The polarizing fronts of egotism vs. altruism

[Owledge]

Comparing to my experiences of the preceding years, having observed society for quite a while, it seems to me that especially since 2015 things are heating up. On pretty much all levels of society there is a growing polarization of people who serve egotistical goals and those who serve altruistic goals, or in other words: People without empathy against those who have empathy.

Painful experiences can further sensitize, as a necessary process of awareness of problems. Lately I have had one of the most painful experiences of my life, one which changed my psyche significantly. It was so painful because there was no way for me to see it coming; it went against everything a healthy-minded (= not extremely cynical) human being would anticipate. And it reminded me of how much people are wearing masks in order to cover up their true character, and how you don't really know people unless that mask comes off.
It indicates the gigantic extent of a problem that cannot be solved due to equally gigantic coverup and protection mechanisms by likeminded people.

Part of the change that my recent experience has caused in me also urge me to share it, in part in the hope that it might somewhat ease my soulcrushing pain, in part because many people are not aware of the immensely destructive effect that egotism can have and does have on a grand scale in the world.


Following is a link that contains some sweet people's comments on the matter and links to, first, a sarcastic/satirical summary of the incident by some smaller media outlet that isn't as afraid to talk about problems than bigger and more influential ones are (or maybe you can just call them boulevard press - I've become very careful of praising people's moral qualities lately), and then my blog article that I made sure pretty much answers all questions one could have. It is so complete that you will find, among people who give me moral support under their name, some tellingly anonymous commenters whose only way to oppose is to go into denial of the information provided, pretty much the way the main perpetrators did.

If you took the time to read the whole thing, provided you have the spare time, that would be very much appreciated, and I am awaiting your thoughts, insights, experiences or whatever you feel like sharing.

http://mlpforums.com/blog/819/entry-14983-living-tombstone-and-shadyvox-dishonor-their-and-my-charity-commitment/

Edited February 24, 2015 by Owledge

[GrandmasterP]

Ouch!

You were treated badly indeed.

 

Altruistic people experience many 'knock backs', it goes with the territory.

Some people take advantage of altruism and others mistake kindness for weakness and try to exploit it.

Whisper it softly but IMO we're all of us a little bit egotistical now and again.

Try as we might that old ego does pop out now and again.

Altruism beats egotism every time though.

Edited February 24, 2015 by GrandmasterP

[Marblehead]

Hi Owledge,

 

I didn't read all of the links but did get the flow of what was being spoken to.

 

I have mentioned on this board before that I don't make promises I'm not capable or willing to keep and follow through with.

 

The promise for a song was, it appears, an idle promise.  Just something for them to gain attention with.  Yeah, ego.

 

 

But to your post, I do speak of polarization and ego here often.  Both can and are taken to extremes and the end result is almost always negative for the greater number of people.

 

I have not seen the changes you spoke of but perhaps you have just become more aware of these concepts?

 

Moderation and walking the middle path is almost always best.  Too much of either will cause disharmony and imbalance.

[Nikolai1]

sent by pm instead

Edited February 24, 2015 by Nikolai1

[GrandmasterP]

Edited February 24, 2015 by GrandmasterP

[Owledge]

Moderation and walking the middle path is almost always best.  Too much of either will cause disharmony and imbalance.

This result I am witnessing now. Lack of emotional depth in either way. That's the middle path for you. When I despise people now, it is without emotion. When I love something, it is a thought in my mind shaping the words.

If a personal problem is to be named, after examining my whole life now, it would be indeed a great polarity, but the polarity between my virtue and authenticity and the depravity and faking of so many I come in contact with. In a nourishing environment I can grow to incredible heights, but such was absent almost all my life. Thus I now, in some tragic irony, feel the need to allow rottenness into my character in order to lessen the tension to my environment. But I am making sure to direct that only to those of the mindset that inflicted the wound.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Owledge

[Marblehead]

WoW!

This result I am witnessing now. Lack of emotional depth in either way. That's the middle path for you. When I despise people now, it is without emotion. When I love something, it is a thought in my mind shaping the words.

If a personal problem is to be named, after examining my whole life now, it would be indeed a great polarity, but the polarity between my virtue and authenticity and the depravity and faking of so many I come in contact with. In a nourishing environment I can grow to incredible heights, but such was absent almost all my life. Thus I now, in some tragic irony, feel the need to allow rottenness into my character in order to lessen the tension to my environment. But I am making sure to direct that only to those of the mindset that inflicted the wound.

I understand what you are saying but I don't agree with your conclusion.

 

Never give up your honesty and sincerity!  It will cause internal conflicts.  Been there, done that.  It sucks.  Being honest and sincere may not win you any more friends but at least others will know where you stand.  (And you will be at peace with your inner Self.)

[Owledge]

From personal message with mutual agreement:

 

--------------------

Nikolai1:

 

I read enough to get the gist, or what felt like the gist for me.

