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Mon 21 Dec, 2009 12:52 am
Imagine a very thin hallway. Imagine two people standing right before each other, trying to get to the other side of the hallway. Like reverse tug-of-war, each person can only take a step forward every time that the other person takes a step backward. Whether the step backward is forced or voluntary, the other person is able to move forward. Moving forward towards the goal at the end of the hallway. This is how I view success. This is how I view my entire life. I'm not saying that two people who work together are in each others way. If both of them are on the same side of the hallway, they have more force against the other person.
When my best friend is doing really well in class, like, getting an A... I'm doing bad. Like, C. When my friends doing bad in a class, it makes me feel more relieved, as I'm getting an A. I've realized that not everyone feels the way i do. There are people who like the challenge and rivalry. They see their friend doing better, and they wanna get better then that person. Maybe I'm the type to give up. Although you wouldn't think that way looking at my past records, most of all of my success has been forced.
The only thing I hate is... I don't want other people to bad, or have a bad time, just so I can do well, to have a good time.
l
[My earlier blog entry, part of it.] V
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The sadness of others makes me happy, subconsciously. Don't take me as a bad person, for it's probably the same for you. I'm only fifteen, and I live in a typical teenager environment. You know what that means, right? Drama. Many people cry because of break-ups and what have you. I'm gonna tell you a little story, and I'm sure that if you try, deep down you can relate.... I went out with this girl, her name was Cathy. We were boyfriend and girlfriend. My common teenage hormones tricked me into believing that I loved her. But this is not the point. She cheated on me with another guy, and I felt heartbroken, for a couple days. I don't know if it was because of my strong mentality, or because it wasn't true love, but I wasn't very sad after those couple days that I spent mourning. I held a bit of resentment towards her, but my quick recovery showed me that she was not the one. My point is, when I saw that the man she had cheated on me with had broken up with her, I was... I was happy at first. I don't know why, I mean, we put on the image that we're still friends, and I guess you can say we still are. I care for her, and she cares for me, but it gave me the happiest feeling in the world to know that she'd been dumped. I even smiled a little bit before I went to comfort her as she cried. I'm pathetic, I've realized.
When my sister gets punished for something she didn't do, and she doesn't get to go out with her friends. I get all, happy, and tingley inside. I don't even have to be mad at her for this to happen, it just happens.
This isn't only true in situations like these, love triangles, relationships and what-not. It happens to people who we have no personal connection to whatsoever. Celebrities. People who have never once listened to Britney Spears music, yet know who she is, are completely satisfied about hearing her stories of shaving her hair off. We don't have to know, like, hate, or even listen to Britney Spears, to enjoy all the bad stuff that happens to her. paparazzi feed off of other peoples misfortune. They also create it. What is it inside of us that allows us to enjoy others pain? Is it to make ourselves feel better?
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Like always, my conclusion's in red, if you don't feel like reading explanation. I think that, more-so than people trying to encourage me, people doing bad makes me feel better about myself. This is completely subjective, but it leads me to think that the human mind is more competitive then we need it to be. Even if we don't notice it.
@Quinn phil,
Perhaps we should compete to see who can be the least competitive. Everyone is sure to win that way.:detective:
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;113158 wrote:Perhaps we should compete to see who can be the least competitive. Everyone is sure to win that way.:detective:
I just wanna shout that out to the whole world, and hope that they listen. It's like when mom and dad are tired, and they ask you to play "The silent game".
Since it's a game, the children want to do it. They wont like being quite just for the hell of it; No, they need competition. Maybe, in some ways, we're still like children. In our methods of maturing, i think we skip some things.
@Quinn phil,
What's interesting to me is that Deckard and I were just discussing the Child as a symbol for the transcendence of the desire to compete and make a name for oneself. And yet children are competitive. Perhaps what we meant was that sometimes humans just play, and forget to keep score. But when I was a kid, I always "played" by making my toys fight. Chimpanzees have dominant males. Maybe humans are also wired like that, but since we have language its much more complicated. The hermit puts himself above the king, and the king looks down on the hermit. Who's "better"? Van Gogh or Bill Gates? This is the sort of thing I mean by "truth is a white lie." We wall tend to find a way to put ourselves on top somehow, if only with a poem/lie/truth/idea/story.
