Is Our Confidence Waning?

[Deleted92948618User]

What you are describing is the ennui which comes as part of the normal course of aging. As the pile of exhausted calendars reaches the point where its mere presence intrudes on our conscienceless, we start to question everything. We question our past, our present and our future. We question the things we have done, and worse, the things we could, and things we should, have done. We question why we let certain people into our lives, and why not others. We question our career path, our religious convictions, our core values and our belief systems. We question what we think is true. We question the things we have done to others, good and bad. We even question our own rationale for the life we've lead.

 

But, don't let it get you down or ruin your future. Relish your past, and do better today.

[Striker879]

I have long asserted that questions are far more important than answers. It is the questions that open our minds to possible answers ... without those questions the answers have no meaning.

[HeyYou]

I have long asserted that questions are far more important than answers. It is the questions that open our minds to possible answers ... without those questions the answers have no meaning.

True, but, if you ask a question you don't think you are going to like the answer to, try not to act surprised when you get an answer you don't like. :D

[Striker879]

 

I have long asserted that questions are far more important than answers. It is the questions that open our minds to possible answers ... without those questions the answers have no meaning.

True, but, if you ask a question you don't think you are going to like the answer to, try not to act surprised when you get an answer you don't like. :D

 

 

Ah ... and once again you smoothly segue into the next thing for me Hey. In the case those questions whose answers I don't like ... the next (and most important to me personally) question I need to ask is "Why does this answer upset me?"

 

The answer to that question will only be found through honest introspection.

[Deleted54170User]

Don't ask me what I think of

 

[Saxhleel26]

I know exactly what you're going through because I've directly experienced it. When I was 15 (this was eleven years ago), I was here on the Nexus, and at that time I was a relatively new user. I was very different then -- much more brash and confident in myself and my abilities. I thought no one was smarter than I was. I knew everything. Of course I did, because how could I not? Everyone else just needed to catch up. Well, at that time, I had a VERY rude awakening that changed my life forever. I would never be the same again (thankfully). I met another member on this site named David, who in some respects was like my mentor, and he exposed me to the many gaps in my logic -- my vanity, my ignorance, how I had been brainwashed into believing what I was told instead of questioning it. He taught me to think for myself, an invaluable gift. It was then, and only then, that my eyes were opened. As I said, it had changed me, and it changed me COMPLETELY. When I saw how things really were, I lost faith in everything, everyone, and in myself. I lost my passion for history, when I saw the lies, and the half-truths, and the misinformation, and the sickening nationalistic propaganda they spoon-feed to us in America. Years later, I saw the same in the media (on both sides of the aisle) and I realized that our elections are not run by the principles upon which our country was founded and supposedly stands for. There is no liberty, no freedom, no rights (because they are really privileges; rights cannot be rights if they can be taken away from you). Money rules all and influences everything. That knowledge nearly ruined me; it destroyed everything that I was before, everything that I stood for and based my identity upon. I became cynical, pessimistic, misanthropic. I hated everyone, but there was no one I hated more than myself for living under that ignorance for so long.

 

I am now in my mid-twenties. I am still working through the trauma of that time, but I firmly believe it has made me a better person and I would rather live it all again knowing what I know now than go back to who I was when I was younger. Eventually, I learned that I had to accept the nature of reality and the truth is that reality is very ugly and a very difficult thing to come to terms with. There are terrible people who live in this world, who exist for nothing more than themselves. Now that isn't necessarily a bad thing; it only becomes a problem when people take it to the extreme. I myself am aligned with the philosophy of Objectivism (loosely), championed by the controversial figure of her time, Ayn Rand. We are self-serving creatures -- it is just what we are. Not necessarily selfish (the extreme in my opinion), but a species that is inevitably self-interested. As the great chef and writer Anthony Bourdain once said, most people are not bad people: they simply want to live, and they want to live with decency, dignity, and security -- they want to provide for both themselves and for the people they care about the most. They are the self-interested, the majority among us. The rest want to take what does not belong to them: the sociopaths that run our world that care for one thing and one thing only: their wellbeing, to the point that they will sacrifice ANYTHING to get what they want or to protect what they already have. These are the selfish, the influential minority among us that make things difficult for the people around them. Not understanding this crucial difference opened the door for so much suffering in my life. It's as the saying goes: one bad apple spoils the bunch. But mankind is not rotten to its core; the majority is not spoiled simply because we look after ourselves first and that there are a few who look after themselves only. Know the difference and it will save you a lot of grief. It will help you to find more balance in our confusing world. It helped me. I shook off a lot of that cynicism and saw people as people first and not the mistakes they often make (myself included).

