It is hard for me to trust people’s intentions, and to believe that they would want to do something for me unselfishly. (Sadly, when it comes to most people, my cynicism here is well-founded.) It is no wonder this is the case, considering my childhood. Though I obviously couldn’t understand the complexities involved at the time, I was still (subconsciously?) aware of the inconsistency and irrationality, the untruthfulness when it came to what was said vs. what was done, when it came to what someone says vs. what they are really thinking, what their real motivation and intention is, what’s really going on in that person’s mind, which is inconsistent with what they say and do.
And so I got very good at seeing what was really going on with people. I got really good at seeing how full of shit people were about things, especially when it came to things done out of an ostensible selflessness.
Not everyone is self-centered to an extreme, but most people are self-centered and selfish to certain extents. It may manifest in outright selfishness, or in arrogance, being judgmental, close-mindedness, envy, jealousy, etc. And so this brings up the issue of whether or not people are worthy of trust, for most are not.
Lately, I have been feeling an inconsistency with how I really am and how I have been interpreted and judged. What might come across as selfish (when I finally give up on people, for example, or refuse to suffer fools gladly) is not done for just myself, per se, it is more that I realize I am wasting my time which could be better spent on something, or someone, else. To act selfishly is to act for oneself at the expense of others, putting your worth above anyone else’s.
It is not that I want people to come over to my side, agree with me, and think what I think. It is rather that the things I have come to understand about the way things work tend to challenge what they assume and what they think they know. The hope is that that would trigger or influence them to think more about what they think, not what I think.
I do not profess to have the answers; it is rather that I want people to think about their own beliefs and assumptions and see that they are not making up their own minds about things, even when they think they are. It is about questioning, not answering. I do not presume to think I have the answers, but I do think that before we can even think about answers, we must first question well the assumptions and certainties we rely upon.
I would simply like to see people open their minds, open their eyes, see clearly and to think for themselves, to challenge themselves and the authorities to which they appeal, to see that they are not now thinking for themselves, that they do not know what they think they know, that their beliefs are based on things that they would never base other things in their life on, which is contradictory and hypocritical. I have no agenda. I have no beliefs that I am selling. I do not think I am “right;” the only thing I know is that I do not know; the only thing I am right about is questioning what is assumed to be right. This is not egotism; it is realism and open-mindedness.
I am always open to another perspective, another way of seeing things, but mainly perspectives that are not based on illusion, stupidity, egotism and so forth. It’s about attitude as well when it comes to whether I will be open to a person’s ideas. The fact that someone else has an agenda does not mean that I do; the fact that someone else thinks they are right, thinks they know things, does not mean I do. That would be invalid logic, a false logical leap of transference born of defensiveness, ignorance, and arrogance.
This is one way I have been misunderstood. . . .
It is this underlying, conditioned feeling of my own worthlessness—that I am not worth being deserving of love, happiness, the designation of being a person—that I see has colored my own perceptions and certain subsequent actions in my life.
An important thing I have come to understand when it comes to all this is how wrong it is to try to inflate a deflated ego, and rather to see where that deflation came from, and to remember the trappings and distorting nature of the ego itself. This kind of back and forth from one extreme to another (“I’m not worth anything.” “No, you are worth something. . .”) is missing the point, because they both are inflating and deflating something the nature and very existence of which should be questioned and examined; for it is very possible that this ego, this thing that we take for granted, and thus spend our time inflating and deflating, is really an illusion, a dualistic imposition upon ourselves and a nature which, itself, may not be dualistic.
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From my personal notes, 11/27/99
