The Conformist

Everyone seems to know what they're talking about. I don't. When I talk to other people, I either say stupid things to be funny, or I badly emulate other people who know what they're talking about. I'm not very intelligent. I might seem smart on occasion because I've learned to copy-paste knowledge whenever I need it, but I rarely think of novel solutions and interesting ideas -- on my own. I am a mediocre programmer, so I'm not even that good at my own craft. I'm good at other things, like following rules, keeping my word, and not being an asshole. I have been conditioned to think inside of a box and to be an obedient worker. My only courageous trait is to run away from things that harm me.

I think all of this makes me highly adaptive to our current society. I use knowledge as a tool whenever I need it, instead of learning things just for the sake of it. I rarely think I have the True answers, so I'm always open to other people's claims, even if they're full of shit. As a friend of mine once said, I'm very agreeable. So, I don't piss off the big guy, and I still get the job done.

So I wonder, why should I change? The only valid reason I can come up with is the lack of passion.

I am a conformist hardly trying not to conform.

Craving sweets means I'm tired

Whenever I have the urge to stuff some sugar down my throat, it means my brain is tired and it needs a break. Smokers want to smoke when they get tired and this is how they rest their brains. It's a ritual that dissociates you from work for a few minutes. With fast carbs I don't need a break. I rape my brain and I keep working, but stress seems to build up, as well as excess fat (they seem to go hand in hand). So instead of giving in to sweets, I have decided to treat my urges as indicators of tiredness and reminders of my need to rest. Hunger for fast carbs will now be treated as another kind of pain - brain pain - "my brain hurts, it needs to recover". From now on I will take walks instead of smearing brown sugary stuff on my teeth. Carboholism will be treated like a symptom, not like a problem. Let's see what happens.

Gut Feelings

Sentimental people say that if you have a gut feeling, you should always follow it. Is this good decision making, though? I've studied tons of books about the flaws of human reasoning, and I would conclude that no, this isn't always the best choice that one could make. The school of cognitive psychology claims that our feelings are preceded by our thoughts. If we define the term "thought" more broadly as an "algorithm", then I would agree. When we feel a certain way, it's because we have a certain thought. An example of that is fear - the intensity of our fear varies depending on how dangerous we believe something to be for us. That belief could be totally wrong, which is the case with many, if not all, phobias.

There are some processes that are hardwired in our brains through evolution, which are called heuristics, also known as information-processing shortcuts. When we process new information, we package it into convenient chunks, that our limited brains can handle. During this process, we have to distort, delete, or generalize some of the information. So taking this in consideration, the beliefs that we form may many times be quite inaccurate. From this, it follows that our intuition may also turn out to be wrong.

I would say that the term "gut feeling" is synonymous to "intuition". I define "intuition" as an automatically-triggered behavior that has been learned through repetition and experience. For example, once learned, riding a bicycle becomes an unconscious process that we never think about. In other words, we develop intuition for riding the bicycle. Similarly, we might develop intuition for moral judgment. Imagine a coincidence where you've met 5 black people and they've all been mean to you. This might generate a subconscious prejudice against black people in you, because your brain might generalize, for your convenience, that all black people are meanies. This prejudice would be another type of intuition.

Another gut feeling you may develop is one for liking people. If you were raised by violent people, you might have formed a belief that "your mom and dad are good people because they have raised you, therefore being violent is also good". Once you leave the family, you end up falling in love with violent people, because that's what your gut feeling is telling you. But here, again, it turns out to be wrong.

I'm not saying you should never listen to your heart. I bet that most of the time, it's actually in your best interest to do so. But before you go with your gut feeling, if you have the time, think about how this decision is going to benefit you in the short term and in the long term. Think about the ways that you could be biased. Like my friend Chris Bradshaw says, "You should always consider your heart but follow nothing blindly".

Appeal to Genetics

I observe a trend in people who appeal to genetics and reject environmental influence, when talking about personal traits and psychological issues. It seems like they are mostly believers in fate who want to appear as rational skeptics, by replacing the word "fate" with "genes". But genetics and fate are two different things, and I don't want to undermine the importance of the former in no way. The genetic code is, indeed, the foundation of all human behavior, and it would be silly to disregard such a fundamental factor. But, as important as they are, the "instructions" of our genes can be overcome - the obvious example, of course, is birth control - therefore, being predisposed to something does not necessarily mean that we are bound to it. Hence, "it's in my genes" does not equal to "it's my destiny".

Surely, everything I am, everything I think, and everything I do, has been made possible by my genes. From this, many people conclude, that my genes are therefore directly responsible for my personal traits, and environment has nothing to do with my character. By this claim, they commit the fallacy of the single cause, where it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes. It's like saying that the hardware of a computer, alone, is responsible for what kind of software is installed on it.

Genes, indeed, have "programmed" my brain to process new information using various techniques, called heuristics, along with their many flaws. In other words, my genes are responsible for my brain's "Operating System". But would you say that the OS of a computer determines the software that will be installed on it? That's very similar to saying that my genes determine what's in my mind, e.g. my thoughts. Surely, operating systems, as well as genes, set up limitations to what kind of input can be understood and how it may be interpreted, but they don't create the input themselves. My genes do not create my environment.

Would you say that the Operating System is directly responsible for the viruses that have infected it? Some Mac and Linux fans will surely argue from this point, but wrongly so - having a weak immune system does not cause your illness, viruses do. Even if we accept the wrong premise that having a weak immune system causes sickness, this still isn't a fixed issue, and it can be overcome by strengthening the immune system, either by vaccination, or immunization. Vaccination would be analogous to installing an anti-virus software on your Windows; immunization - to finding a way of preventing future infection of the virus after having been infected with it (e.g. not going on suspicious porn websites).

