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When you give advice, don’t forget that the person you are talking to already knows the right thing to do.
They may change their outlook if you offer them a new perspective, but that misses the point: any meaningful struggle is beyond right/wrong and stems from a core contradiction of being human.
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Belief is when we stop being curious and observant. We stop thinking because we “have it figured out” or have an instinctual “gut reaction.”
A truth seeker is aware of this bodily reaction and the quick righteous response. They pause and question their response and re-open themself to the world.
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Have you earned the right to your opinion? Not everyone with a viewpoint has done the work to add something meaningful to the conversation.
Without the work, you are merely righteous and walking into a trap.
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Evil is when my illusion is incompatible with your illusion.
(All cultural constructs and ideologies are illusions we invest ourselves in because we are afraid of death.)
*from Ernest Becker
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When people say "value add," I cringe. It is like hearing a salesman say, "trust me."
If you have to convince someone of "robust bolstering effects," then the value is secondary: it is either glomming on or optimizing.
I have been "up sold" by mechanics and plumbers, but that is not a "value add." It is a simple service that does not reshape the current service.
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Doing the "right thing" isn’t hard so much as doing the "wrong thing" is easy."Easy" pays off quicker, is more expedient, and avoids those difficult conversations with anger or disappointment directed at you… but lying (avoiding) or shortcuts (stealing) shift into betrayal over time. And, there is nothing easy about gaining forgiveness from betrayal.
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Honor and glory are externally gifted. Contextual bestowed tokens, that can be stripped as quickly as given.
Character and virtue are internal.
The complication is not to confuse external honor (validation) for personal worth, to not conflate approval with character.
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We often use abstractions (models) as a normative leveling device, yet also we use them to inflate: we replace and conflate a singular achievement with other traits, in other realms.
ie. if you are rich, you must be smart; if you are smart, perhaps you are wise; therefore you should be in a role of power and authority.
We foist multiplicities of character upon these singular achievers, producing deferential hierarchies by claiming their difference as a worthy achievement. Contradictorily, in other arenas we diligently dispose of extra-normative behaviors.
ie. in sports we praise difference with dollars, yet in corporations or classrooms we squash dissent for conformity.
However, those lifted realize “the tall poppy is cut down” and enact a common-man buddy-status, eschewing the responsibility of authority while maintaining the benefits. Naturally, this commonality mask is an abstraction that falls away under tension to reveal the authentic hierarchy we play at ignoring.
All of that to say: we use abstractions (representative models we wish to be true, which are ridiculously ill-considered) to grant some people power, which they politely feign not to have, and we, in turn, pretend along so we can believe the morality play of democratic equality.
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Self Creation: the path of fixation leads to death, the path of fluidity leads to life.
There is no virtue in consistency if it prevents growth or change.
To prevent the death of "one’s self" is exactly what kills us: the inability to grow and transform.