@Quinn phil,
Hence, the best type of person doesn't think of himself as the best type of person. You and I, on this forum, are.... observing human behavior. Evaluating it. Taking abstract thoughts, thoughts that other people don't like to think about it. This is how I make myself feel more intellectual and more important then other people. I believe that the most popular kid in school has nothing on me, because I know how his mind works. But, he's the most popular kid in school.
This is why I said, "Subconsiously" in my original post. We can try to be the better man, or we can even make it a goal to try and not 1up another person. Somehow, in the end, we'll end up doing so, subconsiously.
@Quinn phil,
Quinn;113164 wrote:Hence, the best type of person doesn't think of himself as the best type of person. You and I, on this forum, are.... observing human behavior. Evaluating it. Taking abstract thoughts, thoughts that other people don't like to think about it. This is how I make myself feel more intellectual and more important then other people. I believe that the most popular kid in school has nothing on me, because I know how his mind works. But, he's the most popular kid in school.
This is why I said, "Subconsiously" in my original post. We can try to be the better man, or we can even make it a goal to try and not 1up another person. Somehow, in the end, we'll end up doing so, subconsiously.
I suppose that a person should simply embrace their competitiveness to some degree. To be the person that
doesn't "one-up" is to play another game of "one-up." (Exceptions are when a person isn't worried about it all...) And then who says one-up is so bad? They tell us that and yet the same people worship wealth, fame, excellence. Much hypocrisy goes down. I suppose what they really want is for us to be nice about it. We dress as sheep because we're all wolves trying not to eat one another in public, perhaps. The masquerade serves its purpose. And perhaps the idea is that actions speak louder than words.
But the philosophers "actions" are words! And Shakespeare's "actions" are words.
I think that a person has to think of the Psychologist/Philosopher as a sort of Hero before they even have the courage to ask certain questions. We don't like pain. We only face "ugly truths" for the beauty on the other side of the equation. It's a power play. Like you say, to know how their minds work. Of course a certain amount of self-doubt will functions like sand in an oyster, and keep us evolving. It's like a spiral staircase. A person goes in circles and upward at the same time.:Glasses:
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;113168 wrote:I suppose that a person should simply embrace their competitiveness to some degree. To be the person that doesn't "one-up" is to play another game of "one-up." (Exceptions are when a person isn't worried about it all...) And then who says one-up is so bad? They tell us that and yet the same people worship wealth, fame, excellence. Much hypocrisy goes down. I suppose what they really want is for us to be nice about it. We dress as sheep because we're all wolves trying not to eat one another in public, perhaps. The masquerade serves its purpose. And perhaps the idea is that actions speak louder than words.
But the philosophers "actions" are words! And Shakespeare's "actions" are words.
I think that a person has to think of the Psychologist/Philosopher as a sort of Hero before they even have the courage to ask certain questions. We don't like pain. We only face "ugly truths" for the beauty on the other side of the equation. It's a power play. Like you say, to know how their minds work. Of course a certain amount of self-doubt will functions like sand in an oyster, and keep us evolving. It's like a spiral staircase. A person goes in circles and upward at the same time.:Glasses:
Haha. Ha. Your analogies never fail. Course, we love the beauty on the other side of the equation. But speaking for myself, I love the competition of others trying to beat me to the whatever the truth is. I love facing ugly truths, because it makes me feel beautiful. It makes me feel like a shining dekon of light that has fixated upon a problem, bringing clarity to it. You have to understand, at my age, and in my enviroment, I'm of a select few. I'm chosen to solve problems like these: (emotional - situational).
And I love it. Noone can "Take a step forward on me" when it comes to philosophy, at my school. Thus, I always reach my goal. There is no competition, and although that can get lonenly... It feels great.
@Quinn phil,
Quinn;113169 wrote: I love facing ugly truths, because it makes me feel beautiful. It makes me feel like a shining dekon of light that has fixated upon a problem, bringing clarity to it.
That's how I feel too. That's what I mean by the ideal self.
Why is the pronoun "I" shaped the way it is? Just like the number 1. Dig that, man. Did it end up that way subconsciously? I = 1
In
Freudian psychology, the
ego ideal (or
ideal ego) is "an image of the perfect self towards which the
ego should aspire."