When one has a psychological issue, appealing to genetics is very often, in my opinion, just another way for him to dissociate from the problem. "Hey, it's in my genes, I can't do nothing about it". An alcoholic might say that he was genetically predisposed to alcoholism, and thus avoid considering, for instance, his history of abuse as a child, which might as well be the cause of his addiction. From a practical point, I think genes ought to be the last place to look for a problem's cause, because it's not helping much to the present patient anyway.

In conclusion, genes have nothing to do with destiny, and have little to do with personal traits.
Prove me wrong, maybe?

Sycial.com - A Model of Anarchy

This is the story of Sycial.com

It all started with free association. I like the concept of choosing who I want to associate with, and ignoring people who make me feel uncomfortable. I like it so much, that I am very passionate about helping others realize their amazing power of simple choice. I want to spread the word and convince people that life can be a non-zero sum game. I want to remind them that they're not forced to accept a cheater's rules, and that they can instead quit playing with him and start looking for fair players.

That being said, I really like having enemies. It makes me feel really good to know that I have the power to completely reject anyone who's being a bully to me, instead of being trapped in a frustrating game of trying to beat the bully at his own game. Many people would accuse me of being a pussy for "chickening out". They would say things like "life is hard, people are shit... deal with it". And they completely ignore the fact that no, nobody has to deal with this. Maybe you had to deal with bullies in your family, because you had no choice to leave your parents, since you were dependent on them. Maybe you had to deal with bullies in school, because you were obligated to attend. But you don't have to deal with any type of that bullshit, now that you are your own, now that you are an independent individual.

So I made a website where you can make that choice and be vocal about it. It's my way of saying "fuck you" to those who shame me for ditching my old friends and family members. It's a provocative way to get my message out that it's okay to have enemies, because that's the best way to find new friends. Once you label someone your enemy, you make a moral judgment, based on your principles. If you don't make that moral judgment, you'll keep hanging out with the same company, and you'll never get a chance at finding new friends that are any different. Once it's clear to you what your principles are, you'll know what sort of people you would like to have as friends. That's why I made a "Principles" field that users can fill out in their profile.

I think most people judge others by superficial standards, so in my website, I have attempted to accentuate on what I think truly matters about an individual's identity. And it's not their birthday, and it's not their sex. It has nothing to do with height, weight, or eye color. It's their personal beliefs, it's their unique models of the world. It's what drives them to behave the way they do. There is no social networking site that focuses on this raw psychological data, because most people feel that this is too personal to share with others. They've been scared away by shaming people in their environment. They've been told that such things you should keep to yourself. But why keep a social idea, if you cannot share it? Doesn't that defeat its purpose? Is that really freedom of speech?

Most social networking sites censor. My site is uncensored. I don't care if you're a racist, a bigot, a pedophile, or a rapist. Who cares, I'll add you as an enemy. You'll be ostracized and you won't be allowed to bother any of my friends. So go ahead and join. That's what I want the site to be - a working model of an anarchistic society. There's no laws, no censorship. It's all in the hands of the individual. I trust his judgment more than I trust the judgment of the majority. So let's see what happens.

I am really excited about this project. So excited, that I have already been working on it for more than 7 months. So far I've seen little success with the site, and a lack of support. But I'll keep working on it, nonetheless, and I won't give up this time. I'm through giving up. I don't care how many times I'll have to fail. I'll keep working, and I'll keep learning new things until I succeed with this. I was discouraged so many times throughout this process, even by people who I value so dearly. I saw little support, and little understanding. Who cares, I've been through this before, and it always turned out that had I been a bit more patient, I would have reaped the fruits of my labor. I won't be impatient this time.

Once again: Sycial.com
In case you want to join the website:
email me and I will send you an invitation code.

Revenge

I finally decided to finish my article on revenge. I will define the word "revenge" as the delayed infliction of perceived equivalent damage to an individual for damage received by the latter. I stress the word "delayed", because otherwise you wouldn't call that kind of behavior "revenge", but rather - "retaliation". So if a guy hits you with a baseball bat, and you wait until next week to hit him back, that would be revenge.

Why commit revenge? "To receive justice, and teach the bad guy a lesson".

You feel bad because you "lost" the "game" with the bad guy. He got away with doing harm to you, and you couldn't fight back at that time. This certainly hurts, and you feel like justice should be served, because there is a lack of reciprocity between you and him. The false-self hates "losing". So in order to "win", you think it's a good idea to fight back later. Why is that bad for you? If you fight back later, the bad guy might defend himself, and there's a chance you'll get hurt. Even if you do defeat him, he might later decide to fight back, which can then hurt you, and so on. This is what I call "The Game", where you're trapped in a vicious cycle of battles, and you never give up, because you can't stand the thought of "losing"; you want to dominate your enemy.

What would happen if you "lost"? You'll have to feel the burn. But this is good. The pain might actually motivate you to figure out how to avoid being defeated next time. You can conclude that you want to stay away from situations where you can't immediately retaliate. You'll be pushed to learn how you can prevent such unfortunate events from happening.

The second argument, "teach the bad guy a lesson", is based on the assumption that whoever hurt you lacked sympathy, therefore they should be taught a lesson in Sympathy 101 by you, yourself. "If he knows what it's like to be bullied, he'll probably stop being a bully". That statement could be true in some cases, but we shall see why it's not worth trying to teach the bad guy a lesson. By punishing the Attacker, the Avenger takes responsibility for teaching him a lesson. This may take great effort. Why would you waste resources for teaching someone you hate a lesson? It makes no sense to do him a favor after what he's done to you.

