Tag: psychology
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Who has sexual advantage?
Men and women both have advantages and disadvantages in their respective approaches. It’s very easy to see the disadvantages of your approach when you’re dealing with the other, when you’re on the other side’s turf, their domains of special competence (whose very existence some people would no doubt deny today) and out of your element.…
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False confidence
True confidence isn’t found by believing in yourself. That’s just ignorance, aggression, bluster, and self-deceit. You don’t steady yourself by grasping yourself tighter and tighter. Real confidence comes from fixing your eye on something bigger than yourself, outside of yourself, and grabbing hold of that. If you’ve grabbed something big enough and solid enough, it…
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What is respect?
I think there is a question of what it means to respect someone, or even to respect a whole people. Does it mean indulging them, protecting them? Defending or coddling them, making them comfortable, patronizing them? How should we view someone we respect? As a friend, as a child, as a pet, as a project?…
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The roots of confidence
Positive lies about yourself are no more secure a foundation for actualization that negative lies. Understanding and taking responsibility for yourself as a particular individual in your own care is the beginning of actualization, maturity, and integration. No amount of positive or negative self talk can paper over your essential nature. The underlying features of…
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The pain of past experiences
It has been written that much good can be undone by one sinner. One might also reflect that much wisdom is undone by a drop of foolishness. Often with people they have very bad experiences with a corrupt or even simply misguided or limited imperfect version of something or someone. A bad parent, a bad…
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Three short commentaries: on election struggles, politics and marriage, and human fallibility
It’s unfortunate how much political haymaking is going on right now as the election results are being certified. As someone who has no respect for or investment in either side, the irony and hypocrisy of both is quite shocking. People who are anti-Trump are shocked and appalled, of course, but having witnessed their own previous…
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Comfort or courage?
You don’t tell someone that “It’s normal to be afraid” in the hope that they will continue to be afraid. When we comfort a child and explain to them that what they’re going through is normal, what we mean is that being afaird is a normal part of the progression from not realizing there is…
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Looser clothes or tighter living?
My wife pointed out that maybe she should wear less flexible and stretchy clothing so she can feel where she is going and feel those limits. Maybe stretchy clothes aren’t the solution if you don’t want to keep getting more unhealthy. Maybe she should wear more unforgiving clothes. She also speculated about how big you…
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The danger of agreeable people
In an extreme situation, one with high and terrible stakes, it’s highly probable that the most likely people to have caused it will be quite disagreeable, and the people most likely to resist and halt that situation will also be disagreeable. The agreeable people occupy a middle space. They are less obviously dangerous, because they…
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The value of disagreeable things
One might wonder, in a world of perfect ease and freedom and safety, what the value of confrontation and competition and even a certain amount of disagreeableness is. We live in a world that worships comfort and being surrounded with and told whatever makes us feel good. And of course there is immense value in…
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