Our evil ways

Sometimes, I'm having a hard time dealing with people who claim to be good, moral persons. Let me explain. I'm 31 years old now and for what I know I, too, claimed myself to be a good person for maybe the first 28-29 years. Looking back at what I did, it was a false statement. My intentions were good though. No, not really. The right way to put it is to say that I thought I had good intentions so I thought I was good. 

Please don't get me wrong, I didn't do anything awful or really out of the ordinary. What I mean is that until I realized all the evil behind my actions, I was pretty normal. My understanding of life changed and the more I come to know someone now, the more I see all the excuses, all the reasons they tell themselves to justify their actions. That way they keep a good opinion of themselves. They always see their actions from the inside. 

Let me use an image. Your driving your car and someone honks his horn at you. You don't know what you did to offense or endanger the other driver. You curse him and you go on. To him, your a bad driver, but you don't think you're a bad driver. In fact, you think you're a good driver and that guy lacks judgement. The truth is, You will never drive accordingly to all others. You will drive your way and others will drive their ways and because there can't be total harmony. As a result, you're going to be honked at once in a while. 

That's what it is all about. You may think you're doing good, but in fact someone thinks you're doing bad because your actions may have negatives effects on him. That's why nobody's really good. Why does it bug me? Because the way people justify themselves often end up to worst behaviors than the initial offense, in my example, it was the cursing. It's especially during a conflict because of the tension escalation. 

Are we good persons ? No I don't think we are. So we're evil then? No we're not. What are we then? Persistant to stay unaware of the fact that it's impossible to be good even if you feel you're most of the time good. It prevents you to be less stubborn, more compassionate of those you may have offended, less selfish and ultimately and ironically a better person.

Burried frustrations of a sociopath looser

Lately, I've been feeling a bit distant from the melee. Any time I was with friends I wished I was somewhere else reading, thinking, being alone. It's been over a month now that I act like a unsocial savage hermit. A few friends expressed their frustrations about my recent behavior and quite frankly it felt like it justified my isolation buzz.

It made me think about what others acts like you owe them your presence like friendship is meant to be consumed before it burns like it's a cigarette. If you don't breathe smoke once in a while your wasting it. For the heavy smoker type I understand. But I'm not as addicted to cigarette as most people are. The very truth about this, about people having expectations about what you should do, when you should want to see them and do activities, is that I loathe the feeling it gives me. I might have been that guy at some point in my life but I remember having fights with friends about this kind of situations since a long time. What I don't get is this expectation thing. Like doing what they want is more important than doing what I want only because most people are "smokers" and it is supposed to be normal. I've been arguing with a lot of people over the last 5 or 6 years whenever I felt like doing things on my own for a while and no one had better then "we're friend I want to see you" kind of arguments. For me, it's more like using emotions to get want they want. Quite frankly I never understood this. If they were my friends, why they couldn't respected what I wanted instead of insisting to get what they wanted. 

Recently, there is one friend I keep in touch almost daily. I've been doing things with her that satisfy my social needs for the moment. I don't feel like seeing the others and that's not because they mean nothing to me. They mean something, only for now, I'm having this reading frenzy. It's taking the rest of my free time and I honestly prefer reading than seeing them. I see you coming a mile away with your balance speech. Hey I got this served a million time and I just don't buy it. I do want I want, others do what they want. When what I want is what others want then let's do it. When it don't, why do people keep on trying to convince me using questionnable manipulation techniques. 

I think that's some sort of competition to find out who the leader is. If I make you do things I want to do more often then I'm the leader. I don't think people do that conciously. I think it's an animal behavior that people can't really control ... if they haven't thought of it. If I can tell you a little about myself. At a younger age, I was a competitive, stupid asshole. As I grew up, I went from being most of the time the leader to become a forced follower. It gave me many many frustrations and that explain why I loathe this kind of competition now that I'm no longer competitive. If you're wondering, I'm still an asshole by the way. 

So I can't tell I'm better, or I understood something people don't get so I'm clever. I'm not. I'm just a frustrated looser that sometimes wants to be on his own. Man I love books ... more than real people sometimes.     

Death

What a great subject. I'm surprised I didn't write about it before today. The end of one's life is, in our culture, something considered mostly negative. At least it is for those who still live. We cry those who leave our world. We created many mechanisms, through spirituality and beliefs, to get over our losses. 

I know you might not like what I will say, but we are most of the time self-centered. To mourn is somehow an expression of this self-centerness. However, when you think about death. It's like the end of a book. When you start reading, you know the story will come to an end and that's the purpose of reading it. To get through it, enjoy it and know its end. Whatever it's a sad, happy, short, long, filled or empty story. You share something with the "author" while "reading" it. That's life.

I know some will say that you can't compare a life with a book. The relation you create with a book isn't as strong as a relation with a living person. I agree with you. The level of emotions is more likely to be more important. So when you finish a book, you can't feel the same in comparaison when someone's story ends. And I haven't talked about how it ends. Sometimes the circumstances are awful. Where I live, in the province of Quebec, we had 3 horror story lately. There is this cardiologist who stabbed his two children because his wife was cheating on him. This couple who beat a 4 years old boy to death. And this 2 months old baby who's cryings, because her arm was broken, drove his father crazy enough to shake her to death. 