"If a loved one hurt you", then you might say, "it would probably pay off well to teach them some sympathy, so maybe then revenge would be beneficial". No. A reasonable person would be greatly offended if you tried to control their behavior through punishment, for there are better, more effective ways to persuade a person. A reasonable loved one would be greatly saddened if she hurt you, and she'll probably do her best to learn how to be sympathetic in the particular instance, without having to be forced by your revenge.

Even if we assume that your loved one is retarded, revenge still won't do your relationship any good. Urgency is of importance, like in conditioning dogs. If you hit a dog right after it's done some harm, it'll subconsciously register why you've punished it, and it might learn not to do what it did again. If however, you hit it hours after it took a shit on your carpet, you'll only confuse the dog, and it won't learn the intended lesson. I figure, it would be the same with retards.

The alternative to revenge would be ostracism, if the Attacker is someone of no importance to you. Just ignore them, and be prepared to retaliate, next time they attack. If the Attacker is rather valuable to you, and you prefer to keep your friendship, it would be much more productive to talk with him about your feelings, and how his behavior triggered painful emotions in you. It's up to him to decide whether he wants to change, or not. If he has no desire to change, it's up to you to decide whether you want to make a compromise, or end the friendship.

Mind Reading

We are predisposed, as pattern-seeking mammals, to find "causes" for things we can't explain. That's why ignorance creates anxiety in human beings. It's this anxiety that drives us to find the answers we need. The human mind prefers a made up answer to no answer, because it's better to assume that something is attacking you, than wait and potentially get killed. Survival is more important than knowledge. Although this trait has been of great evolutionary advantage to us, it can get in the way of long-term relationships and many other aspects of human life where predictability plays a necessary role. Here is the definition of Mind Reading:

You conclude, incorrectly and without considering other alternatives or testing your assumptions, that you understand how another person is thinking and what their reasons and motives are for taking a particular action. This is an example of the Fundamental Attribution Error where you incorrectly attribute an action or intent to an agent. One example of this is drawing a negative conclusion in the absence of supporting information. Focusing only on evidence that supports a negative position, while neglecting to consider alternative positive explanations is the fallacy of not considering representative evidence.

First of all, why would you want to know what someone's reasons are for behaving in a certain way? Ultimately, it's the consequences of their actions that affect you, but predictability is also important, especially if you should interact with this person on a regular basis. And you can't estimate the predictability of their behavior solely based on consequences, because there are external factors that may have been a major influence, as well. In short, we need context in order to more objectively judge a person's behavior and estimate its probable occurrence in the future. Accurate judgment helps us prevent bad consequences and maximize good consequences. Hence, it is in fact very useful, in the long term, to know why people do what they do, in case you plan on interacting with them on a regular basis.

People fear the unknown. If they lack context, they make shit up. Optimists assume you didn't say "Hello", because you didn't see them. Pessimists assume you hate them. Some who try to be objective consider both options and can't decide which one they should go for, which makes them even more anxious. They're like, "It's more probable that he didn't see me, but what if he does hate me"? So clearly popular cognitive psychology fails in their approach of solving the issue of Mind Reading. They suggest that for every negative example that pops up in your head, you should think of a counter example; a "rational response". To me, this is simply a waste of time and energy.

Here is my approach: when in doubt, think about whether it's within your control to find an explanation. You can't know everything, because you are a limited human being. If it's not up to you, don't bother thinking about all the possible options. If you don't know why somebody did something, and you have no evidence to back up any claim, you can simply accept that you don't know, and ask the person why he did it as soon you get a chance. Embrace your ignorance. Let go of religion. What do you want? Made up knowledge, or real knowledge? The fact of the matter is, you don't know. Being aware of the context is useful for maximizing predictability. When the context is false, the whole point is lost. If I want to know how rockets are constructed, I can think of a hundred possibilities, and they'll probably all be wrong, because I'm not a rocket scientist. I'm better off trusting the latter, even though there's a possibility that they could lie to me.

There's this potato chips factory. You felt sick after eating their chips. What happened? You have no access to the product ingredients, and there's no way to know what's inside. If you assume that the ingredients are poisonous and you turn out to be wrong, you might miss out on some great tasting product. On the other hand, if you assume that the product is healthy, you may get sick again. You could assume both are plausible options, and take no action. The owner of the factory claims that there is nothing unhealthy about his product's ingredients. You can't fully trust the owner of the factory, because he has the incentive to sell his product; he wants to advertise it to you. There's good advertising, and there's deceptive advertising.

When you have no evidence against the owner's claims, you have no other choice but to either reject the product, or initially trust the owner. It's more probable that you get the truth from him, than from your blind assumptions. If it turns out that he lied to you, you could simply choose to no longer trust the owner and discontinue consuming his product. Trick me once, shame on you, trick me twice, shame on me. So did the owner lie to you, or was it something else that negatively influenced your health? You initially trust him. Later on, you decide to buy potato chips from his company again. Same thing happens - you catch diarrhea. Well now you really have a reason to doubt the owner's credibility. You buy his product one more time - diarrhea. Now you have enough evidence to make your own judgment about the ingredients, and conclude that there's something in these potato chips that is detrimental to your health.

The factory manufactures a product, the same way a person's brain provokes his actions. When you interact with someone, his behavior is the product that you consume. The ingredients of the product represent the person's thoughts that lead to his actions. And if you want to make sure the product is good, you should know what the ingredients are. Overall, you shouldn't fully trust the owner. Listen to his opinion, but ultimately trust your own judgment, depending on how his product makes you feel, and also considering his previous products. So if someone often hurts you in a certain way, but he claims his intentions are good, he is lying that his product is harmless, because objectively speaking, his product does seem to poison you.

