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We get caught up in extremes, arguing hyperbolic hypotheticals and slandering the middle road.
There is a fear of being labeled “lukewarm” or “hypocrite” for not going all the way: we seek purity in all positions and all ideologies.
The unfortunate irony of purity is isolation (manufacturing your own loneliness). Maintaining your position precludes change; this insight (purity is an isolating, alienating sickness) is required to embrace commonality, rationality, respect, or diversity.
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We all have certain traits that we identify with, such as intelligence or kindness. However, we may feel the need to exaggerate and elevate these traits to appear more special and deserving than we actually are.
This may involve engaging in gray morality (hedging) to gain an advantage. For instance, we may believe that we deserve more time off, special consideration, or forgiveness when in thee wrong.
Ultimately, this behavior is driven by our insecurities, which in turn creates situations that are not secure.
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One day you will get hurtful news that would have infuriated you a year ago.
Today, you shrug it off.
Your old priorities have been displaced over time. You can intentionally speed it up or hold on tightly, but physics will win.
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Achievement is hitting the mark, which requires us to incrementally measure and adjust.
Soon, we are successful: we have reached and superseded the goal.
We have become excellent at increasing the measurement and manipulating the scorecard metric, but have we displaced the goal with a measure?
Strathern’s law states, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
This replacement can become a subversion, such as when NYC police needed to maintain high crime numbers for funding, they implemented a “stop-and-frisk” policy that infringed on citizens’ rights. Instead of “protect and serve” to inflate the measure it required harassment.
This is similar to a simulacra, where the original motivation is lost, yet the real-world effects are amplified and out of control
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Much of our fear (that produces laziness and impatience) derives from results orientation.
Rather than focus on the “quality of doing,” which will generate its results over time, we fixate on an endpoint that must be measured, prompting not only anxiety over failure or success but also requiring you to pick another point afterward.
Focusing on the quality of the process and steadily doing the work is achieved with the achievements bestowed as an afterthought.
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In the pre-digital era, a universal similarity of content was reflected back to the mass audience (the public): they gazed into the mirror of media and (mostly) saw their values reflected back. (This is the pre-collapse tower of Babel.)
The digital era fractured the mirror into shards, which captured groups and separated them, provoking fragmented views from which yelling erupts.
In a mythic, psychoanalytic reading, the fragmentation and subsequent rage is a tantrum of yearning for wholeness. We wish to rejoin the primordial Eden or heavenly parents from which we have been expelled.
partially from Jonathan Haidt
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Given a well-constructed set of rules, only a few solutions exist, yet moves must be made to progress.
Each action/step/move can be made with anger or poise. Either way, it must be made.
You do not have to play the game gracefully, but you must keep in mind the outcome you wish. Playing with rage can achieve your outcome, but in the iterative game of life, it alienates potential allies who see the move, not the game.
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Religion is false, not empirical rationality, however, it produces a different degree of outcome than the lies of self motivated, desire fulfillment.
The difference is that those who practice religion diligently (in good faith towards liberal humanist values) develop a discipline that produces virtues of honesty and compassion.
By this rationale it is not the path that you follow: even hedonism, practiced with self reflexive consideration can produce wisdom.
The commonality is to discipline your excess to achieve understanding.
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Tempted by the serenity of the idyllic we become content unto idleness.
Yet the virtuous ideal is a persistent, returning idol demanding the sacrifice of tranquility for potential.
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What you pay attention to matters. It is in the end, who you will become.
Participating in petty politics or inflating mundane worries at work shapes you. Similarly, ignoring your friends isolates you. Where your attention is (or is not) is who you are right now, but it also shapes you.
Once you know who you want to be when you die (a person at peace, without regrets) any other behavior compromises your goals: keep your focus.