So you might think it is unfair for them. To have their lives taken away like this. Unfair also for those who loved them. And you are damn right. It is unfair. That's the whole idea about death. When granted the privilege of life, nature never gave any living creature a waranty. For many reasons, we feel and live otherwise. Like is a right the society or even life itself  owe to you. That every man should live until his body can't. The cold truth is it will never be this way. So I question the spirit of our cultural relation with death.

I think we feel sad about death, because we are rarely prepared for it. We don't live like the next chapter, the next page might be the last and we don't expect others to live also like that. For this reason, I think we don't respect death enough. It is inevitable, whenever it happens at 90 or 30 or 9 or 3. It will happen. I know it's hard to not expect to live X years and do whatever we want to do with our lives, but we live like this because we forgot our lives has no warranties. Taking it for granted is, to me, disrespectful of what nature is : unfair.

I want you to try to disconnect with our cultural relation with death and think about it. Would it be possible to praise death like we praise life? Would we have more respect in life if we respect death the way it should be? I'm asking this because I'm wondering if the lives of the kids in the three stories above would have been taken away from them if we had more respect and a more "happy" relation with death. Because they died as some sort of punishment for really bad reasons. Death shouldn't be a punishment. It's the end of a book. It's sometimes the best part. It is inevitable and it should be as important as life is whenever it happens before having white hairs.         

Personal thoughts to think over the weekend.

This weekend. I'm calling it off. I mean, no computer, no socialization of any kind, or the least possible. It'll be me alone with me. I'll be reading, thinking, walking, running. I'm experiencing strange feelings lately. I feel that void inside that need to be fill. I remember something I use to talk about with an old friend of mine. It was about beginnings and endings. 

I don't remember if I blogged about this already but it goes like this. Our lives are a subsequence of overlapping beginnings and endings. In between is the boring part. You are usually more thrilled with Beginnings. Endings are either a relief or a loss but they always make room for new beginnings. So the less time you spent in between the more fun, valuable, meaningful your life may be. 

That's why events like having kids, buying an house, vacations, or whatever is a new beginning, is like a boost for your life, or your couple according to theses examples. If you get stuck too much in between, then you'll get bored. And when you get bored you tend to feel different about the same things that were thrilling when they were "beginnings". 

I think that defines the void I'm feeling right now. I'm stuck in between. The problem is, I'm not quite sure of what I want as a new beginning. Well that's not true. It would be more acurate to say there's nothing at reach that comes into my mind that I would like to start. I also haven't realized yet if I need to end something to make room for a new thing in my life. 

These are the questions I hope my weekend will help me elude. It's an interresting exercice to do. I did it a few times in the last couple of years and it was always a rewardful experience. I know most people don't feel the need to do this because they feel, most time, overwhelmed with their occupations. Like it's full, no room for anything. I'm not judging. It's fine if they feel happy about it. 

But as I rejected the contemporary way of living ( and ironically working in a very contemporary field of expertise ). It became a very important issue to me to find meaningful things to do with my life. I'm no more ( or less ) interrested in accumulating belongings, spending hours on irreleavant entertainment or anything that don't enhance myself on some level. I find it challenging but I'm still asking myself what's the big picture of doing all this. 

Anyhow, that's what I found to be the best way to change into someone who's looking to elevate his mind and having more respect in his body ( than I had before ).

Self-Improvement ( was about weaknesses at first but ... )

I must admit it. Lately I've been weak. It's not something I'm ashamed of. Believe me. I'm not going to give you the men should not show weaknesses. I prefer to think weaknesses are useful. You can take the best of out them if you don't fall into showing weakness to lure someone into compassionate involvment to strengthen them or if you fall into despair and complaint. 

My point is, every men have to right to be weak once in a while. It's not really important to show or hide them to others. However, it's part of the truth you owe to yourself. When you feel vulnerable and you're weak. You got to be honest with yourself and to not be ashamed to feel this way. That's not a threat to your manhood. The threat is how you react to weaknesses. To man up doesn't mean to hide them. It's to find a way to turn weaknesses into strenghts. And by that, I mean without having someone else taking care of the problem. You need to feel that you are the solution to you. It doesn't mean to never ask for help or never accept help. It means you must be part of the action. For instance. If you lack confidence in bed. You can't rely only on your partner to tell you how "great" you are or to fake your so-called greatness. What if your partner stops making this? What if you change your sex partner? 

You see what I'm telling you ? If the solution comes from others, then it's a contextual solution. It's not solving your weakness. So I was saying that I was weak. For a few days, I must admit I was drifting away with fatalist ideas. And that is exactly why I'm writting this. I realized that weaknesses, like many other things I pointed to you in previous blog entries, are calls to step up, to man up, to change into a better version of yourself. 

I'm really into this self-improvement thing. It's the fuel I use to find a meaning out of the things I do. And I also think it's where the philosophical part of all my posts on self improvement is. It's about living a meaningful life. I know most of the people I know don't always need to know exactly why they do what they do. They go with the flow of their lives and wish it will lead them to some place, somewhere, where, you know, there's happiness. What they don't realize is happiness is like flowers along the road of your life. You'll eventually find many as you live your life, but as you advance on that road, it won't necessary means there will be more flowers the further you go. That's why the meaning of it is so important. The meaning in this image helps you apreciate the flowers without always wishing to see more later. 