Sometimes a company would produce many products, but only a few would be bad. It's up to you to decide whether you want to boycott the company, or simply choose to avoid those specific harmful items. Sometimes compromise is better than boycott. If the company overall produces superior quality products, it will not be a beneficial decision to refuse their services because of a few bad apples.

Virtue Vs Loneliness

In this post, I claim that if you are not satisfied with your current friends, you have to ditch them in order to find better ones. Well, I don't think so anymore, and here is why...

Because humans are social animals, it would be irrational for one to choose loneliness over virtue. A rational human being would always seek to satisfy their human needs. When you try to ignore your needs, you are trying to be more than human; you are ignoring your genetic limitations. You become a believer, and you are no better than a religious person. When you begin to value virtue more than you value yourself, you become an idealist. Moral standards are there to help you pick who to associate with. Moral standards are there to help you socialize. If they become a handicap to your social life, they are no longer serving their purpose, but rather working against it. It's like a person whose knowledge of nutrition is making him starve to death.

If you can't get what you want, you can at least settle for what's best on the market. You don't have to lower your moral standards in order to have friends; just keep a clear mind, always be on the lookout for someone better. Don't try to fool yourself that your flawed friends are perfect; be aware of their moral flaws, be honest about your fundamental disagreements with them. That way you won't get trapped in a Master-Slave relationship.

If you state your preferences and you're clear about what you like and dislike about each other, you're going to have a stress-free relationship with that person. Sometimes new friends are not compatible with old friends. If you can't have both at the same time, then prioritize. It doesn't matter how long you've been friends for. You don't say that about your old TV when you buy a new flat-screen HDTV. Keep sentimentality out of the way, look for value. Who is more valuable to you? Whose company do you enjoy more? Who do you feel more comfortable with? Who provides more predictability to you? If you find yourself torn between two (groups of) people, you'd better make that choice and reject one side. The choice should be between your current friends and new people, not between the former and loneliness.

Finally Free

This is it! I am finally living the dream.
I'm independent, I pay cheap rent, and I eat great food.
How did I achieve this? Integrity.

My mother believes in magic. When two people are related, she believes that they magically love each other, no matter how much they differ. So I used that against her. I said to her, "You're my mom, therefore you should love me". The truth of the matter is, my mother and I disagree on fundamental principles. If anything, we should hate each other. So why the fuck did I want to depend on someone who's supposed to hate me? Remaining in the "son" position meant that I had to be a slave and constantly manipulate her in order to get what I want.

Property is that which is under one's control. When you surrender your responsibilities to somebody else, you become their property, because they have control over your life. Children are property of their parents. I wrote a Family Manifesto long time ago, where I claimed that parents are obligated to take care of and share property with their children. How manipulative of me. Who's to say that one shouldn't abandon their property?

Children remain property until one of the following things occurs:
1. They acquire enough experience and skills to take care of themselves.
2. They choose to abandon their parents.
3. Their parents choose to abandon them.

You'll never guess what I did. It's the best choice I've ever made. I decided to become my mother's employee. My job? I'm a domestic worker. Where do I live now? I am my mother's roommate. I live in the living room, I sleep on the couch. The rent is cheap, it's covered by my wage. And so is the food. I no longer depend on my mother's benevolence, and I don't have to manipulate her anymore. Instead, I just have to complete the tasks in my daily planner. My work schedule? 3 hours a day, at most. I feel so much more confident and independent. No more pressure to find a job. No more feeling like a fuckup. Now I live with integrity. I am finally my own.

Brain Modification

To understand this post, you might have to read this first: I Speak, Therefore I Am

This body is seemingly conducting an experiment. He will probably avoid talking and thinking in the first-person for the rest of the week, also keeping in mind the E-Prime model. That would perhaps lead to his better understanding of his inner world. This individual already feels more powerful and independent. His sense of self has been partly under public control, which has prevented him in a way from fully indulging his body. The personal pronouns (I am) had handicapped him to accurately validate and express his internal experiences, because these words have been wired in his brain circuit to require external factors that should allow the internal states to be validated. If those factors (behavioral cues in people) are not recognized, then the internal experience is rendered invalid and thus the individual is prevented from having the thought, for instance, "I am angry", because "I am" is only valid if the external factors are also met.

if (me_anger && !authoritative_figure){i_am_angry = true}else{i_am_angry = false}

Now that Sparx speaks of himself in the third-person, he finds it easier to validate and express his internal experiences, because he's already used to looking for, and recognizing, the tell tale signs of others. So this is a great way for him to get around the old habits and rewire his circuits.

if (sparx_anger) {he_is_angry = true; i_am_angry = he_is_angry}

One does no longer need to mind-read other people, because he's not dependent on their states anymore, hence he becomes less paranoid. Another great advantage of speaking in the third-person is that one gets to see things more objectively, which leads to a greater extent of empirical thinking. One is nothing more than an organism, after all. There is no soul. There is no spiritual "self". The self is the body.

Debunking Perfectionism

One becomes a perfectionist when one has a wrong idea about control. Perfectionists believe they can be perfect, which is like believing in God: it's a false belief. Perfectionists reject the emotion of shame, because shame reminds them of the truth that they can't be perfect, just like religious people reject scientific facts. When perfectionists experience shame, they become incredibly defensive and agitated. They are terrified. That's why they fear failure so much, and that's why many of them become procrastinators. There are three main beliefs that perfectionists hold: "I procrastinate, because I fear risk. I fear risk, because I fear failure. I fear failure, because I fear shame". Let's destroy the onion of perfectionism, peel by peel.