Why are you caught up in this insanity?

Why are you paying all that money to make an unbearably awful song about yourself?

What possesses you to be so vain? (And try not to tell yourself that you did it 'for charity'.)

How could you expect this to be anything other than a matter of extreme disinterest for the songmakers? Is it not obvious to you that they need to think of their reputation in all their projects.

Yes they have a duty to you. But you have a duty to give them material that is simple, normal, and in the spirit of what they do and what they thought they were offering.

I hope all parties learn something from this.

In this whole episode you behave exactly like someone who needs to be bullied by life. I'm sure you're an amzing person as well, but its always a problem when a person dpesn't realise that for themselves.

Best wishes, nikolai

 

--------------------

 

Me:

 

You are extremely judgmental and lack inquisitiveness, assuming whatever serves your own beliefs and decisions about how to see the world. You reveal your mental convenience in the first thing you said. This is the lack of empathy I am talking about. You choose to assume a position that would not cause you mental inconvenience and discard anything that doesn't serve that.

 

As the guy who does the charities pointed out to me, there is a common psychological problem in people's behavior. When they think (or want to believe) that they cannot make a difference anyway, they tend to blame the 'victim'.

 

This is basically like telling a raped woman: "I hope you have learned from this not to dress like a hooker. Have some understanding for horny psychopaths."

 

Naturally you wrote this privately. Too afraid to be judged yourself? Too afraid of the scary encounter of people who are willing to bear mental inconvenience for the sake of empathy?

 

--------------------

 

Nikolai1:

 

I wrote privately out of sensitivity to you. If you want to put it on the thread you may with my permission.

Rather than blame everyone and their lack of empathy, please try and look at yourself and how you might unconsciously create the reactions in others.

Most people get through life without being bullied.

For others, it is a repetitive pattern because they themselves are the common factor.

You're an intelligent person, and I'm happy to discuss this further privately or publicly, but please don't judge anything I say as personal attack or you will want to attack back - which is never good for dialogue.

 

--------------------

 

Me:

 

I have been doing self-reflection all my life. As I wrote in the thread, I know what causes these things to happen, but there are always two parties to it.

I am causing insecurities in people who choose the easy path, then realize I am choosing the difficult path, then they feel bad in contrast, being reminded of their inconvenient self-knowledge that they tried to hide behind a mask.

I give people every leeway I can in this, since I understand their behavior is fear-based, thus I am being my lovely best, but without incentive to change, people won't - fear is way more convenient, and I'm not trying to make them change, but as this case shows, one can unwittingly get entangled in the affairs of such people, because they are lying to themselves and others, and that's deception, and deception is bound to cause problems like this, and then refusal of personal responsibility is what leads to arrogant and hurtful egotism.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Owledge

[Owledge]

WoW!

I understand what you are saying but I don't agree with your conclusion.

 

Never give up your honesty and sincerity!  It will cause internal conflicts.  Been there, done that.  It sucks.  Being honest and sincere may not win you any more friends but at least others will know where you stand.  (And you will be at peace with your inner Self.)

This is exactly my point. I suffer because I follow a path I know is good, at least in principle. Giving up virtue is one of the hardest things to do.

I have always been a bright kid. I saw what was unhealthy in people and chose not to succumb. As I said in my blog, it's a choice about whether to kill off your self-esteem in order to be liked by (rotten) peers. I'm not saying I shouldn't suffer because of my choices. I am saying that my choices are porpoiseful and that we need to talk about these things openly, thus I am doing that. Silent acceptance of injustice is one of the greatest evils in the world. Without it, all those wicked things would not be possible. We would pursue healing instead. (Always giving in passively, lovingly, does not work with people who are still living a conscious choice to follow the path of darkness. They will only exploit that, as mine has been exploited repeatedly. Sometimes even a punch in the face can be compassionate (because skillful in pursuit of someone else's healing).

I don't have any illusions about those musicians. I cannot change them. I just wish they had refrained from offering something they didn't intend to fulfill.

Ignorance is definitely bliss. I used to go to conventions and was able to (mostly) enjoy them, probably only because I didn't know how many of the people around me who superficially shared interests would leave me bleeding on the street.

 

Bronies are carring a big anti-bullying sign, yet they aren't willing to extend that to their own circles. Such cruel hypocrites.

 

Well, you know the saying: It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.

 

People tell themselves convenient lies, and I've always been the fool who actually makes an effort to live those things, not realizing how others are just playing pretend.

This honed my bullshit detector quite a lot.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Owledge

[Marblehead]

Okay.  More to respond to.

This is exactly my point. I suffer because I follow a path I know is good, at least in principle. Giving up virtue is one of the hardest things to do.

Follow the path that "you know" is the correct path "for you".

 

Eventually the suffering will be eliminated.