I told you on a previous blog entries that we see the goals we set for ourselves as destinations. We tend to believe that after you achieved these you'll be more happy (  I'm referring to the wish for more flowers  further on the road). I said it was some kind of illusion. Because you miss the point. The point is to know exactly why you want that destination reached. For instance. I went to school to get a job, to earn a living, to earn money. I got it, admirably I must add. 

Am I really more happy then I was while I was studying? No I'm not. I can't tell you the difference. Because I thought it was what was normal to do. Of course I'm not suggesting I should quit my job because I didn't understood the meaning of all this while I was doing it. But this particular mistake is the reason why I don't feel much better now that my career is right on track where I pictured it would. 

And that's really the point about self improvement. All the perks you get out of the things you do don't have a true meaning if it's not improving yourself and if you don't understand how it does then that's not as rewarding as it should. It will feel like buying a giant TV screen. Fun at first, and void after a while.     

Sufferings

I think I need to precise à point about sufferings. I'm not the bouddhist type of man who thinks suffering comes from desires. Well it's very true. I do think that. But the bouddhist solution, to not desire anything, is somehow a nonsense to apply in our lives. I mean, unless you've got a strong willpower and become a monk or an hermite. It's an ideal that is quite impossible to achieve and it becomes absurd to chase it. 

So we're doomed to manage our sufferings. Again, I'm not a fan of letting things go and wait for getting better when I'm down or to wait and live with it long enough to be used to it so it becomes less harmful. These methods, often used by many, are for those who complaint about their bad luck or their fate. Let me use myself as an example. I'm not the type of man who pleases women. I used to suffer from it and to apply theses methods and quite frankly. They work, until next time you suffer. Because they don't force you to change. 

My point is, sufferings are to be embraced and praised. It's your feelings talking to your inner "you". It means you're not who you want to be. For the record, I don't think there's an end of this. You should never be complaisant with yourself. If you are, then you're missing something. Anything that can trigger improvement of self should be taken seriously. It should never be something you let go. It's an opportunity and it's valuable. It turns to suffer into something good instead of something bad if you get to understand and find a meaning out of it. 

The choice between truth and lies

In my previous blog entries, I talked a lot about lies. The ones you tell to others and the ones you tell to yourself. The first is a tool, the second, a treat. I realized that I never talked much about truth and the choice. Again, I think there's two kind of truth. One for others, one for yourself. The last kind of truth mentionned is on the opposite of lies : rewardful. 

Between truths and lies there's always a three-way choice. Either you choose the lie, truth or nothing at all, which means ignoring the choice. Whatever you choose. Most of the time, it'll be in your own interest. Or so you think it will. Consciously or not. There's always a motive for all of our choices. So basically, I'm not making any extraordinary discovery here. I'm only telling you that sometimes our choices are good and sometimes they're not. Therefore, you might think it's no use to talk about it. Just let go and see where its leading you to. I think otherwise. 

First and foremost. Let's clarify something. Nobody's always telling the truth. If they say they are. They are either lying to you or to themselves or maybe both. Even if it would be possible. It'd be extremly stupid to think your interest always comes with the same answer, the same choice. 

Second, it's a battle, a struggle, a fight. Sometimes, in order to land a punch you have to take one yourself. That means that your interest is never always to duck situations with your choices. Your interest might be to tell a truth or a lie or nothing that gives you a disadvantage now, but will be an advantage later. Think of coming clean when you did something awful to gain back someone's confidence instead of going further down in the moving sands of lies. 

Third, mix it up. I said it's like fighting. If you always throw uppercuts. You'll never / rarely land them. You'll be ineffective. You need to keep people offbalance. Why ? Well let's be honest with ourselves and leave the magical world of fearies and wand of wonders for a second. You own a choice and if someone's got you figured it out, it takes it away. You become vulnerable to this person in a bad way regarding your interest and it will place you in situations where you might not want to. Ohh I see you coming by a mile, lovers, you don't agree because that's what your looking for in your relationship. You want the other to know you so well he'll see right through you. Well, Hello dear fearie, here's a wand of wonder. I'm not a fan of letting others in control of my life. The least pull they have. The better. And there's a reason why. What I want is my path to happiness and I will get what I want only by being my own and only master. And no, lovers, it doesn't mean to stay single. It means to always have that choice to tell the truth, lo lie or to ignore. Because what I want is the motive, the interest I'm talking about. 

So I guess, the lesson I taught myself, over the years, was to know exactly why I'm making my choices between truths, lies and nothing. It must always serve a greater purpose of my engineered life. It must have a meaning.

Feeling unworthy

For many, feeling or being unworthy is bad, negative, something it's best to not feel. I disagree. Let me explain why. Lately, in my personal life, many events occurred that made me feel unworthy of many things. I'm not here to discuss about these things. It's irreleaveant to make the point I'm trying to expose here. 

There's a strange feeling that comes with feeling unworthy and it's feeling like your a fraud of some kind. That you might be the only one seeing a truth and whatever benefits you've been given is not earned or would not exists if others knew the truth. What's strange about it is that the benefits are usually strong enough to overcome the bad sides of feeling unworthy. So for a second, you feel ashamed to ignore that you're unworthy and you start abusing of the situation by ignoring it. I think it's more frequent than it looks for most of us. Because it becomes an automatism to ignore it. 