[1]
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;113170 wrote:That's how I feel too. That's what I mean by the ideal self.
Why is the pronoun "I" shaped the way it is? Just like the number 1. Dig that, man. Did it end up that way subconsciously? I = 1
In
Freudian psychology, the
ego ideal (or
ideal ego) is "an image of the perfect self towards which the
ego should aspire."
[1]
I still don't quite understand all of your blogs, but I'm starting to understand your idea bit by bit, and it's making sense. Maybe God was created by the person who thought he was better then everyone else. Personally, I couldn't stand being thte best person in the world, that's too much power. I need a more powerful figure, even if i don't know them. Maybe that's where God came from. :detective:
@Quinn phil,
Quinn;113157 wrote:
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The sadness of others makes me happy, subconsciously. Don't take me as a bad person, for it's probably the same for you..
The Germans have a word for what you are describing. It is,
Schadenfreude. Taking pleasure in the discomfort of others.
@Quinn phil,
Glad to know that, once again, my ideas were expressed better by some ancient philosopher. Nice examples. Would the zero-sum game be sort of a... mental form of natural selection? I wouldn't say that, just because I know that good grades tend to be situational, (Not many poor kids who live in the ghettos receive good grades). I myself am a smart kid, but I really am put down when I see how low I am on the list... Oh, the list!
We have a list at my school, that comes on our report cards. This list shows us what 'ranking' we are out of all the students in our grade. Out of 266 students, i was number 80. Now, I would have been content upon just seeing my 3.5, and my A's a B's, but no. I have to see that 79 other kids are beating me. This doesn't make me want to be better then them, this makes me want to sulk. I suppose though, like i said before, it can go both ways.
@Quinn phil,
Quinn;113261 wrote:I still don't quite understand all of your blogs, but I'm starting to understand your idea bit by bit, and it's making sense. Maybe God was created by the person who thought he was better then everyone else. Personally, I couldn't stand being thte best person in the world, that's too much power. I need a more powerful figure, even if i don't know them. Maybe that's where God came from. :detective:
I think Gods were invented as to be the mirror of humanity. But that's only one idea I have about the Gods. A person doesn't have to feel like the
best, but most of us want to be on the top of something or another. Seems like everyone a person knows prides themselves on
something. That would be the ego-ideal. It's a sort of religious feeling a person has toward what they hope to be. You know, the call them dreams. A person's "dreams" of becoming this or that are crushed. Hank dreams of becoming a rock star. Carl dreams of writing the great american novel. So maybe other people's failure lessens the competition.
---------- Post added 12-21-2009 at 05:22 PM ----------
The_Ant;113281 wrote:
For me, one should get rid of this vicious cycle. One should not define and construct his/her life, first of all, on the opinions of others, and secondly, by comparing himself/herself with others. One should not forget that everyone is another story. Everyone is good at some things and bad at others. Instead of comparison, I propose for one to look for his/her own productions in life. (Productions may be everything, for me it is being happy, it is carrying out the art of living, it is changing the world by constantly changing myself, it is making original contributions in my own subject of study, and it is making people that I love happy and living a smile in their faces after my death.)
I like this. I note the word "original" is associated with the ideal here. I concur. A value system that salutes novelty will be more tolerant and open. It encourages an acceptance of idiosyncrasy.
@Quinn phil,
Quinn, you are seeing life from the perspective which is uderstandable, because it forces you to have any advantage upon the others. The fact that you can express yourself like this without any moral worries means that your introspection isnt influnenced by the existence of other people.
This is something which gives you opportunity to handle various conceptions by yourself and think about them purely just from your own perspective. Thats why you seems so clever. Normally it works like that people are used to listen to things they earned from other people, whereas isnt important if these things are well-founded or not.
@Quinn phil,
Quinn;113157 wrote:...
The sadness of others makes me happy, subconsciously. Don't take me as a bad person, for it's probably the same for you. ...
There is no need for you to insult everyone with such an accusation. I do not generally derive any pleasure at all from other people's pain, which would be monstrous.
You tell us you are inhumane, and then you tell us not to take you as a bad person. Very strange.