 

I have always been a bright kid. I saw what was unhealthy in people and chose not to succumb. As I said in my blog, it's a choice about whether to kill off your self-esteem in order to be liked by (rotten) peers. I'm not saying I shouldn't suffer because of my choices. I am saying that my choices are porpoiseful and that we need to talk about these things openly, thus I am doing that.

Yes, I have seen a lot of wisdom in your posts.  A bit too idealistic perhaps, but still.

 

We will always have enemies.  We don't need enemies in our life who pretend to be our friends.

 

I will state:  You should not suffer because of your choices.  Sure, suffer because of the effects of our bad choices.  That's part of the self-realization and self-learning experience.  But whatever the choice was, it was surely the best of all possibilities at the time else we would have made a different choice.

[Owledge]

Some people take advantage of altruism and others mistake kindness for weakness and try to exploit it.

Whisper it softly but IMO we're all of us a little bit egotistical now and again.

Try as we might that old ego does pop out now and again.

Altruism beats egotism every time though.

Related thought I wrote down recently: https://twitter.com/Dowlphin/status/564441140330774528

 

Making an effort is what makes all the difference, and can be perceived and appreciated, no matter where a person is in their cultivation.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Owledge

[Nikolai1]

Hi Owledge,

 

When I read all the material on this sad story I came out with the feeling that you had acted so inappropriately that this must certainly be a pattern in your life.  Now I don't know you at all, so its only guesswork.  But the psychologist in me feels that you probably go through life aggravating people, or at least frequently find yourself in controversies.  You were very out of order.

 

Maybe you have noticed this yourself? that your social relations don't go smoothly.  Which is why you've come up with this idea that huge swathes of the population feel threatened by your courage to take the difficult path, which is the path of being nice and not egotistical.

 

Your social relations will never go well unless you learn to accept people exactly as they are, and to not judge them either in your own thoughts or words.  By accepting people, you won't feel this 'them or me' attitude which leads you to what looks to me like excessive self-bolstering displays of ego and self-aggrandisement.

 

The trouble is, it takes strength to renounce the false strength of ego-aggrandisement and to send it out instead to others around you.  What's harder is that you have an intellectual superiority over nearly everyone which everyone sees and can't in all good faith deny.  But you need to accept your gifts, and at the same time not feel like you merit them.

 

Fortunately for you, you haven't developed the pattern of habitual self-deprecation.  But you still need to find strength from somewhere and I can think of no better way than your sincere spiritual practice.  Be ambitious in this.  Go for the top.  Try to find your true immortal self which is so grand and will feel you with so much gratitude for life that you cannot help but be humble in the face of it.  Then you'll learn what has been always been the case.  Lovable people get loved.

[Marblehead]

 Lovable people get loved.

I just had to quote this!!!!

 

(But lovable people should beware as they get taken advantage of too.)

[Nikolai1]

When you're a loveable person, you'll notice and love yourself for it. Then people won't take advantage because you have self esteem not to let them.

 

It's not a hard formula. Don't boost yourself up and put others down; don't boost others up and put yourself down.

 

Summed up as: stop thinking about it so much and just be.

[Marblehead]

Yeah, I just thought I should throw a little reality in there.  What you said is generally true though.

[Owledge]

@Nikolai

You are still a judgmental talker full of yourself. Saying what I did was inappropriate is a total perversion of what healthy people (which whom I have no problem at all interaction by the way, surprise, surprise Dr. Wannabe Freud) consider apparent. This is still total victim-blaming.

YOU need therapy with this distorted perception. You belong to the majority of unempathic victim-blamers who are the reason why there are still illegal wars in the world killing millions.

Please stop commenting on this, because your projecting and condescending/patronizing chatter is insulting and horrifying, and at that point there is nothing that can be done for you.

[Lth]

What happened is that there was material for a whole album but was expected to be put in one song. And the artist lacked communication skills to convey it.

I think what would be best is for Owledge to become a musician himself and put a masterpiece for us all to enjoy

[Owledge]

What happened is that there was material for a whole album but was expected to be put in one song. And the artist lacked communication skills to convey it.

 

I think what would be best is for Owledge to become a musician himself and put a masterpiece for us all to enjoy

It actually wasn't material for a whole album. It was mostly a collection of things from the same theme. Like a red ribbon. It was more about depth of the message than quantity, which should have made it relatively easy to make lyrics of.

Their real motivations and mindset got revealed in the process, so that makes speculation based on the initial situation unnecessary. When someone talks bullshit, it's to hide their truth, because they're too afraid to say it out loud. (They did say it very clearly between the lines though.) It's the mindset of a criminal. Offloading inconvenience onto others. If they don't want to say it, there's always the option to change the truth about yourself, but they chose neither. Collective not making an effort is dooming humankind.