For the record, its opposite, feeling that you don't get what you deserve, is a much more evident feeling. Let's use an image. Imagine yourself as a glass of water, normally half full, when unworthy, the glass is closer to be full and when you don't get what you deserve, the glass is closer to be empty. Which glass you're more subjected to complain about? The one that is closer to be empty right?. But that doesn't mean that the glass closer to be full is better. It simply means it ain't right. And feeling unworthy is as not right as feeling that you don't get what you deserve. 

What do psycho pop tells us about what to do when you feel you don't get what you deserve? To take the necessary means to get what you think you deserve. To not sit there waiting for it. To take it. Well, if you're following where I'm going. I think that feeling unworthy is exactly the same, except it's harder to take action. 

Feeling unworthy, should be a powerful tool for anyone. Instead of ignoring it to get rid of the feeling, I suggest to identify it and use it to improve yourself. If you can control the level of water in your own glass, then you'll less of a fraud, more authentic, more you, a better you. 

So how can you use it? Well first and foremost, to see the truth. To not lie to yourself. When you feel unworthy, it's like your subconscious is talking to you. So like feeling that you don't get what you deserve, you have to take action. You have to level yourself to be worthy of what benefits you already have. I know it's hard. I think it's a state of mind very few can achieve. It's being aware and in control of yourself. To not be lazy about it. 

If you've followed my glass of water analogy you probably understand that I was not talking about removing water out of it when it's closer to be full. That I was suggesting to grow the glass bigger so the water level gets to be half full again. That's why feeling unworthy isn't a bad thing. It's a great thing. It's a call to grow and if you listen to it and you take action. You'll grow.

Identity

I'll warn you.You might hate this post. You'll probably reject my ideas. Why? Because it'll attack the very core of who you think you are. I don't think I'll convince you of anything. My best hope so far is to awaken your curiosity. 

What is an Identity. Is it a name? A job? Things liked? Music listened? Hobbies? Moral values? Opinions?  If you would have to define yourself, what would you say about you? How can you explain all the choices you made throughout your life? And what does it tell about your identity? If you'd do that, it'll only be a snapshot in time.

I wrote a post about changing according to yourself to become the "someone" you really are by trying to find out what you may have lied to yourself to be complaisant. But it lead me to more questions about my true identity.

My technique was simple at first. It was to create more and more situations where I got to make a decision about who I wanted to be. I thought that if it's something I'd choose, then It'd be me. Instead of letting things go and become me. However, I think I found out that this is nonsense. Oh, don't get me wrong, I still think it's a pretty good way to work things out but it fails at revealing who I am. Because I am not. "I" is such a deceptive word. 

Most of you probably know this famous Descartes quote : "I think, therefore I am". You probably learned this in a philosophy class. If I remember correctly, I couldn't think of anyway to disagree with Descartes until recently. To me, "to be" isn't the result of the "I" making the action of thinking. Descartes was searching for a certitude of his own existence. He couldn't be certain of anything he was seeing, touching, hearing, eating ... you get it. But the only thing that he could be sure of are his thoughts. 

This explanation doesn't get further than that. It was satisfying enough to prove someone exists, but it fails at finding what this "thing" that exists is. This "I am" that does the action of thinking.  It is our own identity and if I have the power to forge it, to change it with influences or choices I'm making throughout my life, then thinking cannot be the action the "I" does to be. Thinking over seed the "I". 

I'm really sorry to point it out but our language is deficient in providing me a way to write this sentence without using the "I" word. But "I" is the ideas I create to be an "I". In other words, "I think, therefore I am" is incomplete to me. It should be "I am thoughts, therefore "I" exist". I don't want to make it look sloppy but unfortunately it is. That's because our concept of "I" is in contradiction with what I'm saying. 

For now on, I can't be anything else but thoughts. I'm not a name? A job? Things I like? Music I listen? My hobbies? My moral values? My opinions? I'm only the idea I have to be all these characteristics and my ideas have the power to change them all. 

Conclusion, only my thoughts exist and "I" is the representation of them.

Fears

In the past weeks, I had thought a lot about fears. About how we manage them, about what is their purpose. How it is related to our inner animal. My thinking got me to an interesting way to look at fears. I'm pretty sure I didn't discover anything revolutionary but I think it's worth a post for me, and a read for you. 

First and foremost, what is fear? Well, it's a more difficult to answer question then it looks. You could enumerate an endless list of fears. You could tell it's a feeling when you feel threaten and you anticipate something awful. The actual definition is : "A feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger". Quite frankly, I really don't like these definitions. Why? Because it implies that absolute danger create absolute fear and it also implies that what from any danger possible, there's any fear possible.  I think it's not true. For the record, some fear-related illnesses exist because people see dangers where there might not be. And I think it's almost the same whatever we decided it's an illness or not.

Thinking of fears, of my own fears, I came to a different conclusion. Fears are illusions. Nothing else. You probably know the famous Roosevelt's quote : "Only thing we have to fear is fear itself". Well I think it holds more wisdom than it looks. In our lives, we most of the time feel fear by anticipating consequences. For example, in particular situations at work our behaviors might be influenced by fear of facing consequences like being fired. So you might use more diplomacy with co-workers/bosses. When meeting a girl you might somehow be afraid to be rejected so your behavior might show less confidence. 

