Strange Woman Problem

I realized lately that I have a rather weird problem with women, strange in that it's about how they perceive me rather than how I feel around them. In short, my difficulty is . . . I'm way too comfortable with them! Why is this a problem? Well, it makes cultivating friendships for friendship's sake a lot more difficult since many seem to think I view them as a romantic prospect due to my ease and comfort, I think.

I grew up around virtually nothing but women. I never met my father and my grandfather died while I was still somewhat young, so my particular section of the family made it so I was in contact with women incredibly more often than with men. It was not a rarity that I'd attend a gathering and be the only male there. This environmental influence has probably made it so I treat women with super casual ease, rather than as if they were the mysterious "other sex."

It surprises me how often some people will assume I'm dating a girl just by the way I speak to her, and for the past several months that's been a very frequent question at work. Gosh, it seems like it's impossible to speak one-on-one with a female without being asked if I'm in romantic relations with her. Are men today so sheltered from women?

One thing I have to wonder is if there's some aspect of my behavior that I could alter in order to avoid the confusion, or if I'm acting reasonably and the misinterpretation lies solely in their incorrect perception. Sure I'd like to cultivate a romantic relationship, but first I'd like to tend to my friendships, including that with women. It complicates matters when my only intention is to be a friend to someone and I observe from their behavior a development of a crush. I'm vain certainly, but I don't much respond to that kind of attention, though am not resistant to it.

Thoughts?

Cartoon Food Cravings?

A weird question that popped into my head recently after assessing some memories. You know how food advertising and photography can often invoke cravings and desires for certain foods? Well, the strange thing with me is these things not only have a null effect on me, I also seem to be more responsive to artistic (e.g. paintings, drawings) and animated portrayals of food, and I don't understand why.

For instance, one time I was playing a video game where in order to collect a certain item you had to bring an orange to a chimpanzee, and when you collect that orange it speaks to you. Instead of a voice over, however, the orange's "voice" consisted of wet squishing noises, a noise an orange would make. This drove my cravings mad, and I found myself on an orange kick for a while then on.

Just about any food item applies to this realm, from sweets to vegetables to meat. This is very odd to me: How can my cravings be stimulated by something I saw in a video game or cartoon, but largely be unaffected by food photography and advertising?

Quotes That Guide My Life

Everyone, in some form or another, appreciates a good quote. A quote becomes appealing when it condenses down the essentials of the views of someone holds, allowing them to hold in their mind very pregnant ideas in a very economical form. While, as par the norm, people tend to appreciate quotes as they come by them, I've been making an effort for a very long time to decide upon which quotes are most essential to the way I view how life should be lived. At one point I even took to collecting quotes and writing them all over the place to serve as constant reminders and inspiration, but I wrote down so much that appealed to me that the writing became too great to keep track of or check on a regular basis, so from there I struggled to pare down the list to the bare essentials that drive my being. I think I finally reached that point, and would like to share that list in hopes of inspiring you to comment with yours, and perhaps motivate you to decide upon your essential favorites.

So here are my top four favorite quotes in reverse order of personal importance, which I consider to be the driving force behind everything I do. Those with asterisks might be paraphrased, not exact quotes.

4.) * "Do something you would do for free and someone will pay you well for it." - Mary Kay

This has molded my view on my career. Certainly I'm greedy and would like to make a lot of money, even become filthy rich one day, but this quote helps me keep in mind what is the most fulfilling and practical route to riches. To become materialistically wealthy should not be my aim. It shouldn't even really be on my mind. My emphasis should be on becoming the best I can possibly be in the career field I love and have chosen to dedicate myself to for life. The material rewards I reap should not be sought after, but rather be a natural consequence to how well I've done to cultivate my skills and be the best I can be.


The culinary profession isn't a high-paying profession by its nature, but I'm not worried about that. My ultimate aim is still not totally clear at this point, but I'm thinking about taking an ultimately intellectual and entrepreneurial route in my career, for which training as a chef will assist me in that matter. If I want to make a million, or even a billion dollars, then my concern is becoming worth that as a person, not directly pursuing it.

I do well at my job because I love it, even as a mere dish washer . . . not become I'm chasing dollars. The payment is the consequence and reward, not the goal.

3.) "Judge, and prepare to be judged." - Unknown

While growing up, passing moral judgment was inexplicably avoided and done with extreme inaccuracy when practiced on occasion. When giving praise my elders would often detach their compliments from the known facts of reality and give statements that were totally unbelievable and false, and any vices and immorality often went unacknowledged and ignored, leaving people to suffer endlessly in relationships they refused to acknowledge were rotten. I never consciously avoided moral judgment, but my inability to make precise judgments in my youth led to me having terrible relationships with other people all the time, continuing associations that should have been terminated promptly, and having malformed estimates of myself due to bad standards of judgment. I suffered greatly due to not having good thinking methods for judgment.

Once I learned how to pass objective moral judgment, my relationships improved dramatically, as I knew better which people were worth associating with and who should be cut off from contact, and underwent a drastic self-improvement spree once I identified the standards I wanted to strive to and starting holding myself responsible for my habits. I continue my self-improvement endeavors to this day since I hold myself to the same moral standards which I use to judge other people I interact with. My life has become infinitely better because of that.

This quote keeps in mind three things: That it's important to judge others (lest you suffer bad associations), that it's a logical corollary to submit yourself to others' judgment (so that you become comfortable with your public status and make changes where appropriate), and that you, most importantly, judge yourself. Doing this has helped me treat people with objective consistency based on their deserts, feel comfortable on hearing others' views about myself, and evaluate myself when trying to determine where I'm pursuing my ideals or need to make changes.

2.) "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

This one is important to me more for moral reasons rather than, say, the optimization of talent. Building upon the last quote, another problem in my youth is that people often judged each other on the basis of isolated and rare incidents, often in the face of consistent evidence that flagrantly proved that things were otherwise. For instance, some people would take a consistently angry and malicious person and characterize them as happy and benevolent on the basis of one act or incident that made them feel good, such as observing them smiling once or doing a single good deed, despite the fact that 99 times out of a 100 that same person would act to the contrary. It's like these people were pretending the other 99 times didn't exist. As a result, once again, many bad relationships were continued even though they were generally and consistently bad, all because on seldom occasion things would be "good." You need to judge people on their consistent behavior if you want things to consistently be good, not the other way around.

Furthermore, this quote also emphasizes to me that it's most important to judge a person by their acts, not their intentions or emotions. Have all the good intentions you want: It's not going to qualify you as having a heart made out of gold unless you perform the deeds to match them. I've seen some truly awful persons characterized as practically saints all because they had good intentions on occasion, even if they did nothing in practice to put their intentions in action, and building on the above paragraph this would again be another thing which would be very rare and seldom to a particular person, thereby being an obscene dropping of the context.

In comparing practices with preaching it is the actions that ultimately matter more, if one were to weigh them in isolation, but it totality it is of course how a person's actions match up with their preaching that matters most. In this case I've even seen terrible hypocrites judged as good even as they seldom, even rarely or never practiced their stated ideas, all because they preached the right things. What a detachment from reality!