Belief: I procrastinate, because I fear risk.
Update to: Procrastination is risky.

Procrastination eats up your time and increases the probability of failure. The more time you waste doing nothing, the less time you'll have to complete your tasks. It might become impossible for you to complete a project, if you simply run out of time. But hey, you know what? Risk is good for you.

Belief: I fear risk, because I fear failure.
Update to: Risk provides value and prevents disappointment.

When you fail at something that you believe you can do, or something that you've already done a couple of times before, the disappointment can be painful, because of your positive expectations. When you risk, however, failure becomes a very probable outcome. If you expect to fail, you can't really disappoint yourself. Success becomes a pleasant surprise. As soon as success stops being a surprise, failure becomes less probable, which acts as a reminder that the bar can be further raised, in order to minimize your disappointment.

Taking on a challenging task means that you will do your best to do the job by fully utilizing your existing abilities. Inevitably, you will also learn more and improve your skills, as you fail. The burden of expecting to complete the task successfully, on the other hand, decreases your incentive to try your hardest, and increases the chances of doing a sloppy job. You would be so ashamed, if you failed like that. But guess what, shame is good for you.

Belief: I fear failure, because I fear shame.
Update to: Shame provides satisfaction.

Shame is the emotion which reminds us that we are limited, for we are only human beings, and we can never be perfect. If you ignore shame and forget that you are limited, you're in for an endless frustrating strive for perfection, which will mess up your priorities. You'll be like a bug trying to fly out the window, not realizing that the window is closed. If only the fly could discover that it was limited by a piece of glass, it would prioritize on finding another way out.

Perfectionism requires manipulation. Success is not solely dependent on you; it depends on external factors, as well, no matter how hard you try. That's why the strive for perfection makes you want to manipulate others in order to always succeed. Objectively speaking, you're either gonna do a good job, or you're gonna fail. The best thing you can do is do your best. This is the difference between "I want to succeed" and "I MUST succeed".

Perfectionism sets impossible goals. It's one thing to say "I must do my best", which is within your control. It's an entirely different thing to say "I must make it perfect". "Perfect" here is any standard that you think MUST be satisfied. This would result in a disappointment, no doubt. The fact of the matter is, you have no full control over the outcome, because you are only a limited human being.

Vague goals create unrealistic expectations - When you don't know what you want, but you want it to be awesome, there's a high probability that you'll be disappointed. "Awesome" here is a subjective arbitrary ideal that doesn't have any specific guidelines and requirements.

The Journey

I've been treating self-help like a subject in school, and happiness like the high grade that I strive to acquire, in order to not get my parents angry at me. I was acting out as my own parent. I've been working through my issues, not because I wanted to, but because I feared getting angry at myself, in case I failed. My journey has been fear-driven. Only recently did I discover the paradox of my attitude. How am I to become happy, if I'm constantly fearing failure? Failure is unpredictable, which means I am in a constant state of expectation and anxiety, because I don't know when and how it's gonna hit me. That, of course, makes me frustrated, and takes me back to managing my anxiety through different forms of dissociation.

I've been treating my goal of becoming psychologically healthy like something that I MUST achieve, before I can do anything else with my life. Happiness as a means to an end. A prerequisite for leading a productive life. This was a rather paralyzing strategy. Happiness is a vague goal, unlike school grades, so it would be pretty hard for me to estimate when it's been achieved. Whenever I was miserable, I perceived it as a "fuck you". "You're so weak, you'll never be able to get over your issues, no matter how hard you try", my inner bully would say.

How am I to become happy, if I'm not already happy with pursuing my happiness? You can't be happy unless you're happy. If my failures make me feel miserable, there's no way to proceed further. It's a Catch-22. So from now on, I go beyond this bullshit. From now on, I look up to failing, and I forget about succeeding, because failure is more probable than success. I want to fail on my journey towards happiness. I want to fail as many times as I have to. Happiness is not a destination, anyway. It's a state of being. I can be happy with having issues, and still work towards solving them. It's a want, not a need. I don't need to be perfect to enjoy life.

This week, I'll do an exercise. I'll teach myself to get used to failure. I'll take on impossible tasks and try to complete them, knowing that I can't. Every day, I'll set a different goal and destroy it. No more safe zones. Only risks and challenges, at least for a week. To be continued.

The False-Self

I've been wrongly addressing the false-self as "the ego" in a couple of my past publications, which might have confused a lot of readers, so I think I owe you an explanation. Here are a couple of quotes that draw a pretty good picture of what the false-self is like. John Bradshaw:

"Since one's inner self is flawed by shame, the experience of self is painful. To compensate, one develops a FALSE SELF in order to survive. The false self forms a defensive mask which distracts from the pain and the inner loneliness of the true self. After years of acting, performing and pretending - one loses contact with who one really is. One's true self is numbed out."

enotes.com:

"The false self, in Donald Winnicott's developmental schema, refers to certain types of false personalities that develop as the result of early and repeated environmental failure, with the result that the true self-potential is not realized, but hidden."

Donald Winnicott:

"When the person has to comply with external rules, such as being polite or following social codes, then a False self is used. The False self is a mask of the false persona that constantly seeks to anticipate demands of others in order to maintain the relationship. If the mother is "not good-enough," she is unable to sense and respond optimally to her infant's needs and instead, substitutes her own gestures with which the infant complies. This repeated compliance becomes the ground for the earliest mode of the False self existence. The compliant False Self reacts to environmental demands and the infant seems to accept them. Through this False Self the infant builds up a false set of relationships, and by means of introjections even attains a show of being real, so that the child may grow up to be just like mother, nurse, aunt, brother, or whoever at the time dominates the scene. The primary function of the False self is defensive, to protect the True self from threat, wounding, or even destruction. This is an unconscious process: the False self comes to be mistaken for the true self to others, and even to the self. Even with the appearance of success, and of social gains, there will also be unreality feelings, the sense of not really being alive, that happiness doesn't, or can't really exist."

