OK. Here we are. Meant to write about this yesterday but then stuff happened.

I think I get the whole “just concentrate on being yourself” thing I have been hearing my whole life. It just needed a little more context.

You should just concentrate on being the yourself because that’s something you can actually control. The alternative is to do like I have done and try to control outcomes by anticipating and understanding and controlling literally all possibilities, with very little room to forgive myself for failure to do so, and that is a dangerously foolish idea.

Nobody can do that, no matter how smart they are. The universe is too damned big and there is always so much that is utterly beyond our control that trying to process and assimilate all that is like an ant trying to lift a mountain.

It’s not how to see how this tragic attitude arises in one such as me, though. I have a very powerful mind. It truly can conquer and control many things, including things that for others have to remain a mystery. I have been doing astounding things with this magical mind of mine for my entire life.

What’s more is that because I have this extremely powerful mind, my whole primary approach to life has been to handle everything by applying overwhelming intellectual force to it.

When all you have is a hammer, and all that.

But it’s a fundamentally futile approach to life. I can’t possibly even know, let alone handle, all I would need to know about the world in order to process it like that.

I have to accept that, mental magic or no, I am still just one tiny jumped up monkey in a massive world too big for even my brain to handle and that past a certain point there it little choice but to have something approaching faith.

Or trust. They’re…. similar.

Because what else can handle the truly unknown and unknowable? The random and arbitrary whims of fate? What else can allow you to act when you know and accept all that you cannot control?

Call it hope, maybe. The hope that things will go well for you. Hope that nothing really terrible will happen. Hope that if tragedy does strike, you will be able to handle it.

Or maybe all that is really necessary is to look out over the vast void of all that you do not and cannot know and say, “Fine. Then I will just do what I FEEL like doing, then. ”

It is impossible to live via logic and reason alone. There has to be more. There has to be something within you that can act without sufficient information. Something that can handle things when you are scared and confused and can’t think straight. Something that extends beyond the limits of the rational mind and can therefore fill in all the little gaps in our comprehension that will otherwise leave us flat on our faces.

I am a foolish man who makes poor life choices.

I am a stupid man who goes about things the wrong way consistently.

I am an unwise man who has spent far too long hating himself for his inability to do that which is patently impossible.

And it’s high time I got down of my intellectual high horse, admittedly to myself I am merely mortal after all, and went to play with the other kids.

More after the break.

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Locus of control, take 2?

Once more, I started off on topic than galloped off in all directions.

My original point, and I did (and do) have one, was that by concentrating on being yourself, you are reducing the challenge of life from you versus the universe to something far more doable.

It also means that you will be continuously reinforcing your sense of self and, ultimately, maybe even your self worth because you will be constantly re-investing your energies into your sense of self. ^[1]

At least, in theory. It does, sadly, presume that you don’t have a brutally self-destructive mind that will tear your sense of self into tiny pieces if you focus on it too long.

So it might be wise to learn to love yourself first.

I..am getting there.

Self-destruction is a hard habit to break because in order to stop taking your rage out on yourself you have to find it another target and that’s a very hard thing for me to do.

Which is why I keep ending up at this exact crossroads time and time again. Who even deserves my wrath?

Because as I say every time we are here, taking it out on others like an abuser (like my late father) is not an option.

I will not victimize.

But what does that leave? Well I could vent it in online discussions (comment threads, subReddits, that kind of thing) like the rest of the world.

That feels dirty and unworthy but there is, broadly speaking, nothing actually wrong with it as long as I keep my own contributions civil and on point.

Things do not need to get personal.

I can piss people off just fine without fighting dirty.

But I suppose the main reason I never actually do that is just the same ol reluctance to leave my microscopic safety zone as always.

It’s nice to think about, but to actually implement this idea would most definitely activate my social anxiety as well as my more general anxiety and that makes it a no-go.

Or at least it would under the old regime. I am slowly warming up to the idea that the only way to escape my sad fate is to openly defy my anxiety’s goddamned rules.

Be scared and do it anyway. That’s the true meaning of courage.

And I know that my anxiety and/or depression has enormous power but not much stamina, so if I can face the storm of emotions it/they unleash and just hang in there without quitting for long enough, the storm will subside, its energies spent.

So this could be doable.

Then again, so could a lot of things I also don’t do.

I will think about it while I lay in bed. Meanwhile…

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.