This quote has helped me be more patient and meticulous in how I judge people, and helps me make sure I'm keeping the entire context of their being and am paying attention to and weighing the right things. Unless a person has done something unforgivably bad, I try to avoid hinging my estimate of someone on the basis of an isolated incident, and use my memory to full advantage to collect and store incidents that I believe give indication of someone's moral status, and use the pieces to form a coherent picture which I'll use to form a moral judgment. But even after forming the judgment I still try to keep it open-ended to continue adding pieces of evidence which will either intensify my estimate of someone (such as by observing repeated virtue by a person I view as good) or cause me to change my estimate if the pieces of evidence start tilting the scales the other way, such as a virtuous person repeatedly indulging in moral failings or a bad person consistently working towards redemption. It keeps my relationships in a semi-fluid state to better enable me to treat people according to their deserts, depending on the totality of the context of their being I have observed.

And, of course, I hold myself to that same standard. It helps keep me straight and avoid making the justification that certain things are an exception to the rule of my being. For instance, if I'm exhausted and take a day off from my efforts to rest, then I'll judge it as a deserved exception to my usual strivings. However, if I chose to rest and laze about for three days in a row, then I'll judge that I'm dangerously close to becoming a lazy person in nature and will make the appropriate corrections.

1.) "A giant is as a giant does." - Rod Serling, from the Twilight Zone episode *Last Night of a Jockey*

Almost as soon as I heard it it became my favorite quote of all time. Anywhere I can post a quote online, like in my e-mail signature, this is always the one I choose, and I read it virtually everyday, never forgetting it. It's very similar to the last Aristotle quote, only I like this one for its emphasis on substance.

Another difficulty in my childhood is how concerned everyone was with appearances, most often in total divorce of substance. For instance, people around me were more concerned with looking happy to other people rather than cultivating an actual life of contentment, and knowing them in private I learned that their smiles were mere muscle flexing, as inwardly they lived a stale and discontent, and even downright miserable existence.

And what reward do they get for focusing so much on appearance, on how they look to others? Nothing. No spiritual contentment, material satisfaction, healthy relationships . . . jack squat. This obsession with appearance was only to ease the discomfort they felt in being seen by other people, and avoiding discomfort and pain is not the same as gaining inner peace and happiness.

Plus, this episode of the Twilight Zone shows how an obsession with appearances can actually ruin oneself. (SPOILERS) In it, a jockey (a horse racer) gets permanently discharged from his beloved profession and has to cope with not being able to engage in it ever again. A spiritual entity within him starts speaking to him and offers him a wish as his last possible resort to rising up and living a good life. The jocky wishes to be big, and the entity makes him into a literal giant. The jocky then goes into a kind of euphoric ramble about how amazed people will be by his size and how he'll be admired. He calls a girl up to ask her out on a date, but she turns him down even as he frantically boasts about how "big" he is. He's irritated until he suddenly gets a call from the jocky club, learning that they've decided to give him one more chance. He's relieved that he gets another chance at his beloved profession, but after the spiritual entity taunts him he quickly realizes that he's too big -- he can't fit into his clothes, sit on a horse, get out the door . . . his concern with altering his physical stature, his appearance, lead to him ruining his life because he thought greatness meant looking great to others, not being great. His concern with appearance over substance made him sacrifice his only chance at a fulfilling life. (/SPOILERS) 

And that's what I've observed with other people in my life too. People concerned more with how they look rather than how they are have given up the values they most wanted to achieve, all for the empty gain of receiving approval from others. The people I've observed that have lived this way have led lives with empty relationships, mediocre careers, undeveloped talents, shallow romances, and so on.

This quote keeps me concentrating on what the actual value of my efforts and practices are in regards to pursuing my goals, rather than how people perceive them and in spite of their disapproval. Deeper still, it keeps me focused on living a life of substance, of being a good person rather than trying to look like one, of cultivating my mind rather than sounding intelligent, of being authentically respectful rather than using fake manners, and more. The quote continues to help even beyond this, such as by helping me judge whether a practice is really beneficial to my life (e.g. a study technique), how deeply I value a particular person, if the entire context of my habits lines up with my ideals, and endlessly on. It's been a way long time since I've last seen this TZ episode, but I do own it on DVD and should watch it again soon, and probably won't ever forget it. I anticipate I'll be holding onto these words for the rest of my life. If I want to be a great person, then the substance of what I do needs to be great. We are what we do. A giant is as a giant does.

* * * * *

These are the quotes that have the strongest influence in my life and in the molding of my being. It took an extremely long time to get to the point I could pare down my list to this, but it helps me in every single facet of my life, from how I treat people, how I exert myself at work, how I utilize my free time, how I judge myself, etc.

However, I'd like to have for a top five. One thing I don't think I keep in mind often enough is how finite my time is here on earth. You and I are probably not going to live forever. Am I living as richly as I could and making the best use of the limited minutes I have alive, however many billions of them? I'd like to have a quote that essentializes how preciously finite life is, but haven't seen any. Could my readers suggest one?

While we're at it, what are your favorite quotes? And I'm not asking for a hodge podge list either: what are the quotes that really mean something to you? That may guide your life as the above four guide mine?

Maybe once I do gather a top five I'll print and laminate them, so that I may read them everyday.      

More on the Economic Collapse: Possible Benevolence?

A while ago I wrote a post that mused upon how the U.S. might respond to an economic collapse. Will things get terribly dangerous and violent as they have in hyperinflation situations elsewhere? Or do we have a chance at the nation going through the disaster with relative peace? I don't think I did a good enough job explaining why this question is worth contemplating, so I'd like to share some deeper thoughts.

Simply put, the way a country handles a particular problem on a sense-of-life level depends on the philosophy inherent in its people. A good or mostly good philosophy will help a citizenry prevent and avoid significant problems while giving them the mental strength to bear what bad things do occur, as a good philosophy will be reality oriented and be able to offer guidance on the world before us. A bad or mostly bad philosophy will lead a citizenry into disaster and prevent them from being able to deal with it constructively or gracefully, and so will lead to a malevolent people whose natural state is that of disaster. A bad philosophy isn't oriented towards reality, so it can do little to address the laws of the world before us.

I think the reason why countries that have gone through hyperinflation have become terribly violent and malevolent is because that's the ultimate sense-of-life consequence of the philosophies that brought the economic crisis to existence. The elements that encourage evasion in these philosophies lead these people to search for scapegoats rather than recognize their own guilt in the matter, which causes them to become a nation of flagrant criminals. It's very destructive psychologically to judge oneself as immensely immoral or even evil, so anyone immoral enough to engage in the acts to earn him that status will logically be prone to the signature immoral act, evasion, which he'll use to avoid acknowledging his own character.

It's hard to sort through the clusterflop of the multitude of reasons that can be used to summarize the situation, but in short I think that, economically, any particular hyperinflationary nation won't recognize that it's killing the goose that lays the golden egg, and at each step of strangling it will wonder what's wrong with the goose rather than the actions being taken to extract its gold. After the goose dies the moochers are left seething that they didn't get what they're "owed" and become vicious. They shoot themselves in the foot and blame other factors endlessly, even as they continue to fire unto themselves.

As far as I know, no economic disaster thus far in recent history has lead to a nation going into a significant turn-around. I'm not knowledged enough in history to know exactly what happened here, but I know for certain that these crises haven't led to any nations freer than the United States. The philosophies that lead to their economic problems, by and large, remain intact even after the crisis.