Sam Vaknin:

"The false-self serves as a decoy, it "attracts the fire". It is a proxy for the True Self. It is tough as nails and can absorb any amount of pain, hurt and negative emotions. By inventing it, the child develops immunity to the indifference, manipulation, sadism, smothering, or exploitation - in short: to the abuse - inflicted on him by his parents (or by other Primary Objects in his life). It is a cloak, protecting him, rendering him invisible and omnipotent at the same time.

The false-self causes the narcissist to re-interpret certain emotions and reactions in a flattering, socially acceptable, light. The narcissist may, for instance, interpret fear as compassion. If the narcissist hurts someone he fears (e.g., an authority figure), he may feel bad afterwards and interpret his discomfort as empathy and compassion. To be afraid is humiliating - to be compassionate is commendable and earns the narcissist social commendation and understanding (narcissistic supply)."

echo.me.uk:

"The false Self is a protection mechanism against attack from the outside world. Narcissistic people will do whatever they can to ensure people see them as they see themselves, i.e. special. Some focus on materialistic things ensuring they are seen in the best clothes at the right places and driving new or expensive cars etc. even if they can't afford to live that way. Some Narcissists in particular will focus on the perfection of their bodies.They will want to impress others with stories of their accomplishments; new jobs, wage rises, expensive holidays, their sexual conquests etc.

On a personal interaction level they may offer to put themselves out to help you in your work, treat you like a Princess/Prince, taking you out and buying you gifts, complimenting you, making seemingly creative one off gestures to show they care or have thought about what you would like, treating you as a valued friend, spending lots of time with you etc. They make you feel special and at this point you are special to them, not for who you are but because they see you as an extension of themselves. This view of you is known as "Inflation".

Narcissistic people do not make these gestures selflessly; they behave this way to feel good about themselves which is accomplished through how you feel about them. The positive feelings (and at times negative ones) that they are in essence trying to extract from you are a bid to confirm that they are important or special."

More on Masters & Slaves

This is a follow-up to Masters are Slaves.

The slave compromises her standards in the face of her master. The slave is easily influenced by her master and becomes a lot like him when she's in his company. The slave compromises her standards in order to feed her false-self. The false-self constantly wants to be in control, and when the slave gets in a role that emulates her master, that's her way of being in control; to be manipulative, to trick her master that she is like him, and then steal his trust and use him for personal gains. But in this way, the slave becomes dependent on her master, because she could not fulfill these personal desires without him.

The master's false-self, on the other hand, wants to believe that the slave is just like him. "We like people who are similar to us" (Byrne, 1971).The master's real self deep down knows that this is not true, and the real self knows that the slave is fake. But the ego's wishful thinking mechanism keeps the illusion alive. When the slave sometimes breaks down out of character, her master wants to "fix her" back to "normal", for fear of losing such a wonderful friend who is just like him (or so he badly wants her to be). The master becomes dependent on his slave because he wants to keep this illusion of true friendship alive, he wants to know somebody like him.

The master is more vulnerable than the slave, because the slave can always leave him for another master. The slave's true feelings are not involved, because she's constantly playing a friend-role, which dissociates her from reality. The slave's burden is keeping the role alive and consistent. The master's feelings, on the other hand, can be badly hurt once the slave leaves him. The master had a hope that was destroyed. The slave is usually very different from her master, and believes she is morally superior, which makes her resent her master and find his company unpleasant. The opposite could also happen - the slave believes that she is morally inferior. She hates herself, and/or she envies her master, strongly wishing to become like him. She irrationally idolizes him and models her behavior after him. More on this here: Our Greedy Director

It's hard for the slave to leave her master, once she doesn't find him profitable anymore. It will be a battle. The slave will have to lead a long war. A single battle won't be enough. The master is used to seeing his slave as a mirror of himself. Once the slave started behaving naturally, the master would try his best to get her back into her slave role, because the master badly needs a friend who understands him. He will speculate that his slave is just having a bad day, or that she is mad at him for some reason. The master will become paranoid and cautious. All of these types of behavior would only handicap the slave from being herself and showing her real skin. She would have to avoid her master and completely ignore him. The master can't even hate his slave, because he will always remember her as the good old friend that suddenly changed into another person.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP for short, is the teaching of temporarily becoming someone's "mirror image" in order to get what you want from them. It's great for short-term success if you're a car salesman, manager, supervisor, or whatever... But my advice is, don't ever use NLP on people who you plan on meeting more than once. It will set you up for a Master-Slave Relationship from the very beginning. NLP does not empower you over anyone, it just makes you their slave.

To all the people who I have wrongly manipulated: You don't know me. The Me you know is not the real me. I tell you what you want to hear because I am sick of pointless debating. The more time passes by, the stronger I believe that people don't want to change their habits. Why do I debate when I can simply nod and change the topic instead. Or worse, I can empathize with you and see the world through your eyes, thus, agreeing with what you are saying. You only see what I want you to see. Too many excuses for what is actually pretty simple. The real issue is, and has always been, for me to be able to state my preferences. Instead, I adapt to your preferences and you discover a person with seemingly similar preferences, which is nothing more than a lie. I am sorry, and if I have blocked you for no apparent reason, now you know why.