There's endless situations where the fear of consequences have influence on our behaviors and it all comes down to the same fear. Fear of loosing. From loosing your life to loosing a competition, fear exists because you're afraid that you might not win. That's why fear is an illusion. Because it's not real. When you feel fear, you haven't lost yet. It's only because you anticipate the consequences you want to avoid that you feel it. 

If you think "animal". Fear is more of a reflex. A mean of defense to survive. When a cat is frighten by a dog. It run away for the same reasons you won't tell your boss what you might think of him : the consequences. Fears are created and not real. Well fear of death might be the one fear you can't avoid because it's a core-animal mean of defense to survival. But it's still an illusion because it hasn't happened yet. 

OK I know what you might think. I'm really not telling you to go tell your boss you don't like him because you shouldn't fear the consequences because they're illusions. I think you should find some kind of balance. Understanding and identifying fears makes them less harmful. It helps you see what are the consequences the fears originate from and it gives you a chance to evaluate which consequences are worth taking a chance and which are not. 

Down the road, it's all about what you can win. Telling your boss he's a jerk gives you little. However asking an attractive girl out is worth taking a chance. Oh that's true, You might have to face the consequences of loosing, but until it happens, it's nothing else but illusion. So that's why fears are absurd. When evaluating consequences, you should be able most of the time to tell you this : I'll face the consequences when they will happen. 

So I guess, as a conclusion, the only danger you should be afraid of is death. Anything else are not dangers. They are consequences and you got to be the one who decide which consequences are worth taking the risk. Fears are illusions and you should see them as tools instead of walls.         

About changing

In many post you can find on this blog, one of the redundant secondary subjects is about changing. I know it could be easy to talk about evolution but I still prefer to use the word "change". In other posts I pointed things that might trigger changes. But it's not really how it came to me. Changes came from situations I analysed. 

Normally with this blog, I'm exposing the problems and I'm talking about the solutions I came up with. But you need to understand that theses thoughts are complex. Probably more than it looks like because I'm not good enough to communicate all the things I thought of during the process. But that's not really the point. The point is : change must come from a situation you analysed yourself. Not a single thing I'm saying in this blog can be read and taken as it is. To the very best, I hope it'll open you eyes on something you never thought of before. 

Change is inevitable. You'll do it throughout your life. Over the years, I found out that to be complaisant , obliging with yourself is to knowingly accept to change according to others around you. It might be good enough for many persons, but I don't find it as optimized and rewarding as changing according to yourself. Also, I surprisingly noticed that I'm influencing much more my entourage then they influence me. I came up thinking it's better this way as I'm feeling I'm more in control of my own life. 

Here's what I do. When It's time to go to bed, I take the time to think about my day. About my behaviors. I'm trying as much as I can to be cold and distant with myself. Like I'm talking to a second me. To become an observant. It often reveals things I need to change. Let's make an easy example. I was talking with a friend and about a particular topic and I gave him an answer that was more like I'm finding a motive, whatever it is, then telling to myself what is the real motive. That's what I call lying to myself. 

For the record, we don't do this on purpose. We just do it while things happen. Because events go too fast for us to think and act at the same time. Too often, you say the first thing that make sense but it's rarely the truth. It's like correcting your mistakes after writing a text. Seeing and telling yourself the truth about why you do what you do is the first step you need to take to be the engineer behind what you want to be over what you might become if you let others do this for you. 

In this case, like anything, it needs repetition to get better, you'll find more situations when you lied to yourself and you'll make the adjustments until you completely change on something you wanted to change. 

To talk a little bit about myself. It might looks like I'm an expert but I'm not. There's still a lot of things I want and need to change and probably more things I don't know yet. But for now, I can tell you this. I'm getting that feeling, like I'm working to unleash the real me and it feels really good. I can't imagine where it will lead me but I know it's for the best. I'm living it.         

Understanding self-esteem

Self-esteem is almost in every motivation peptalk. It's always something people are told to build up in order to be successful. Basically, in our common sense, self-esteem is about feeling good about ourselves. Feeling we're able to achieve whatever we want. I'm not questionning this. I think it's pretty true. On the other hand, I've got a better explanation, a better way out. I can't find the exact quote but Churchill once said something like it's impossible until someone who doesn't know it is, do it. If you don't see the link between self-esteem and Churchill's quote, I'll explain you why I think there is one.

Self-esteem is, to me, overrated in the way people see it. To think there's something you can't do has more to do with failures than self-esteem does. In this case, like Churchill said, ignorance is a strenght. However, it's never that simple. I, myself, am someone who always overthink everything. I often ask myself too many questions and come up with to many anwsers that sometimes became walls between me and my goals. I think that's actually where self-esteem comes in to play. Because someone with high self-esteem will more often anwser his own questions with reasons why he can do it, than reasons why he can't. 

I think it's wrong to see self-esteem as one layer. It has many. For instance, I've got a high self-esteem when it comes to my work as a programmer and little with women. So how did that happen? Well, let's go back to my animal theory. It really explains a lot. As an animal, I'm in a competiton. In each layer where you'll find self-esteem, you'll find a competition. 