It's this particular factor that leads me to wonder whether the U.S. might be able to handle an economic disaster more gracefully than other countries have. Objectivists haven't won the war of ideas yet, but I think we've succeeded in making the nation question its philosophical premises. By doing that we've not only increased our odds of winning, but in also changing the nature of the people. If we manage to go so far as to change the direction of the tide before the serious economic collapse, then could that not change entirely how the U.S. will respond? Or in other words, if we change the philosophy the U.S. enters the collapse in, then won't we also change the sense-of-life results that will spawn as a reaction to the situation?

I think other nations have descended into violence because they were a nation of moochers and looters to begin with, and in dealing with the results of their parasitism they go hysterical. If the U.S., however, were to recognize at a majority level that the government is at fault for our economic troubles, then perhaps U.S. anger will be more directed at the polls, voting booths, and city halls, rather than at each other?

This is why, in my above linked essay, I think the most important safety consideration for an individual is where he lives, as the different political atmospheres of different states and cities are determined by different philosophies. Therefore, I think the U.S.'s response to a collapse will vary greatly from location to location, depending what people view as the source of the problem. In such a statist place as my old home of Michigan, I can visualize it becoming a very dangerous place to live, not even allowing for a safe walk at night. The people were already somber and irritated as I left them, and in no way ready to recognize they're responsible for supporting the politics that continues pushing the state to ruin. My new home of Texas, however, I could visualize as becoming risky, but not frighteningly dangerous, as the people are noticeably lighter in spirit and more at peace.

I'm still not sure, and probably won't know for certain until the major event happens, but perhaps the best way to bring up the question is that the United States is a unique nation that's going through a unique phenomenon during a unique period in history. Is it not reasonable to assume that the U.S.'s response to collapse will also itself be unique? Benevolent, I hope.

Intellectually I recognize that it's still best to prepare oneself as strongly as possible, whether it be stocking up on medicine or ammunition, but emotionally I am somewhat anticipating Americans remaining a respectable citizenry during the worst of times. Hopefully so. I say prepare for disaster and plan for prosperity.

Condemning Condemnation?

A particularly irksome question I've stumbled upon lately is why some people seem to only be intolerant of moral condemnation, and not any other specific immoral acts themselves. It's a little different in my case that they're not saying things such as "don't judge," but are rather becoming provocative and hostile when I explicate a firm moral stance against something in particular. At the same time the person will evade a great swath of obscene things that are incredibly immoral, and their only issue is that I've called it out. What makes these people provocative to these kind of stances?

My hypothesis is that by condoning certain acts and ideas that are known to be wrong to some extent in a individual's knowledge they want to evade that knowledge so as to feel comfortable with what they're doing and sanctioning, which makes it so that anyone with convictions becomes their enemy by way of not allowing the evasions to persist. I know, for instance, some particular persons who associated with a person who was blatantly immoral and malicious, and yet they maintained contact with him out of a sense of "duty." When I acknowledged that person's immorality he got a pass on all his behavior while I faced vitriolic hatred for my stances. It's incredible hypocrisy.

Now I know in particular why a person might be afraid to pass judgment, for he may fear facing hostility and judgment in return, so it is only the flimsy stance against passing judgment that confuses me, where a person will vaguely recognize a lot of wrongdoings but only become upset when someone opposes them on principle. What's going on here?

Dragon Ball Z Kai: How Do Censors Satisfy Anyone?

As you might already know, I'm a fan of the animated series Dragon Ball Z and have been enjoying the abridged version, Dragon Ball Z Kai. The series is heavily self-censored, but I find the pacing and density of the material is more than enough to make up for it. However, I simply don't understand why the producers censor the way they do, and how they can hope to satisfy any parents who might get offended.

For instance, in a recent episode an anti-villain, Vegeta, is fighting an android in the street when suddenly a truck pulls up to them. Not caring for the trucker's safety, Vegeta fires an energy blast at the android that explodes the truck and a large portion of the road, causing all the debris to go down the cliff. It is obvious that the trucker died in the explosion, yet, to "censor" the death, the trucker's voice actor shouts "Dude! My truck!" to make it sound like he survived unharmed. (After being blown up and falling down a cliff? Pfft.) The oddity comes later in the episode, when the android kicks Vegeta and breaks his arm. The scene was surprising and brutal, and hardly censored too, showing Vegeta's arm bending in the opposite direction. For something that's supposedly edited to be made more appropriate for a younger audience, that's pretty intense. You can even see his arm dangle briefly as if it had no bones in it, showing the extent of the damage.

So why do the censors feel the need to make look alive a trucker who died in an explosion, even though he went up in smoke and with no visible body damage (he was just vaporized), but they're alright showing a very graphic scene of someone's arm getting broken? It's so inconsistent!

That's not the only instance either. Earlier in the series they showed, though with the screen largely colored black, someone getting their hand chopped off, but later within the same season the characters are bizarrely censored so that they say they're trying to "grab" someone's tail even though they're obviously trying to cut it off. Furthermore, all the characters never say the word "death" or "dead" even as corpses are visibly laying about. How odd it is that words can be considered offensive while the actions they denote are apparently okay to show.

If the producer of the dub isn't going to have consistent and clear standards on their editing, then why bother? Are parents actually satisfied by these measures?

Mistakes

I wonder: How much of a trend could it possibly be that people will assume a person is innately incompetent or ignorant if they make a mistake, no matter how much they demonstrate that they have corrected themselves? I'm thinking in terms of things like forgetting directions to a place or performing a work task incorrectly, not immoral stuff.

Lately I've noticed I've been nurturing a rather irrational premise about mistakes that has been making me fearful of people watching me cook. I don't mind the prospect of accidentally ruining my meal and learning from my errors, I just don't like it if there are witnesses around, and I think that it may be due to some irrational ideas regarding the nature of mistakes itself.

In the past whenever I would make a mistake it was treated with near absolute disbelief that I was capable of learning or correcting my ways, as when I would err the people around me would then endlessly try to correct and guide me, way beyond reasonable or rational expectations. For instance, if I previously had difficulty remembering the directions to a certain location the person guiding me there would then ceaselessly give me directions to it and quiz me upon it for weeks, even months, longer than ever needed, and they would outright ignore my improvement and correction and continue on with their guidance. In other words, after having made a mistake I would commonly find myself being treated as I weren't capable of learning from that mistake. Thus, I tend to fear people observing my mistakes because I fear it's going to lead them to try and correct me upon it nearly without end, and ignore any proof that I have learned. For goodness sake, some people have even taken to offering me directions to a place I've traveled to literally over a dozen times.

It's okay to offer constructive criticism, but beyond a certain point it becomes insulting. One needs to keep a watch on the evidence that the person is either improving themselves or have totally corrected themselves, otherwise you're ignoring their ability and treating them unjustly.

The reason why I wonder whether this part of a trend in the philosophical culture is because it has a nature as an idea: That mistakes are somehow evidence of a person's inability to perform or learn. And that in effect may be related to another philosophical idea: That ability and talent is innate and outside of one's capacity for development; you either have it or you don't. Given that, a person with that idea might be overly disturbed at their mistakes since they might believe they have no natural capacity to do otherwise, and a like person witnessing someone make mistakes may assume that a person needs to be forever guided in that endeavor otherwise they'll unavoidably fail on their own.

