If you want people to have understanding for you, and you should, then you need to practice having understanding for others. And once again, we’ll look to the red pill crew for an example of how not to do it 😉 The red pill crew, or those sympathetic to them, will explain to you that the “male loneliness epidemic” and young men falling into extremism is a symptom of them being treated badly by the very “woke” lefties, and the extreme feminists, and by the confusing messaging to young men about where their value comes from. And I totally agree, that’s a problem and we should have some understanding for it. However, the same set of people who will expect you to have understanding for young angry misogynist men will fail to understand the angry feminists. Don’t ya think that maybe extreme feminism is a reaction to centuries of legal, social, and at times physical repression of women? Might those things cause some backlash that we should have some understand for? And these same people that want you to have sympathy for young angry misogynist men will also talk about gang violence and “black on black” crime. They also fail to understand where that might come from. They will reject any discussion of the down stream effects of centuries of brutal legal repression and systematic segregation and impoverishment. Might it be that some young black men fall into gangs as they were a born into a difficult situation that doesn’t give them as many options as others get? Should we have some understanding for that? You can’t have it both ways. If you want others to have understanding for you, and you should, then you need to practice understanding for others.

O the amount of times I’ve been told that my concerns are paranoid, illogical, hysterical. I’m always being told to shelve my concerns so that I can consider other people’s perspectives. I can’t do it any more. There is quite a lot to be learned from listening to others perspectives. I’d go so far as to say you can’t learn or grow if you don’t. But it has to be mutual. Continuing to do the hard work of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes when they won’t do the same for you just degrades your respect for yourself. If you can’t be kind, if you can’t be understanding, if you can’t take a moment to consider how a situation impacts someone else…. Go fuck yourself and good bye.

It's okay to be attracted to your friends. It's not okay to pretend to be someones friend because you are attracted to them. It's okay to enjoy the nice things that your friends have. It's not okay to pretend to be someones friend because they have nice things.

Your personal freedom depends on you consciously managing your self concept. The most common and effective way to control people over the long run is via their self concept. If a whole culture can be convinced that they are dutiful, or orderly, or obedient, or conquerors, or pacifists, or what have you, then they will not only accept behaviors and leaders that meet that description they will enthusiastically perform those behaviors themselves without any direct management. Controlling the self concept of masses of people is of course no easy task, which is why organizations who wish to do it start young, or find people when they are down and out, or attempt to manipulate and warp popular culture and change the collective unconscious slowly over decades. If you are not consciously questioning and managing your self concept then surely you will get pulled around by those trying to manage it for you. Be careful out there!

What's the best most effective way to control a person over the long run? Give me your theories! But I'll tel you mine... via their self concept. If you can manage to convince someone that they are XYZ, and their values comes from being/doing XYZ, then they will carry out XYZ enthusiastically for decades without you having to direct them at all. This is hard to pull off tho. You have to get them young, or when they are down and out, or you have to slowly change a whole culture to adapt the collective unconscious to the self concept that you want.

Understanding is not the same as agreeing or condoning. One of the most frustrating things about being on social media is watching the sea of posts and memes and “debates” which are just people intentionally misunderstanding each other. People purposely being obtuse and twisting others words in attempts to “dunk” on others and score a few likes. It’s not just ugly or childish, it’s wildly lazy. What a cheap easy way out of actual thought. “It's the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

I got swarmed by a pack of wild dogs!!! Which is a very adrenaline inducing experience. I’m happy to report that the nice professional strength pepper spray does work pretty well on dogs. It took about 5 seconds for it to set in but then they all backed off and started rolling their heads around in the the grass.

I gotta admit it's pretty insulting when my dog turns down a bite of my lunch after I've seen what she eats off the ground in the alley next to the dumpster.

I have often had trouble with social context, but over the years I got a lot better at it, and then recently I seem to have regressed a bit. Sometimes I just can’t tell when someone is joking or being sarcastic or when they are telling a story and have dipped into quoting someone else, etc. I just miss that and get really confused. I’m wondering what might cause this regression. Just an overall high level of mental exhaustion? Or maybe I ran out of space for English social context cues as I’m learning Spanish social context cues??? What ya think?

😭

It’s really fucking bothering me that a madman is about to commit a bunch of war crimes purportedly on my behalf and with my tax dollars. I’m really sorry to the innocent Iranians caught up in this. It sucks that there isn’t more that I can do about it.

Today is my last day of being 42, my last day of being the answer to life the universe and everything 😭 Really I can’t say I pulled that off, but I sure did give it a go! In the past year I made 12 trips to 5 different countries. I did two talks en español! I definitely prefer the messier moments and the messier photos. Life just is messy, you make yourself miserable trying to be perfect and polished.