Self-esteem is built on the way I compare myself to the competition. It is to know where you stand against it. How you see yourself winning or loosing. Applying the Churchill's quote, to ignore it is a strength. To understand this, can be a key to everyone in every aspect of someone's life. 

You'll always be your worst enemy. All you have to focus on is to compete. Nothing else. Loosing or winning should become meaningless as long as you compete and as long as you find rewards in it. Because that's what we are : animals. If you can reconnect with this basic animal behavior, you'll find self-esteem overrated and eventually, you'll win more often.

My animal rank

My apologies, I've not written for a while, almost a month since the last post. But there's a good reason to it. I've socially experienced something new. Something to write about. Lately, I've been spending time with this incredible female specimen, in a friendly context. 

Well friendly that's bold to say so. It is by design, by some engineered animal construction. We're simply not of the same animal rank. Or should I say, my rank, in the animal kingdom ladder is way too far from hers. It means we're friend not because I don't feel sexual pulsions about her, but because I don't believe I belong to her rank. So I block these pulsions for the only matter that it 's quite obvious, for a girl of her stature, that she can't feel the same about me. 

I'm not talking about romance, nor love. I'm talking about basic animal instinct. About the forces that drive us into sexual intercourse and unconsciously to the only purpose of our existence : reproduction. So what does this rank I talked about stands for? I think it's the attractive power someone radiates, inviting others to feel sexual pulsions. 

The girl I talked about sure does radiates a lot. Not only because I felt pulsions, but because I noticed a lot of man gravitating around her feeling the same. Actually, I don't think I saw one man around her not feeling it except her father. Even if they're engaged they do feel it. And let me be clear. It's not only a matter of beauty. Yes she's cute, but not outstanding. There's a lot of more beautiful women I know that don't rank as high as her. Let's just say it this way, beauty is more of the potential. It defines the range you stand on the ladder, but not the actual position. The position is more about the whole thing. About the attractive power I told you about.

I think one mistake many do when it comes to chasing for a partner is to create unrealistic expectations. And that might be because you don't know your own rank. I think you have to evaluate your level of confidence. If you're in a situation where your confidence feels low, you might be playing above your head. And because it is low, your chances of success are lower. Think of it this way. If you're playing in your rank, then you'll be more confident. I know what you're thinking. One person might feel less confident for many reasons, not only because he's in a situation where he tries to catch up with someone higher on the ladder. You're right. I told you about the range, or potential of where you stand. It means your rank moves up and down depending on your mood. On a good day, you might be able to charm someone else that feels less attractive. But you'll not be able to satisfy that someone on long term as you'll also have bad days. 

What I'm telling you is a sucessful couple is two person whose ranks range more often the same. Unfortunatly, if you've noticed, there's something tricky. I told you that our only real goal is reproduction. So during your life, you'll have to face situations where what you want, the people you're attracted to, are not of the same rank as you are. There's also the reality that during your life, the range will move up and down. And if you're  in a relationship, these range movements might not be synchronized. So it's important to know your rank so you won't place yourself in tough situation. Not to mention your decisions will be better for yourself.

Level of truth in a world of lies

For what I know about how our culture. It has a set of what's true and what's not along with a set of what's good and what's not. We apply this concept in our everyday life. It forges our thoughts and opinions. It's our base of judgement. It's the moral. 

For some reasons, these sets are rarely questionned. I can't tell you why, I truly don't know. 

I'll use, a true story as an example . It's about a girl who met a guy online. She chatted with the good-looking man and agreed to meet him for a date. When she met him, she found out he was bald. A complete turn-off. She didn't knew before because he was wearing a baseball cap on each pictures she saw prior to the encounter. So she excuses herself to the washroom, called a friend to ask for her to call her back in a few minutes asking for immediate help so she could dodge the rest of the date. The official reason given to the man in question was she needs to leave because her friend really needs a babysitter and couldn't find anyone else.  

What does this story tell us? First. She lied to the man about the babysitting thing. Second. She was true to herself, she don't like bald man. But these are only what's on the surface. Beneth it, the real reason for her to behave like this is the level of truth. 

Let me explain. Imagine we live in a world of absolute truthness. She would have met him, see that he's bald. Tell him she don't like it and leave. The man wouldn't be hurt in any way because he would say. It's true that I'm bald and it's true that she don't like it so no sweat. 

Unfortunatly, we're not living in this world. In our world, in our culture, she needs to lie. She's forced to. We are all forced to. Why? Tadam! Yeah you figured where I was going. The anwser is the level of truth.

Alright. What's the level of truth? It's the degree of truthness we agreed to share in our culture. In the example, she lied because the man would be hurt if he'd know the truth. So it's better, not only for her, but also for him that she lied. 

See, lying isn't that bad after all. But in our culture, to lie is considered bad. It is part of the set of bad things we never questionned.

But that's not all. The level of truth is more than that. It's about seeing these cultural sets of true/false good/bad things in a different way. Pushing your own level of truth to higher levels helps. 

If you understood the moral of the story above. When you'll find out someone has been lying to you. You'll be able take it without feeling bad, which is great. Because your own level of truth is extended beyond the accepted one. You understand that lying isn't always a bad thing. It is sometimes very handy and clever to use it in our world of lies.

Understanding jealousy

Are you jealous?