Have you noticed this trend in your own life?

Continued Thinking on my Purpose in Life

Just about as always, I've been doing some thinking as to where I want to go in the culinary field as per my purpose in life, and more and more I've been realizing lately just how much I love an intellectual direction. At first I thought I'd might like to own my own restaurant or restaurants, but I'm confused on that matter for the moment.

After observing myself these past weeks after someone made a significant comment about my character, I've learned that I do my best and am my happiest when I'm feeding my mind and putting it to work. Pure muscle-type labor is out, as not only would I be discontent, but I'd also perform poorly since my mind would be severely dulled and undermine my efforts by wandering to other thinking to gain stimulation. On the other extreme, it doesn't seem I'd enjoy too much the pure intellectual realm either, just writing articles and stuff.

I noticed how important my mind is to my work through working a very looong shift of dish washing at my current job. I came in fine, but several hours in I started losing control of my pacing and felt empty-headed. My brain simply felt deprived. However, to gain temporary relief from his duties a coworker offered to trade places with me, so he could wash dishes to restore himself while I chopped lettuce for salad. Instantaneously I felt recharged at the prospect of learning and developing a new skill, and during the task I got so excited that I literally got an adrenaline rush and could hardly refrain from blasting with energy. Afterwards I took to washing dishes with renewed vigor. Learning is a must in my career.

At the same time, I've been wondering about my capacity for culinary creativeness. Truth be told I don't seem to be very active in the realm of thinking up new dishes and combinations, but still I do think about food a lot, distinct from hunger. At this point I'm considering chefdom a point in my career, not an end-point, I think. Then again, perhaps my culinary creativeness is simply due to being unsophisticated in that realm, as I can't afford to eat at restaurants currently, live on a budget Paleo diet, and haven't started my second job at the country club yet, meaning I don't get a lot of exposure to culinary artistry and flavor sensations. Before I reach a definitive conclusion on this point I'll need to eat out more, experiment more at home, and advance forth into the hot line at work.

As for the short-term, after reading more and more chocolate-oriented blogs and articles I have been experiencing a desire to write more regularly about chocolate, much more often than my once-a-week chocolate reviews. I may not want to be a fiction writer as I did while growing up, but writing is still a value to me, and it seems that I may be being pulled in the direction of chocolate, whether it be about recipes, farming, political activism, or the like. And come to think of it, I've been terrible at carelessly discounting chocolate's potential role in my career, haven't I? I like it an awful lot after all, and it's been a value to me that's just growing stronger as time passes. Maybe I'd like to manufacture my own line in the future . . . ?

For now, what I think I should do is get into my second job, increase my exposure to more sophisticated cooking, eat out more after stabilizing my finances, experiment more at home, and see if there's some way I could stimulate my writing urges with chocolate-based topics. I thought my thinking was more clear on the matter of which direction I'd like to go, but that doesn't seem to be the case now. Not yet.

Background Consciousness?

Have you ever developed a competence so great at a particular task that it only took up a minimal amount of consciousness, allowing you to dedicate your mind to other endeavors?

I hope no traffic cops read this, but back in Michigan I once developed such a strong familiarity with driving on my local roads that I would actually lose the awareness that I was driving. Even stranger yet, despite having my mind concentrated upon other matters I was still even able to notice hazards and respond accordingly, such as avoiding an object in the road, noticing deer approaching the street, responding to other drivers, and so on. Sometimes when I would pull into my driveway I'd have a sense of confusion, as I didn't know when I arrived there and didn't remember the trip there. I haven't been able to do that in Texas since the road are more challenging and the traffic more abundant, but such is the familiarity I established on Michigan roads: I was able to put my mind on cruise control.

I know it's quite easy to develop a habit so strong one loses awareness of it, but what strikes me as odd in my driving scenario is that I was able to remain flexible enough to respond to changes in the environment, yet not be distracted from any train of thought. I was almost like a computer running two different programs at once, with plenty of resources for each.

Thoughts?

When the Environment Destroys Itself?

A question recently occurred to me about the nature of environmentalism, and while I know that it inherently points out the illogic in their philosophical system I still wonder if this question has actually been addressed before. Now we know that environmentalism holds that it is wrong for man to alter nature to suit his needs, such as burning fuel or felling a forest, since this would constitute destruction of the environment. However, how do environmentalists view the phenomenon of the environment destroying, well, itself?

For instance, volcanoes spew smoke and pollute the air, don't they? Environmentalists get mad when men pollute the air, so why not volcanoes too? Surely that kills birds. And what about natural oil reserves leaking from the ocean floor into the water and polluting it? Man need do nothing for that to occur, and surely that kills oceanic life. And heck, how about how celestial bodies treat each other? What if the sun goes supernova in a few billion years and destroys earth, eradicating everything we currently call the environment? Are people waging protests on how the sun may be violating earth's rights? And let us not forget that wild animals kill other wild animals, that it's possible for one species to drive another out of existence without man's help.

The environment, in one form or another, hurts itself and can be made inhospitable to life. Man has the mental powers and technology to improve things so that life flourishes, so that environmentalists concentrate so much on preventing man from doing this reveals a dishonest intention.

Mysterious Character Traits?

Have you ever noticed a character trait that has persisted in your being for a very long time, and yet cannot identify when, where, and how you came to develop it? Usually I can identify certain facets of my personality by referencing periods in my life where I adopted new behavior-driving ideas and was influenced by certain experiences, but lately I've noticed there are some traits which seem to have always been integrated within me, but I can't figure out how I came to develop them.

In my case, I've realized lately how much of my being emphasizes the proper use of manners in order to conduct my relationships respectfully, but I have no recollection of where I learned them or else decided to adopt them by my own judgment. It's like I've always been this way, yet I know that's not true; there must've been some point in my personality development where I began structuring these habits.

A particular elder once gloated how they were the one that taught me my polite ways, but I know that's not true since their usage of manners is insincere and for appearance only, whereas I'm sincere and am aware of the various outcomes that could result of my treatment. A child can absorb their elders' characteristics very thoroughly, not only adopting the physical appearance of the practice, but also the ideas and psychological workings that give rise to them to begin with. If I had adopted my manners from the practices of my elders, then I too would have adopted them for appearance sake, but I didn't.

To clarify what I mean by sincere, I mean that the manners are employed in an honest fashion in order to treat a person respectfully, and most importantly it's also recognized that manners may not always get you what you ask for and that you should continue your respectful behaviors in alternative outcomes. As a classic example, take asking someone for the use or consumption of their property, such as tasting their food. The respectful way to ask, though not necessarily in this concrete form, goes something like "May I have some of [such and such]," and it's up to the person to decide how he'll respond. More often than not the person with the food will say yes and offer some, but it's also possible that he may decline and prefer to consume it all himself. Given that it is his property it is entirely within his rights to do so. Someone with truly sincere manners will recognize that a person may respond in this alternative way, and will continue maintaining their polite behavior in face of this experience.