 

At this point, I want to bring up a risky subject because it borders on the spiritual (which I know we're not suppose to discuss), but I speak of this in strictly scientific terms that, as far as I know, does not violate natural laws (which can be discussed). In 1844, the American writer Edgar Allan Poe published a short story called "Mesmeric Revelation" where the unnamed narrator hypnotizes one of his patients whom is on the brink of death so that he can communicate his experiences. They get into a very deep philosophical debate as to whether or not there's a higher being and the dying man expresses what is basically a complex form of pantheism. I was absolutely astonished to read this because it was written nearly two-hundred years ago, roughly around the time of when the Industrial Revolution was arriving in America and when the Age of Reason began to influence our society in a significant way. For Poe to have written about how everything (humanity, animals, the nature that we all reside in) is in some way connected, and in an earnest way that suggested that he really believed it; was very moving and it helped to establish a sense of peace within myself. I personally believe that Poe was correct: we are the part of the Universe that has the privilege of knowing of itself (as Carl Sagan more or less once said); that is the meaning of life: to get the chance to figure out what it all means and to choose for ourselves what our purpose is. Everything living is just a different perspective from which the same organism is experiencing itself; and we are the part that has the most to work with (assuming no other intelligent life exists). So whenever I hear about the awful things that happen in our world: murders, wars, political nonsense, media manipulation, etc. it makes me think that we are one organism that, for whatever reason, is fighting itself. The Universe likes balance; it hates uneven concentrations of matter and will seek to equalize it (equilibrium). Hence thermodynamics, hydrodynamics, air currents, osmosis in living cells, etc. And yet, we're here. For some reason, we are here. Life is a wrinkle in the fabric of space and time, an anomaly that shouldn't exist, and yet we do. The part of the Universe that fights itself, that's always trying to kill that one part of itself, and yet in doing so, gives itself the chance to experience its own self. That may sound crazy, or even depressing. To me, it is profound and confusing and strange, but profound nevertheless. There is contradiction and duality in many things, and somewhere between that confusing mess, is the life that we are allowed to live.

 

I can't be sure how much of this you'll agree with or even read, but what I can be sure of is that the pain we feel is often due to what we do not understand or misunderstand. I think much of the suffering I went through (and that perhaps you are going through) is because of the lens through which we view things. Sometimes, all we need to do is shift our perspective and see things from another angle. Doing so helped to restore the humanity that I had lost years ago and I hope it will help you as well. Best of luck!

[Deleted54170User]

To boldly step (sneaking is acceptable) through the tall blades of grass where no trail gives way is what we experience that raises our confidence and sense tremors rippling through our nervous system as we make our way (in search of food most likely) beyond the table we have been served at (while living with Mom and Dad) and go off where no path has been made. The others fear nothing but fear itself and await your return. Hoping Edit : for your return and that you bring with you the Horn of Cornucopia.

 

If you should fail to return (and have chanced to meet your first friend. Since I am male and prefer the companionship of a female... Well back to the theme...) they must Edit: return to bickering over who will go next to see if they have any better luck finding food. Edit: Then race back to safety among family; where they've stomped on the grasses for so long nothing grows there anymore. Not even the food they cherished so. So much that they ate like pigs and ruined the land. Edit: While they slept the grasses grew tall. Edit: Unable to believe they are still in their sanctuary the struggle with the fear of being lost. They have to find out if there be food beyond the tall grasses they can not see over the top of. Edit: They have go out into the unknown.

 

Yes your confidence Edit If; it is waning because you've awaken in the unknown zone from having become accustomed to your treasures, knickknacks, leisure; with water and food supply a plenty. Edit: You've not done what is called, Crop Rotation so the soil recovers for a new season, and thus; just kept growing on the same plot the same crop on the land until it became bleak and dry; as dirt can get.

 

No more food for you?! Edit: Oh! Woe to us elders, especially over 75 years of age, because we know we are all, all of us are born and until we go to the grave, we are greedy little humans...

[Saxhleel26]

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Yes your confidence Edit If; it is waning because you've awaken in the unknown zone from having become accustomed to your treasures, knickknacks, leisure; with water and food supply a plenty. Edit: You've not done what is called, Crop Rotation so the soil recovers for a new season, and thus; just kept growing on the same plot the same crop on the land until it became bleak and dry; as dirt can get.Â

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I feel like this is especially true. If we feel discouraged, it's often because things are handed to us or we do work for them, but establish a rhythm that does not allow us to grow. We're not challenged enough. Where's the adversity? Where's the struggle?

 

Then, when we do go out into the world to seek these adversaries (consciously or otherwise), we sometimes shrink back into our shells where our video games, Netflix shows, and YouTube videos can shield us from the harsh realities we would rather ignore.

 

Perhaps we feel unfulfilled. Perhaps we are too cynical. Maybe we need different perspectives to free us from our ruts. Maybe we need new challenges to free us from our minds.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Saxhleel26

[Deleted54170User]

I am an Explorer. I have come to know so much because of what I have actually seen, and I know I know so little because the vast knowledge in a little library like mine only assures me there is more to learn.

 

Confidence is required to exit the safety of the borders of our inner mind where we, as a child, built that little fortress in our imagination to protect us from that which we fear the most, THE UNKNOWN.

[Saxhleel26]

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."

 

- Howard Phillips Lovecraft.