It's a legitimate question. Whatever answer you might give, yes, no, sometimes or it depends on the situation. It's irrelevant to me. Your answer is based on a level of truth you allow yourself to see about you. But that's not really the point. The most important answer you could give me to this question is something that would tell me how good you understand what jealousy means.

I'm not giving you the insecurity/fear/anxiety speech. These are for me, only responses to jealousy. So tell me what are the reasons you might get jealous for? No, don't tell me if your girlfriend spend times with another guy. I don't give a fuck. That's not a reason, that's an excuse to be jealous. The concept of jealousy comes directly from the concept of competition. What does it mean? Do you remember my thoughts and theories about humans being animals. Well you got it, competition is a root level concept of the animal kingdom. It means, as animals, we'll face, throughout all of our lives, different kind of competitions.

Jealousy is a feeling you might have, when you forgot about how inevitable competition is. Let's look at it this way. If you anticipate a loss, without having fought, then you're jealous. It's some kind of distortion of the animal we are because we don't see ourselves as animals. If I say, competition is everywhere in everything because it's our nature, our fate, then, it would be accurate to be competitive. Even when there's little hope for a win. You just need to compete because you shouldn't question it.

 

Let's make an example. You and your girlfriend are in a relation for some times. You notice she has particular interests in someone else she's friend with. You feel somehow threaten by the situation she's putting you in. Because of this cultural concept we invented, the couple, we exposed us to the illusion that the other shouldn't put you in a competition. You know, because you put thrust in your relationship and morally, we all agreed on some kind of unwritten contract about what is appropriate and what is not. One of them is the elimination of competition. Which is, if you understand our animal nature, something at the complete opposite.

 

That said, if to be jealous is about refusing competition, then it can't be the right thing to do considering our animal nature. Actually, it should have never existed, only if we would have been honest about who we are. Next time you feel threaten or you anticipate defeat. I suggest you compete instead of complaining to the person who put you in the situation.

The lies within

Have you ever read short stories or short sentences with a sloppy morale like be yourself or live in the present. I mean, in fact, these may look like good advices or like it's the right thing to do. But more often, they're not applicable or you can't really tell for sure if you do or if you don't. That's why I say they're sloppy. They exists to make you feel better about yourself so you can believe you're living in the present while still having fights over old events with your ex-husband/wife. Or thinking you're honest and the next thing you do is to call in sick over a lie.

The truth is, and it's sad to say so, people tend to believe they're better person than they actually are. Don't get me wrong, I'm no psychologist, but it may looks like it's a defensive mean and it's a good thing. As a philosopher, I think it's like the fog before your eyes. It prevents you to see clear. You can't help it, but what you do is to lie to yourself and you believe that very lie so you think it's the truth. Don't you think it's pathetic? If you don't, I do. Let me explain you why.

What does growing means? Does it means to get older? I think not. Does it mean to get futher in life like becoming a father? I think not. Growing is about getting better, becoming wiser, being able to use more and more tools out of the lessons life taught you. Do you see what I'm trying to tell you? How can you get better if you lie to yourself about how good you are? How can you grow? No offense meant, but it's a bit stupid don't you think?

Having said that, I do think you're better off telling yourself the truth, even if it hurts, than lying to yourself to manage your feelings about you, about the way you see yourself as a human being. I'm not telling you to never lie. I think it's impossible to never do. But you should never do it to you. You owe this to yourself so you can grow.

The need to thrust the law

As inviduals, we have basic needs. They all share the same goal which is survival. We responded to them by creating tribes, communities or more generaly societies. So It was easier to build shelters to get protection from differents wheathers or enemies, easier to hunt for food. etc. Keep in mind that we did that to survive as individuals. The main objective was always centered towards oneself and never towards a group. So we invented thrust, that's what keeps the group united, like it's a glue. Without it. Nothing like that would be sucessful.

For centuries, the humankind tried to put that thrust in a box. It was necessary because everyone was vulnerable to others. To thrust someone is to be vulnerable of something but not feeling threaten by it. Being vulnerable without thrust is exhausting because you need to always keep your guard up. In other words, thrust was created so you can lower your guard. Putting thrust in a box was necessary to make sure no one would take advantage of your vulnerabilities. It was created to preserve thrust.

Well the box is an image. It represents the laws. We created them to make sure thrust is most often respected and so we can all lower our guards and feel safe. The funny thing is, today we think laws are created to preserve freedom. It can't be. the concept of freedom is bound to the individual who's alone to survive and with it, comes the threats, chaos. It's either, laws ( less freedom ) and safety or no laws ( more freedom ) and more threats. In the process, the more laws we created, the more far from the free animal in a dangerous chaotic world we get.

What is ironic, there's still a risk ahead. It's loosing touch with the reasons we created this mecanism in the first place. If we get this way, then laws are not only used to preserve the thrust we need to share as society to survive, but also to be in the service of something else or someone else. I do think we made that mistake at some point in the evolution of our societies. It may explain why we're living in a world of conflicts. Sometimes we feel laws are unfair, or we know it ain't right. So one may became an outlaw. Not because he's evil or not well educated. But because he feels threaten by the same thing that should make him feel safe.

This is why I'm telling you about the mistake we made.The only explanation I see is that laws aren't always to preserve that thrust. If it really was, then no one would ever want to break it. Because it would be a basic prime need to anyone like you'll never question the need to eat.