A person who's insincere and employs manners as a matter of appearance, however, will not anticipate the decline as an actual alternative and will start acting rudely after the experience. To them, they expect the answer to automatically be yes and don't know how to respond to this other answer. It's probable that in these scenarios this kind of person will drop their facade and lets their true rudeness show. I've once been in such a position where a person asked to taste my food and I preferred to eat it all. I declined politely and thanked them for their respectful inquiry, but they became completely confused and immediately resorted to intimidation and trying to induce guilt. To them, manners are just a matter of decoration: They expect their use to get them unfailingly what they want. Since insincere manners are in actuality rude, they might as well have come up to me and said "Gimme that!" or else directly taken the food. The person who gloated of teaching me manners uses them in this dishonest fashion, but I've never used them that way. So just how did I become this way?

Have you had a similar experience too, where you identified a personality trait you have no idea how it became part of you?

Habits Only Accessible Automatically?

Here's a strange phenomenon that confuses me: Have you ever had an ability, habit, or the likes that could only be accessed subconsciously, making it impossible to consciously control?

For instance, at one point I managed to type my e-mail password purely by muscle memory, and I sustained that habit for several weeks, if not months. One day I wondered what my password was in explicit terms, and to my surprise I couldn't figure it out no matter how long I thought, and there was no written documentation of it. That was actually enough to erase my muscle memory habit, so I couldn't access my e-mail for several days, maybe weeks.

Another example would be my speaking habits. When I speak to other people in person everything is absolutely fine, pacing and all. However, when I try to leave a message on the phone or read aloud to myself then I take on an artificial tone, can't control my breathing correctly (often trying to say everything in one breath), might speak too fast or too slow, and so on. Yet, when I pay attention to my speech when talking to people everything seems and feels natural, so I only run into these oddities if I'm by myself.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with integrating a habit so deeply that it becomes subconsciously embedded, but my worry is in how I can't seem to reverse the process and bring things into my conscious awareness. I typed my e-mail password flawlessly before, but lost all record of it in my being when I thought about it, and my speaking goes all wonky anytime I'm not talking to a live person.

This reminds me of those cartoons where a character would be able to pull off amazing feats they couldn't while awake, like the popular scenario of a sleepwalker wandering into a construction zone and pulling off acrobatic feats amongst the steel beams and wires, and upon waking they start to lose balance and freak out.

Has there been any formal research on this? Has anyone else had any similar experiences in this realm?

How Far Do False Ideas Reach?

Now I grant that certain ideas on a mistaken basis can be fully and sincerely believed, but when ideas are extremely, if not totally, detached from reality and have underlying evasions, then just how far can a person go in fully believing them? Is it possible that, given an idea of intense enough arbitrary or falsity, a person can never totally believe a certain set of ideas even though they live their life by them?

Let's take pragmatism for example. Part of pragmatism's metaphysics is that existence takes on a different nature at different times, such as things being one way today and another the next. For instance, water might freeze at below zero Fahrenheit today, but melt tomorrow at the same temperature because its nature changed. Logically, a pragmatist would have to concede that a candle flame would burn him today but might do something different tomorrow. If we were to conduct a survey, how many pragmatists do you think would agree to stick their finger in a candle flame every single day to see what happens? I'd wager none. While they may believe metaphysical reality may change from day to day, you don't see people burning themselves repeatedly in hopes of obtaining some pleasure, or eating rocks to see if they have nutritional value all of the sudden. Largely their beliefs are practiced contradictorily: They cherry-pick what they believe to be metaphysically flexible and what is absolute.

Given this, is it perhaps true that when an idea or set of ideas is of a certain falsity like the pragmatic metaphysics above that they can't dig their roots that deeply into a person's mind, that they'll never be able to fully believe it? After all, uncertainty is evident when a person suddenly shouts at an innocent question about their beliefs, no matter how insignificant.

The Fear of Telling the Good They're Good?

A mentality I've never understood is the one that actually feels fear towards the prospect of telling someone that they're good. Even in an irrational circumstance I can imagine being afraid of morally condemning someone for fear of hostility, but what is it that's just so darned scary about giving someone a compliment, like letting them know what a good job they're doing?

To use myself as an example, someone once put money in a card and gave it to me as a reward for the work that I did, but when I approached them to offer my thanks they had a facial expression indicating fear about the subject. In an even stranger incident -- really strange -- someone once mailed me a card that contained lavish praise, probably in recognition of my intelligence, and the absurd thing is that I happened to be living with the person at the time, which means they took the effort to write on a card, put it in an envelope with a stamp, and actually drive to mailbox so that it could be mailed back to us. If I remember correctly, they even omitted a return address to ensure I wouldn't recognize it when they handed me the envelope (since they got the mail). Not only was it ridiculous, the person also refused to acknowledge its contents to me in person.

Again, just what's so frightening about justly complimenting or praising someone? I can't even project this mentality, as when I see virtue I acknowledge it explicitly without hesitation or emotional resistance. It not only feels right, but seems natural to me. I dole out just praise where deserved since I know it's wrong to withhold it, and how bittering it can be to be in a situation where your good nature seems to be unappreciated or not even seen.

To offer such recognition is important, as it's part of the process of pursuing and keeping values. If a worker goes unrecognized for his exemplary efforts, then what will motivate him to sustain his momentum? What will keep him attached to his job and prevent him seeking career satisfaction elsewhere? And in the personal realm, what will keep friends together?

To desire such recognition is not irrational. For the most part, it doesn't even involve the desire for reward, like money, promotion, or gifts. People like me just want to know that our virtues are being seen and that they are appreciated, otherwise it's easy to feel as if you're being taken for granted or that the surrounding people aren't even aware of the virtue. It's difficult to put forth all that effort in being who you are when you seem to be treated equally to those inferior, or to even witness others be rewarded, such as with more working hours, when you provide more value and haven't gotten what you deserve. It's upsetting and even angering, and the end result of such an experience is a sense of detachment from the organization or persons being unjust, which will make them the losers in the end when you feel free to move onto other endeavors in life without them.

And offering recognition cannot be satisfied by overused sayings like "Good job," or "'Preciate it." They're said so often that they seem reflexive, and their overuse makes them ring hollow. Different phrases, perhaps one or two full sentences (gasp!), are needed to show that a person is seen and appreciated. For instance, saying "Thank you for doing that. I really appreciate it," may seem insignificant, but its wording is so out of common convention that it's more likely to garner the person's attention and show that he's being acknowledged. It's not that difficult to figure out different variations.

Human relationships cannot be taken for granted. Without the right means to sustaining them they're inherently unstable and easily destructible. An employee taken for granted might without second thought accept a better position at another place even if they hold no resentment against their current employers, and a friend might quickly take to moving to another state if their friends value them too quietly. A person might value their employer or their friends, but unless they know they're valued back, what keeps them?

On the flip-side of the coin, why do some people feel unbearable shyness to praise? I've known some people to get extremely nervous when given compliments, and they might even go so far as to distance themselves from me when that happens. When I'm given praise and assess that it is just, I feel spiritually refueled and have my contentment boosted.

Usually in thinking about how other people respond to certain things I am able to project their mentality to some degree since I can compare them to other parts of my life, especially my time before becoming an Objectivist, but this time I positively cannot. It's utterly confusing.