Love for Favor-Rapists

If you love someone and you want the best for them, if their happiness is as important to you as your happiness, then you would want to constantly favor-rape them. If your loved one lets you favor-rape her, she would be doing you a favor. In return, if she loves you back, she would want to favor-rape you. You let her do that, because you owe it to her. Basically, you owe her a permission to favor-rape you, because she lets you favor-rape her. And vice versa. This way reciprocity is still being met and a Master-Slave relationship can be avoided.

I really don't understand the concept of long-distance "love", as it doesn't make sense to me how one's happiness can be important to me if we are not together. The lack of physical contact is just killing any kind of sympathy for me. As long as I am with her, I act as one of her most influential external stimuli, to which she responds the strongest. Similarly, she's my strongest stimulus at that time. So whatever she experiences with me, I feel partly responsible for. Her happiness is important to me while both of us spend time together, because I can't be happy around her if she's suffering.

It's something like a mutual symbiosis: A symbiotic relationship between individuals of different species in which both individuals benefit from the association. In this type of symbiosis, both organisms of different species rely on one another for nutrients, protection and other life functions, hence, they are usually found living in close proximity. You become a symbiotic creature. Once you part your ways, you don't depend on that person anymore, and each becomes their own individual once again. Once you are physically not together, you are no longer a symbiotic creature, and the responsibility for your significant other disappears.

Until a consensus has been reached on what the couple should do together, if anything, each individual can go on minding their own business without feeling guilty. You can't just BE together without having anything to DO together - that wouldn't be a mutual symbiosis. So it's not only physical closeness that matters in such a relationship. There also needs to be a transaction, a mutual activity.

Let me know if I'm wrong.

Favor-Raped

If you give me help that I didn't ask for, I will stay away from you.
If you steal away my problem, I will get mad at you.

You have cooked food for me and I'm not hungry; plus, I don't like this kind of food. You say you'll get mad at me if I reject your favor. I eat your food and then you say that I owe you 5 bucks for the dinner. You are not a friend, you are not a businessman, you are a thug. If you were a friend, you wouldn't expect anything in return for your favor. If you were a businessman, you would make sure that I want your product, and you wouldn't force me to take it. But no, you are what you call "an altruist". You are so "generous".

If you give me help that I didn't ask for, it's me who's doing you a favor. You should be grateful that I accept your territorial invasion, and I don't ask for anything in return. How are you invading my personal space, you ask? Forcing anything on anyone equals violence. A man raped a woman. She was a lonely woman, very shy. She had been looking for sexual encounters to no avail. But when she got violated, she didn't enjoy that specific sexual encounter at all.

to favor-rape: to force an unsolicited favor upon someone.
favor-rapist: a person who favor-rapes people.

He/she who favor-rapes could also enter a Master-Slave relationship, especially if their favors have actually been helpful. The more I permit you to solve my problems, the more dependent I become on you. I let you make decisions for me. You become my Master, as you personalize my issues.

Was the master provoked to be a master by the slave? Is it that they care for their slave as much as they care for themselves, because they sees themselves in the slave? If I accept unsolicited favors that I can take advantage of, and I know that thus I am doing a favor to the favor-rapist, I have noticed that the latter gets greater pleasure out of giving things to me. If they later attempt to blackmail me, I indicate that I am fine left alone, and that I don't actually NEED their help in the first place. The slippery slope here is becoming dependent on the favor-rapist and forgetting one's own skills.

What if I don't have those skills? A big favor would be for the favor-rapist to TEACH me those skills. But what if I don't want to learn them, because I am too busy studying other skills? One can't possibly know everything about everything. In this case, I would ask them to use their skills for my benefit. Then it wouldn't be a favor-rape, because I will have asked for their help. I can ask for help and either receive it for free, or pay a price.

Our Greedy Director

Many people work full time as actors under the directing of their false egos. The false-self wants the person to be like somebody else whom it irrationally identifies with. So the person would act and convince himself that he enjoys and approves of things that his real self would actually disapprove of. He would get some sort of momentary pleasure out of his play, but would later regret it and experience guilt or some other painful emotion. The false-self wants the person to adapt to the social environments, no matter what, because the person was raised to tolerate and integrate. Or maybe the person idealizes some sort of an irrational philosophy, and in order to act upon his beliefs, he has to overcome his real self and be an actor.

"I like this", someone says. Okay, how do you like it? Is it that it satisfies your aesthetic preferences, or is it that it represents your values and you find it virtuous? I won't stop repeating that art often portrays the opposite of virtue. We find things humorous or entertaining when they are illogical and/or unusual. So which one is it? Do you like the Nazis because of your support for national socialism, or is it because you support war and murder? Or is it because you are entertained by their uniforms, slogans, and loud explosions? Or maybe it's because you identify with your Nazi uncle, because you think he is very virtuous. You want to be like him and you overcome your critical thinking to satisfy the needs of your false-self. You think you like something for A B and C, but the real reasons turn out to be X Y and Z.

You know you're in a character when you say something and you feel smug about saying it. You know you're in a character when you are in rapport with someone else, and you agree with his irrational point of view, just because you can look at the world through his eyes, like that somehow makes false things more true. You know you're in a character when you feel guilty about not being something that your friend wants you to be. You play a role when you troll somebody but you don't know that you're trolling them. When you look around for people's approval. When you convince yourself that the bad thing you did was awesome, just to dissociate from your rational sense of guilt and shame. You want to be this kickass person who has no feelings because you are a perfectionist who despises everything that you perceive as weak. That's why you identify with imaginary heroes who lack these emotions and you pretend that you are them.

You don't need idols to change your behavior. You need convincing truths.