My body and me

When I think of me, as a representation of the person I am, I think about thoughts, personnality, behaviors and body. what's interesting about this list is the relation of control I have over them. I'm pretty sure I control my thoughts, personality and behaviors. You may call this freewill. But what about my body? The relation is completly different. I feel the body, I'm not really deciding anything. I can't control my blood pressure, my heartbeat, nor any glands. I can't say, let's produce adrenalin, it'll be fun. Well I can, in a certain way. If I create an external stimulis to make it happen. But I can't decide this on my own, sitting in my living room.

And it bugs me a lot. Is the body, something appart from me? Like it's two different things. Who's taking decisions? Where's the command center? Who's running it. I can't figure how it does everything by itself like some kind of mechanical construction. Why do I feel I have no direct control over what should be me. Like I own it, instead of be it. When I stop and think about it, I feel like I'm small, inside, and trapt. I can't move. I'm moving my body but that's all. Don't you feel you're always somewhere behind the eyes and between the ears. Why can't I feel I'm in my foot?

I saw some videos of monks taking their minds over their bodies and achieving impressives things. So my guess is there's a key somewhere to the command center. A way I can be my body's own captain. Where I can be my body instead of having a body. It's the only clue I have to get the "animal" hypothesis I talked in this blog previous entries to a superior level. A level where I could tell, yes, humans are appart from animals. But until then, as long as my body works by itself, reacting to stimulis, over which I have no control, I'm still an animal or should I say, I'm inside an animal.

Fitting in

As a grown up, approaching 30, I often look back in my past, trying to find clues about questions I ask myself. As I was analysing my younger years, back to the elementary school times, I discovered something I think is very important regarding my development as an adult. That's about learning to fit in.

Elementary school is probably the most chaotic environment you may experience during your life. It's full of cruel kids that haven't yet to understand what you can or cannot tell or do to someone. For exemple, as a kid, one may laugh and say terrible things to another kid about his differences. As an adult, you'll be more cautious to not hurt someone this way. I don't think it has anything to do with the higher possibilities that his differences made you laugh when you're young and doesn't when you're old. It's only because you learned this behavior is inappropriate. So as a kid, trying to fit in is a major priority for your social life. You don't want others kids to make fun of you. Your actions are more influenced by this preoccupation than you may think. You want and need to fit in.

The truth is, or should I say the problem is, you may try as hard as you want to fit in a group, you'll always be the odd man's out. Like in a jigsaw puzzle. If you find a piece that may matches the form and seems to fit. If the colors and/or the drawing doesn't fit, you know it's not the place for this particular piece. So what's the right way to do it? It's not to try to fit it in, it's to find where it fits better. Unfortunatly, life's not exactly as a puzzle. Your shape changes so does your colors. Confusing as it may be, you can't really tell whenever you're trying to fit in or you're searching for where you fit better and I didn't even mention all the misunderstandings and problems it may trigger when you were in a place you fit in and you change into someone who doesn't fit in anymore.

If we take a look at the big picture, we might see some kind of hapiness receipe. You simply want every piece of the life's puzzle to fit in perfectly. It appears to me like some kind of lesson. It's useless to try to change or changing someone else so you can feel better if you recognize a situation you don't fit in. You'd be better searching elsewhere where you fit.

Struggling

Struggling is inevitable in one's life. You just can't avoid it. You may think the difference between individuals is how they react when it appends. Let's try anwsering this by keeping it simple. Struggling is like being in a traffic jam on an highway. You know it's not going to be fun and also you know it's gonna take some times. The only things you really can't tell is how much time will it last and how bad it will be. On the other hand, you know it's not a big deal. You'll eventually get out of the traffic jam and it's going to run smoothly until you get it the next traffic jam. It has always been like that. Like good and bad weather.

So you're in and you see exits on your right. You can't really tell if they'll get you out or not but you may be tempted to give it a try. Of course it might work but you can't tell on which road it will lead you on unless you took it in the past. Let's make an exemple. For instance, if you're in a relationship and things are getting complicated. You may see many exits. One might be to simply getting out of the relationship, or another one might be to fake it. Whatever the exit is, it will always get you on a different path than the one you were on.

So the question is. Why were you on that road in the first place. The honest anwser might be someting like you had a goal, a destination. Well you may say there are many roads that lead to this destination so if there's a traffic jam here let's try an exit and see if I can make it. Do you get what I'm trying to tell you? I'm talking about knowing what you want.

There's a problem thought. If by taking an other road you feel what you wanted has changed. The destination is not the same anymore so you haven't taken an exit to get back on the road there was a traffic jam on. You took a complete different path. What if you repeat this over and over and over again. You may never reach any destination at all and someday you will run out of gas. So what's left? The meaning. That's why we're all on this trip. Because we all believe there's a destination, whatever this destination is, that means something. For many it's raising children, for others it's to get married or getting your diploma, success in your career. So you'll continue, as long as you can. Taking exits, changing destination, reaching some or many of them until like I said, you run out of gas which means the only real destination is death.

What is the real meaning of this? Is it to realize it was a hell of a trip? Or it is simply enjoying driving. I do think this is only what really matters and it has nothing to do with how many destinations you reached. Thinking like that may get you out of your struggles better than any exit you may try.