So Why Aren't We Talking About the Coming Economic Collapse?

An Objectivist has pointed out something interesting to me: Despite it's very severe risk, very few Objectivists seem to be acknowledging that an economic collapse is probably, if not certainly, soon coming to America. The political implications of that happening are enormous, and I think we should be addressing this very strongly since these may very well be the final years we can try and inject good ideas into culture before the window of opportunity closes. Yes, it's a scary and depressing subject to think about -- hyperinflation in the U.S. -- but one that is necessary to deal with. Besides, I find that the more I face the issue the more my nerves are steeled against the oncoming event, so don't evade the problem with the thought that facing it will bring perpetual discomfort.

I'm still optimistic for the future, that the right ideas will gain traction at the right time and bring us to a better future, but for now there's an inertia we have to fight that will bring us some pain in the meanwhile. Sure, hyperinflation is an avoidable phenomenon, and it may be possible that the nation will save itself from having to experience it, but given today's premises I think it's more likely that the bad ideas are going to play themselves out and we'll run into man-made disaster. To my layman understanding, the major problem we might face is the collapse of U.S. currency since it isn't backed by anything of value, like gold. Currently the country is borrowing money from other nations in order to spend it on consumption of goods rather than producing more goods of value to pay the loan back, so once the countries understand their loans aren't going to be paid back and retract their backing, the U.S. will have to deal with its non-production and worthless money. (See this Peter Schiff video for a full explanation of the causes that could lead up to this event.) We can stop it and should try to stop it, but since our politicians have adopted certain premises and are refusing to question them, I think they're just going to continue acting consistently with those premises until they get hit on the head by reality -- and us too.

If the collapse happens, as it probably will, then it's going to call for some major action to address it, and I think those actions will be of such magnitude that they might definitely let us know what trend the culture is going to take from here on out for the rest of our life: totalitarianism, or freedom. Undoubtedly the politicians are going to try and take advantage of the crisis by striving for huge power grabs, and they might try to complete the steps to dictatorship in that time frame, taking advantage of public desperation. On the other hand, this just may be the pain the nation needs to experience, as the disaster could make Americans fully realize the devastation bad ideas can bring and make the life-or-death choice of opting for the right ideas. It could go either way at this point, but given how close the disaster might be and how serious it will be if it does happen, we need to start factoring this scenario in since the window of opportunity for change could very well be closing right before us. It's win or lose, now. 

This is why activism has been much on my mind lately, and why I've started striving to post one political article (with my commentary) to my Facebook page each day as a start. There's no more time to sit around hoping that other people will change things for the better without my help. If things go to hell and I've done nothing to resist it, then I'm partially responsible for allowing it to happen. But the above aren't my only plans for activism. There's further thinking to be done, but I'm also thinking about regularly writing activism-oriented articles, wearing political clothing (e.g. "Who is John Galt?") to spur interest and conversation, donating to my favorite political organization, distributing books, and more. My efforts haven't been a chore so far, as recognizing the bad times has been making feel motivated to go to action, and that action feeds my urges. Political debates may be scary to enter into and can cause a lot of strife for those unable to do so civilly, but there's so much more to lose and pain to be caused by not doing so, so don't let a little fear stop you; once you get used to the process, calmer emotions and resistance to stress come naturally during debate. You just have to allow yourself to get used to the process by being a part of the process.


Just as Obamacare was an opportune time to talk about freedom in medical care . . . just as Osama Bin Laden's death is an opportune time to talk about rational foreign policy . . . so will our dangerous economic policies be an opportune time to talk about the political roots of all the economic destruction around us, but when that opportune time should come may be too close for comfort in terms of initiating the proper focus and activism, so I think the contemplation and speaking out should begin now. Remember, as painful as times may get, there are still ways to more comfortably endure them, if we do have to endure them, so don't fret even if they do come to fruition. They're survivable, and I think there's a future worth living for on the other side.

We have to hold on tight for the ride, but don't give up now, or remain silent. Remaining silent is what our enemies want us to do.

The Epistemological Cause of Mental Lethargy?

Last week I asked a question about how evasion causes pain. Working through a similar vein, a new question comes: What are the causes that give rise to the desire to maintain mental lethargy; i.e., to not think? In other words, what is it that makes people continue to want to keep from thinking and instead mentally coast? And this is excluding the obvious where someone may be trying to maintain an evasion through such means.

This, I think, is an important emotional aspect that needs to be addressed for anyone trying to develop good mental habits, especially a rational psycho-epistemology. My hypothesis is that by accepting a bad epistemology (e.g. faith) people sets themselves up so that there's actual pleasure in being mentally lazy, so by stopping their internal processes they feel a pleasant sensation that encourages them to keep doing it. As to how many varieties of epistemological causes there are is what I'm wondering.

This question came to me when I was introspecting on the nature of my thought processes right as I was starting my personal studies, as I noticed something extremely interesting and disturbing. By that time I had already accepted how important knowledge is to my life and was actively undertaking to exert myself to pursue it, and yet I noticed that when watching one of my favorite science television shows that if I "shut off" my mind and relaxed my attention that I'd experience a cooling gush of endorphins that made me want to keep my mind inactive. This was not a first-time incident, for I recognized I used to do this frequently in the past, and doing so turned me into a near vegetable where my television activities were reduced to watching colors dance on the screen. Despite "enjoying" the television show, it always unnerved me that I couldn't remember the characters' names or what the show was about, and that was because my mind never comprehended it to begin with, being in the computer's equivalent of sleep mode.

Could this be why some people find it so easy to drift mentally through life? Because doing so may give them the same kind of high it once did for me? This pleasure, I think, is rooted in one's ideas and epistemological methods and is not inherent as default in the nature of human beings. I know because after being disturbed by the endorphin release I got from mentally lazing I from then on strove to fight against it and push myself to think, and in doing so I changed myself so that thinking itself became physically pleasurable and shutting my mind off switched to making me feel incredibly uncomfortable and depressed. By restructuring my mind I was able to change how I responded. The next question is: Why did such pleasure arise in those lazy moments to begin with?

My hypothesis is that by accepting bad epistemological methods people can make it so that thinking becomes uncomfortable, even literally painful (in a psychological sense). A rational epistemology helps you identify facts of reality correctly, helps you use them to improve your life, and gives you the ability to sustain mental growth continually. At the opposite, a bad epistemology will either make it harder to identify facts of reality or even impossible; make it much harder, if not impossible, to remember those identifications, prevent you from using your knowledge to improve your life, and stunt your ability to grow from then on. In my bad formal schooling, I remember, it was a strain to try and understand some things, nearly impossible to employ the curriculum outside of the classroom, and almost impossible to remember the lessons just weeks after they were taught. This last is particularly demotivating, as I remembered the distress I felt in knowing I kept forgetting the same math concepts despite the fact I kept re"learning" them four years in a row. Those concepts just refused to stay in my mind, so each new school year I was exposed to them as if they were entirely new.