 

Experiences like this have indeed shown me that it's too risky to rely on other people in endeavors like this. But the realization also further kills my creative energy, and my ability to learn yet another basic discipline like music production or drawing is impaired by the accumulated effect of painful experiences like this over the years. I already have an impressive skillset that I have invested many years in, but if in the process of trying to put it to good use, I run into assholes at every step of the way, and nothing I do can overcome such obstacles (thanks to the supportive world-spanning asshole network), what's the point of trying yet another time?

I'm like a bird who can sing the most beautiful songs when the sun is up, but I really don't feel like it when it's raining shit.

 

I thought the brony fandom would be ANY different due to the theme, style and message of the show, but I learned the hard truth that it's mostly makebelief there, too. I mean, it's an innocent kids' show, for God's sake, and then you have a certain popular fandom musician bascially go: "Pony porn? Hell, yeah!" That's kinda indicative of what pisses me off: Why make an effort to rise to an ideal if you can instead practice spiritual materialism and subdue it to your rampant ego?

 

So now talking about those problems is the only thing I have spiritual energy for. When problems get too big, they will create the necessity for a turnaround, and denying that counterforce, that effect from a cause, makes everything worse.

Not that this got me anywhere in the past (been there, done all that), but it doesn't seem to matter what I do anyway.

[Lth]

Don't let the mind get the best of you. Free your mind. And creativity will flow freely.

The mind and its expectations are a killer to creativity.

Unfortunately the majority of mainstream music comes from the mind.

Sad but true

[Owledge]

Don't let the mind get the best of you. Free your mind. And creativity will flow freely.

 

The mind and its expectations are a killer to creativity.

 

Unfortunately the majority of mainstream music comes from the mind.

 

Sad but true

Not really. I am highly creative. As I said, it's the craft that doesn't flow. The mind is coming up with new stuff all the time.

[Jetsun]

After seeing all the fuss they made in that vid and the fact that it was meant for charity that is a low thing to do, I think you have every right to be pissed off that they aren't doing what they promised. Yet it is a just a couple of individuals behaving poorly, there is no real need for you to take to heart, sure make sure people know about it and do what you can to say the truth of what has happened but really there is no need to get so pissed off that it affects you in such a negative way. The world is full of people doing things far worse than that

[Owledge]

After seeing all the fuss they made in that vid and the fact that it was meant for charity that is a low thing to do, I think you have every right to be pissed off that they aren't doing what they promised. Yet it is a just a couple of individuals behaving poorly, there is no real need for you to take to heart, sure make sure people know about it and do what you can to say the truth of what has happened but really there is no need to get so pissed off that it affects you in such a negative way. The world is full of people doing things far worse than that

What pisses me off is my understandable emotional investment, the joy and all, the fact that it was, as you said, charity, a brony convention... so many factors came together that this is like the worst possible thing because of that stark contrast. It's easy to say don't take it to heart, but just remember when you have been hurt. If ever, otherwise you don't know how it feels.

 

And all that is much, much worse because it made me realize (more than already) how many other people are like that, too. The degree of hypocrisy! That sarcastic article I linked is of a relatively non-influential media, and they did it because it's what they do, but the really influential ones would never touch it. And remember the stance of the convention organisers who ran the charity auction!

 

So in effect, very few fans will ever hear about this, and of those who do, most probably side with the assholes.

And the people you say who are doing far worse things than this ... they have the same mindset. One thing leads to the next. BTW if by far worse you mean killing people ... imagine someone had won the song collab who is much more vulnerable than I. Imagine they had committed suicide over this. And what's so horrifying is that I KNOW that wouldn't have changed anything, because the problem is lack of empathy and egotism to a sociopathic degree, and that is pathological; there is no conditionality. It would have been "very unfortunate and tragic" and that's it.

 

I have come to distinguish between "MLP fan" and "brony", because the latter is based on a brotherly spirit, and the majority of fans has no idea what that means.

[Jetsun]

Well people commit suicide for reasons such as feeling unloved in childhood or because they are mentally ill, or because of long standing mental/emotional problems, so really some perspective may help because someone not writing a song about you when you expect them to is not in any way in the same ball park. Its not in the same ball park as all sorts of problems. Even if it triggers something its not the cause of it.

 

Yet i'm not trying to say you have no right to feel the way that you feel, pretty much everyone has had their real legitimate feelings undermined and ignored to a certain extent, but when people react strongly to relatively minor things in day to day life it is usually because something deeper has been triggered. 

[Owledge]

but when people react strongly to relatively minor things in day to day life it is usually because something deeper has been triggered. 

I thought this would be common knowledge, but it could also be a cumulative effect. Sometimes shit just happens to you repeatedly, and at some point it's too much.

Take road rage for example. You find it in assholes, but also in decent people.

[liminal_luke]

Edited out the snide parts which (opps!) turned out to be the whole thing.

 

Liminal

Edited February 25, 2015 by liminal_luke