children to discover and explore. If the sex is bad then sex is a disgusting, horrible thing that you want to protect your children from. Hold onto this thought and keep in mind who decides arranged marriages.
Ok, the sex is great, great. But if the sex is bad, which is quite likely because while sex does come naturally, great sex requires practice, learning, dedication and knowledge... which is hard to get if no one talks or writes books about it (I'm so glad to live in a country full of magazines and books about sex, even though we don't often talk about it openly, because this means even two virgin lovers can potentially have great sex too) then we have a problem... but the marriage is fine.
Firstly, why is the marriage fine? Well, they're ignorant to how much better their sex life could be so they don't have any sexual problems in their marriage to worry about. So that's one less pressure for a marriage to end up in divorce.
Secondly, why is this a problem? People who think sex is bad tend to project that viewpoint into every aspect of their lives. I'm talking about people we all know: those who hate/despise sex workers, sluts, women, men, homosexuals, bisexuals, people who enjoy or are relaxed their sexuality etc...
These people are everywhere: doctors, teachers, priests, friends, etc...
These people are ignorant about sex, and sure, part of sex is uncomfortable, bad and harmful... but if it didn't have any good aspects we wouldn't care about it so much either. These people only know a small part about sex but the danger here is that because people don't talk about sex in detail there is a perception that this is all there is to know. Therefore these people feel that they actually know all there is to know about sex. That reassurance can give them the confidence to say and do harmful things to many people... not because they are mean people, but because they sincerely think they are helping them.
Ignorance is what enables good people to do and say bad things.
If you don't want to hurt someone, then you need to get informed.
But the death of ignorance comes at a price, just like in my earlier post describing my personal lost of religious faith.
If you're married to the only sexual partner you've ever had... and you somehow get a hint that something else is happening in the world of sex... maybe you heard the neighbours fucking next door. Maybe you heard to girls gossiping at the bus stop about penises. Maybe you heard a boy describing to his friends what happens when his girlfriend orgasms. Maybe your partner has had sex with someone else. Maybe you just have an intuitive feeling... what if there is more to sex than this?
Then each night, you might lie awake for awhile after sex and wonder. Is this all? Am I lucky? Am I even satified? Am I miserable because I'm not fully reaching climax? Is it normal the way I feel when I'm inside/penetrating them? Am I moody because I don't enjoy sex?
Such anxiety can be dealt with one of two ways:
1. Pathologically: fear, loathing, disgust, misery and hatred.
2. Growth: curiousity, exploration, courage to challenge the habits and the personal dogma of ones sexuality.
As an atheist, I feel that am committed to option 2. I will only live once and I will not let myself spend it hating myself and my fellow human beings. Why hate someone for simply being who they are? As if they had a choice in the matter!
It is now time to go back to why it was so apt for my friend to be wished luck.
When one makes a decision where one knows the situation, one does not ask for luck.
But when one is embarking on a dangerous and uncertain journey that one is helpless to influence the outcome of then one is left with nothing they can do but to wish, pray and hope for good luck.
This is the difference between ignorance and knowledge.
It is so simple. Ignorance is just intellectual laziness. If you take a stand on a topic or a decision without first considering all of the other possibilities and alternative within reach. Then you deserve the consequences of your decision... and even if you somehow stumble blindly onto a good fortune... do you honestly deserve to take the credit for something you didn't work for?
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