Given how crippling bad epistemology can be, I think people derive pleasure from mental lethargy because their thinking tools are damaged or entirely useless. "Thinking" takes a lot more effort than is necessary and almost never amounts to anything useful cognitively, so people take pleasure in not-thinking because trying to do so is such an uncomfortable and stressful process. Imagine adopting a bad exercise regiment that's popularly touted as good and practical, and yet in reality is very damaging and consistently leads to pain and injury. It'd probably feel pretty good to stop doing it, wouldn't it? You'd be very motivated to avoid such a process.

This could explain why so many people give up self-directed learning after they leave learning institutions, particularly public schools. Those schools teach bad methods that lead to uncomfortable mental processes and useless cognitive content, and the student body at large unfortunately forms the view that this is what proper thinking and learning is all about, thereby minimalizing their priority in their life and never being able to imagine actually enjoying the pursuit of knowledge. I myself didn't enjoy learning until I discovered Objectivism and changed my epistemology.

If one does feel pleasure in not thinking and desires to change to enjoy being mentally active, then for a brief time the pleasure will have to be struggled with. In changing myself, I always forced myself to become mentally aware whenever I noticed endorphins being released at my inactiveness, and it certainly wasn't pleasurable to fight against such pleasure, but I quickly changed so I couldn't tolerate that laziness and would actually feel endorphins come when I set my mind on something.

I'm not sure, but I think this is at least one epistemological explanation as to why some people can remain mentally lethargic all their life. Sure, many, if not most, may do so instead in order to maintain some evasions, thereby striving to avoid pain rather than receive pleasure, but I think it can also happen that some people experience some kind of good sensation from shutting off their faculties. People better make themselves alert at some point sooner or later, however, for the destruction that awaits them at the end of that road sure won't feel good.

Logic Makes Things Harder?

Here's a weird one. For those interested in formal logic and logically precise thinking, have you ever found that such precision has made it more difficult for you to deal with certain situations?

For instance, I remember as a kid I played the first Pokemon video game in a strange way due to my way of thinking. Pokemon may not need any introduction, but just to be clear: In the game there's more than just simply catching Pokemon; you also have to make them get stronger by engaging them in battles. Now as a kid I thought the abbreviation "exp." stood for "exercise points" rather than "experience," so my conception of the way to make my Pokemon stronger was to engage them in physically strenuous battles. You've got to work out intensely to develop muscle tissue, right? It's a perfectly logical assumption to make in considering why a character is growing stronger: The battles are equivalent to intense exercise.

The game isn't programmed according to that logic, however. Absurdly, a Pokemon can grow stronger even if he doesn't lift a finger in a battle. All you have to do is make sure he's the first Pokemon to appear in battle and then swop him out for another immediately, and at the conclusion of the battle the Pokemon that didn't fight will still receive an equally divided fraction of the experience points and grow stronger. A sign in the game even explicitly notes this, revealing that the game developers wanted players to level up their weak Pokemon without them getting crushed by stronger foes.

However, I couldn't process this as a kid. Except until after you beat the game and find a secret area, the majority of wild Pokemon you catch are too weak to be useful in battle, so at a lost for what the game expected me to do I did the hard thing: I battled with only one Pokemon exclusively and strengthened him to an obscene level, beating the game with him alone. Of course, this meant I died dozens of times since he wasn't fit for all situations, but it quickly came to be the case that he could defeat any enemy in a single blow. The game probably took much longer and was unnecessarily harder because of this, all because my logical thinking couldn't process the game's illogical ways.

Another more prevalent example, one most likely easier to identify with, is in interpreting people's speech and thoughts. People these days tend to speak very carelessly and often say things they either don't really mean or don't mean precisely. One time in math class my teacher said to practice a certain mode of diagramming *several* times, and since the word bears similarities to the number seven I ended up practically overflowing my page with writing, and my teacher actually meant us to practice only three or four times. Just a few weeks ago I was taking a quiz to prove my personal identity as part of changing my address online somewhere, and while I knew for certain what the correct answers were I kept worrying that the quiz was constructed with approximate figures and that I might fail anyhow.

Imprecision bothers me because it can lead to nothing other than more imprecision. Epistemologically, it's a systematic poison that makes it harder and harder to keep one's thinking straight since the amount of imprecision will simply continue to accumulate if not remedied. Those people who care not an ounce for keeping precise I have found to be nearly impossible to deal with, as miscommunication is happening continuously and without end. I remember once I kept shuffling furniture pillows around for several minutes because the person couldn't comprehend that they were asking me to move their couch cushions, not pillows.

So have you found that in your own life that exercising logic makes it harder to deal with illogical situations, or to expect incomprehensible approximations around every corner?

Why Does Evasion Cause Pain?

When I speak of evasion I am speaking of an epistemological-psychological phenomenon in which one chooses to either ignore or pretend certain facts of reality don't exist, such as pretending (to oneself) that one doesn't know something that actually is known, or taking a certain course of action even though the available and known facts demonstrate that a different course is proper. Evasion is wide-spread in our culture, and exists everywhere in everything from politicians to significant others.

One thing I haven't thought to ask up until now is why the act of evasion causes pain. Have you ever exposed an evasion to someone in a certain issue and witnessed them become emotionally unhinged, doing everything from becoming hostile, panicking, and running away from the discussion? It's happened to me countless time.

For instance, once I was having a political discussion with someone -- and they left themselves open to the possibility since they expressed political opinions -- and the topic that sparked it was the practicality of unemployment benefits. When the other person expressed relief that a certain family member had received an extension of their benefits, I noted that unemployment benefits actually create unemployment. When they asked me why, I noted that it was funded by the government, and they know where government gets its funding, don't they? Here's where the evasion comes in: The person then said in a very meek tone that they didn't know. Given their old age I thought it was absurd, but I humored them nonetheless and began to explain coercive taxation, how it involves the confiscation of money from one person and giving it to another. A few sentences into my explanation the other person then flared into anger and then snapped that I should be grateful for all the things the government does, and when I continued to explain the impracticality of those measures the person panicked, got up, said they couldn't do anything about it, and left the room.

This kind of thing surely happens frequently, and I'm certain you've come across it. It could be just a key word or sentence, and the next thing you know your conversational partner is falling apart.

Why does evasion cause such intense discomfort?

So far I only have a hypothesis. I think it has to do with how painful it can be to pass negative moral judgments on oneself. It's easy to judge someone else as evil and to feel intense anger towards them, but directed towards oneself the same evaluation can be devastating. It can generate emotions so intense that it may sap one's motivation to pursue values, to remain active, or to even continue living. If you judge yourself to be evil, then you won't believe yourself worthy of values or living.

With knowledge comes the responsibility to act on it, and to act contrary to it is to be guilty of acting in ways you know you shouldn't have. By knowing something is wrong, one is impelled to take responsibility for those actions, or to at least feel terrible about such behavior. However, when someone wants to indulge in an emotion or whim that encourages contradiction to one's knowledge of proper living, one must evade that knowledge in those contexts in order to be able to "comfortably" engage the whim, and the whim can only be emotionalistically indulged so long as the evasion stands. When other people expose those evasions, such as I have in the above conversation, then the person will feel impelled to acknowledge the true nature of their stances and judge themselves accordingly. But again, to judge oneself as evil is very psychologically destructive, so any human foul enough to be evil is going to be motivated to evade the issues so as to avoid making that evaluation. In an attempt to avoid judging oneself or feeling guilty, the evader then acts like the problem resides outside of their being, they externalize it, and instead does such things as get angry at the people who exposed the evasion(s) to begin with, thus piling evasions on top of each other. That means that in my above conversation the person was trying to avoid feeling guilt about their unthinking endorsement of employment benefits, and instead resorted to another evasion by pretending the problem was with me, a person who questions those premises.