Generally speaking, if another person has a bad day, this does not benefit you in any way, so why would you be happy about it? It would be different if we were talking about winning a good prize, which was going to go to either you or someone else, and being happy that you won. But in that case, you should be happy you won, not happy that someone else lost. But given your attitude, things like the lottery must make you very happy indeed, because for every big winner, there are a lot of losers. And, indeed, you must be very happy with the world in general, because there is a lot of unhappiness in it.
@Pyrrho,
Pyrrho;118148 wrote:There is no need for you to insult everyone with such an accusation. I do not generally derive any pleasure at all from other people's pain, which would be monstrous.
...
Generally speaking, if another person has a bad day, this does not benefit you in any way, so why would you be happy about it?
You say that monstrous, because you are value his words from moral or ethic perspective, while he is speaking about his inner feelings, which is in fact a completely different thing.
These people which are focused on the position of the others have for life a lot of benefits, because will never forget to compare themselves and will always try to reach somewhere. On the other side lack some rational skills and humanity, but I think that everyone lack something.
@Pyrrho,
Pyrrho;118148 wrote:There is no need for you to insult everyone with such an accusation. I do not generally derive any pleasure at all from other people's pain, which would be monstrous.
You tell us you are inhumane, and then you tell us not to take you as a bad person. Very strange.
Generally speaking, if another person has a bad day, this does not benefit you in any way, so why would you be happy about it? It would be different if we were talking about winning a good prize, which was going to go to either you or someone else, and being happy that you won. But in that case, you should be happy you won, not happy that someone else lost. But given your attitude, things like the lottery must make you very happy indeed, because for every big winner, there are a lot of losers. And, indeed, you must be very happy with the world in general, because there is a lot of unhappiness in it.
No, you've taken my perspective the wrong way. Maybe I phrased it wrong, but you're making it seem like I enjoy other people being slaughtered. This is not the case. I hate the fact that there are homeless people. However, when I'm feeling poor, in my regular apartment, I say to myself, "Hey, some people have it worse". When I get bad grades, I say, "Hey, some people have it worse". When I'm in a cast, I say, "Hey, some people are handicapped.".
You seem to've jumped to the conclusion that I'm one of those guys who beats people up for the joy of it. or goes around laughing at hobo's. Nope. As a matter of fact, I go to a church to help build houses for the homeless. And I'm not even religious. I'm not inhumane, I'm just admitting that- even as a very generous person- I take comfort in other people's misfortunes.
@Quinn phil,
Quinn;118348 wrote:No, you've taken my perspective the wrong way. Maybe I phrased it wrong, but you're making it seem like I enjoy other people being slaughtered. This is not the case. I hate the fact that there are homeless people. However, when I'm feeling poor, in my regular apartment, I say to myself, "Hey, some people have it worse". When I get bad grades, I say, "Hey, some people have it worse". When I'm in a cast, I say, "Hey, some people are handicapped.".
You seem to've jumped to the conclusion that I'm one of those guys who beats people up for the joy of it. or goes around laughing at hobo's. Nope. As a matter of fact, I go to a church to help build houses for the homeless. And I'm not even religious. I'm not inhumane, I'm just admitting that- even as a very generous person- I take comfort in other people's misfortunes.
That seems very different from what you stated before, but I will not dwell on your previous remarks. It still seems odd to me that one would feel satisfaction that others have it worse. Them having things worse does not make your situation better. When things go bad for me, the fact that others have it worse is more depressing to me, as it does nothing to help me, and their suffering is bad in itself.
Perhaps, though, you mean that others having things worse reminds you that you could have things even worse than you do, and are therefore happy that things are not worse for you than they are. But if that is what you mean, it is quite different from what you stated. On this supposition, one is happy that things are not worse for oneself, not happy because things are bad for others.
@Quinn phil,
Quote:Perhaps, though, you mean that others having things worse reminds you that you could have things even worse than you do,
Thus, other people's sadness makes me happy. Maybe, though, I should have replaced the word "Happy", with comfort. It's
comfortable to know that my situation is not the worst out of the people's around me. I'm not happy when a little boy dies. I'm not happy if my son gets bad grades. I'm not happy if my friend gets dumped. I'm happy when I'm not last in the competition, hence The Ant's post about "The Zero-Sum game".
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