Shooting Blanks

Talking behind someone's back is like having loaded your gun to kill your enemy, but then shooting at his silhouette target. It's like making a dummy of your evil boss and lashing out your anger at it, just so that you don't lose it tomorrow at work. Your anger is your bullets. Let's say your coworker Dick has a bad habit that really pisses you off, but you're too chicken shit to let him know about it. Instead, you turn to Bob, the colleague who you're better friends with, and you tell him the emotionally-charged story of Dick's disgusting habit and how he should stop doing it. It's like you're a mime fighting the invisible Dick. Could be very entertaining, depending on Bob's taste. And it surely feels great for your false-self, because you get to be a winner in front of an audience, without actually fighting the enemy. You could tell this story to anyone over and over again, and you'll have to keep telling it, unless you got rid of the problem. This is how you become a performer under your false ego's directing. But every time you tell the story, you empty your magazine full of anger, and the next time Dick does that annoying thing, it'll be too late for you to reload and shoot at him, because he'd already be out of range. Best case scenario, you'd have some ammo left, but it won't be enough for the kill. Meaning, you won't be angry enough to take action, because you'll feel like you've already done this before.

That's how you minimize your chances of finding real friends, and instead you surround yourself with enemies. Talking behind a person's back strongly contributes to avoiding the conflict that needs to be resolved. And avoiding the conflict would only lead to a compromise of your personal preferences, and letting the individual invade more of your personal space.

Keep your ammo.

Troll Vs. True Self

Why act like an asshole and troll strangers when you can be yourself and piss off your enemies? Many of your so-called friends are people who you tolerate only because you can't currently replace them with better alternatives; or at least that's what you think.

In order to find better alternatives, you're gonna have to ditch your old friends. Ultimately, their incentive is to keep their relationship with you because they probably gain a lot from you without giving back things that you want. They'll do anything to stop you from replacing them with better friends. The other option is that they actually change their behavior to keep you as a friend, but that's not very likely to happen, because people hate change when it's expected from them to give more than they have already been giving.

Back to the point, there are many friendships that are based on roles, and you have to be in a character to keep them alive. That is, your friend Peter doesn't like you, he likes what you become when you're around him. And you become something else, because you know deep down that he wouldn't tolerate the real you, and you unconsciously conform to his unwritten social norms for fear of losing the relationship. But why would you value such a relationship? Usually, the false-self would make up all kinds of excuses and justifications - "He's very entertaining", "He lends me money", "He's my hero", "He's a great artist", etc. Forget all that bullshit and accept your feelings, instead. There may have been a time when Peter was very fun to hang out with, but things have changed.

If you compromise a relationship with the thought "I don't like hanging out with Peter but I need him for X Y and Z", you're setting yourself up for a master-slave relationship. If you don't like being around him, it will show in one way or another. Most likely it will be expressed in a passive-aggressive behavior. You will become Peter's slave because you use him as a means to X Y and Z, for the price of putting up with him. When you use people as a means to an end, those people become your masters that you emulate in order to get what you want.

Note: Some of my views on this issue have changed. More on that here: Virtue Vs Loneliness

The Art of Manipulation

Art can be presented in the form of a product, or it can be used as a tool to sell other products. I see art as a tool for manipulation of the mind, the same way a scalpel is a tool for manipulation of the flesh. It's good or evil depending on the context. Doctors MUST know how to manipulate a person's physiology to successfully treat them. In a similar way, artists should know how to manipulate the human mind, if they want to avoid unethical actions. Doctors have tools of manipulation, like scalpels, retractors, needles, drugs, etc. The same tools can be effectively used for torture and evil deeds. Even the most powerful, most manipulative persuader, cannot make you do things against your will. What they do is convince you that what they want you to do is what you want to do. It's always your final decision that matters. There is no way to persuade somebody without their consent.

One can be exposed to propaganda without their awareness of it, and that's called indoctrination. A child doesn't have a choice to NOT give consent, because they're entirely dependent on their parents. The external threat of the parents abandoning the child forces the child to give consent. I call this type of manipulation irresponsible, when you take advantage of one's weaknesses to brainwash them. It's not manipulation itself that's the issue, but rather that it's forced upon one. In the case where you depend on somebody else, you choose to comply because it's best for your well-being. So practically, you still give consent because it's the best option for you, compared to the alternatives. If your dependency is forced, the persuader is obviously aggressing against you, and his actions are immoral. But it's not persuasion itself that is evil, but rather it was the manipulator's coercion.

Intimidation is a form of manipulation that might force someone into making a choice, whether a good one, or a bad one. But that's an impractical form of persuasion because the intimidated person won't own the decision, and it wouldn't take them long to change their minds later. Intimidation is most commonly used by con-artists, because they benefit from their victim's short-term confusion. Bad tradesmen also use intimidation to pitch their products, and they often end up not being as successful as the honest merchants.

We see art being used in advertising as a way of promoting different products, people, and ideas. Art has always been a very useful tool for religious nuts to promote their delusional beliefs - the hypnotic church liturgies, the repetitive use of symbolism (with certain symbols serving as anchors), sponsorship of events in the name of god, etc. Art is used in advertising to strengthen commercial brands, catch people's attention, and persuade them to buy products. Not to mention ideological political beliefs and new-age philosophies that are constantly being propagandized by confused artists.

Art as a product in and of itself is not that important, to say the least. Pop music performers take advantage of art as a tool to promote their artistic products and get paid. They want to convince you that their compilation of sounds and words are special, which in 99.99% of the time is not true. So still, at the end of the day, it's the application of art as a tool that makes the difference. Are you an artist, or are you an artister?