The solution to all these problems, of course, is not to evade to begin with. Evasion is probably the cause of uncivil debate. People in those circumstances haven't thoroughly thought out their beliefs, so they're trying to cover up their evasions and construct new ones by becoming hostile in those conversations. Shouting, for example, could be an instance of a person trying to shout down their inner voice and silence it, rather than direct it at the people in the conversation.

As for me, I've found that becoming an Objectivist has done wonders for installing a resistance to evasion. Nowadays I can only tolerate evasion almost just momentarily. The problem is not that I struggle with evasion, but that it takes me a short time to recognize that I'm doing it, and my philosophical premises, that evasion is evil, is what keeps me on track by making me uncomfortable whenever I should carelessly fall victim to it.

Fluctuating Environments Enriches the Mind?

It's interesting what you can learn about yourself when you become attentive at the right time.

I've mentioned it a few times here and there, but one thing I haven't emphasized much is how I'm a proponent of the productivity methodology detailed in Getting Things Done by David Allen. At first glance it seems like just another way to set up those dreaded to-do lists, but Mr. Allen meticulously takes into account and identifies various facets of human psychology towards being productive, so his system differs in that it strives to clear one's mind of worries of other activities by constructing lists that are meticulous, very well distinguished among different actions, and downright intuitive. The end point is not to just have to-do lists, but to have a set of lists that discourages evasion of what you have to do and prevents worrying about what you're not doing. I have set up such lists and it plays a big role in my life, certainly having increased greatly my productivity.

However, the downside is that all of my lists are kept on my computer. To avoid discouragement and monotony, I've chosen to go the electronic route in keeping lists so that they're quicker to set up and edit, and I don't have to rewrite them from day to day. It's so great I'll never go back to paper planners ever again. The downside is that it means I'm most productive when I have access to my computer, and I'm still utilizing a non-portable desktop PC.

It wasn't until recently that I've been struck by how significant this fact is. While waiting for the details of my new job (though I have started another one) I've largely been focusing on my writing and reading. The only hand-writing I do at length is for my introspection journal, meaning everything else is typed on my computer, and to keep track of my reading assignments, progress, and book rentals I need access to my computerized lists and library account, so combined together I depend pretty heavily on my computer to keep track of my life and activities, regardless of whether or not the computer is actually needed in the task. As such, I'm often glued to one spot.

Recently while traveling about town and being exposed to changing environments I was intrigued by how refreshed and energized I felt. It's strange because the particular activities I was engaged in weren't very high values to me, so to observe such a level of inner renewal in contrast to other activities I value higher was interesting. Instantly I was reminded of a post I read on Mark's Daily Apple about how changing one's environment can improve one's study capabilities. (I can't find it.) Physiologically, could that be what was at work here? Could being around different environments on a regular basis be mentally refreshing?

I'm entertaining this question, of course, because studying and frequent learning plays a huge role in my life. I've seen what wasted lives non-thinkers lead, so I don't intend to follow the same path. Logically, I'm always open to new ways to enhance my study methods and learning potency, and simple things like these seem like they're worth trying.

Could humans be wired in a way that makes it so that being in a monotonous environment is more damaging beyond that of mere boredom? Could changing environments on a regular basis enhance one's learning through the refreshing change of atmosphere? While I admit this could all possibly be hardly justified and easily refuted, I'm tempted to try it. So long as I learn to filter out distractions, like that of other people about, introspecting on the past reveals to me that such changes were consistently enlivening to my mind and thinking.

I'll have to do more thinking and research on this, but at first glance it seems like it may be a worthy goal to save up for a laptop and smartphone, so that I can more easily carry my productivity tools with me, especially my broad lists. It's an entertaining goal to word, but I'm thinking about sticking myself in random places and seeing how it affects my ability to be mentally productive.

Civil Debate: Concerns and Practices

On the forefront of my mind lately is the topic of civil debate, as it's been becoming more and more relevant in my life. Contrary to the past, I've been finding myself in more situations where people are very expressive of their opinions, and as part of several self-improvement concerns, including activism and my lovability goals, I would like to flesh out my ideas on this subject more and establish some new habits so that I'm better and more persuasive as a person.

The most dominant problem is the fact that I'm most consistently silent on my views, even when hearing views I agree with, for fear of the other person's reaction. This strikes me as strange, for I remember a time in my youth in which I was very open about ideological matters, even freely bringing up matters of theology in casual conversation. Now I hardly express my opinions in person at all. This must be due to my last several years spent in suppressing my character and views given that I was constantly around people who couldn't handle the slightest disagreement. Often as a response to my differing views I would get yelled or shouted at, be insulted or intimidated, have my statements misrepresented, be spoken to in snobby tones, be walked out on, get ignored, have my voice drowned out by electronics, and more. And this is just in mostly 1-on-1 conversations where, for the most part, the other person is most responsible for having initiated or left themselves open to the discussion to begin with. As such, even when I'm in the company of people I agree with, I tend to keep to myself because I feel people are ticking bombs quickly ignited by any sense of difference. I mean it literally when I speak of these past people getting upset by the slightest disagreement. Once a guy contested my nutritional views in a very polite and respectful tone during a party and properly dropped the issue when we didn't reach an agreement, but after the party some people threw a fit about the debate and were awed by the guy's "rudeness," demanding he be banned from an upcoming get together. The slightest disagreement.

I know, however, that many people are of course not this ridiculously sensitive to having their views challenged, but it still frightens me. Ideally I'd like to reattain that state in my youth were I could freely speak about the deepest issues without the slightest discomfort and render myself immune to any opponents' discomfort, but I don't know how to go about that. Rubberducking seems like an obvious candidate for practice, as I could treat an inanimate object as a debate opponent, but it still seems questionably limited since I may not be able to project all the ways an opponent could respond. All in all, it looks at this point like I just need to throw myself out there against my discomfort.

There are also a couple more additional concerns that are making me hesitate on expressing my views. For one, what is the best and most polite way to correct someone? This is most related to my fear of setting off someone's temper, for I don't want to go about an improper way of correcting someone's facts or understanding while trying to persuade them that mine is correct. At the very least I know which assertions are and are not essential to the point, so I'm not in danger of desiring to correct the entirety of a person's statement, even their trivial points.

Secondly, though a derivative of the first question, what is the best way to deal with facts in general, in both conveying them and dealing with an opponent's? At the tip of my thoughts are those facts that are just plainly asserted without reference to proof or where/how they learned of it, leaving their point vacuous and unmoving. For instance, recently a guy tried to teach me how the body uses a specific form of energy, but he referred to no scientific tests or valid method through which he came to hold this conclusion. It's just "floating." As for my views on how to properly convey facts, I do at least work to remember roughly the sources I learned of something or had my thoughts provoked from, but I worry about conveying other information in the most concise manner possible while still using a valid method and being persuasive.

Has anyone more developed thoughts on this than I? What do you think?