I’m not going to change
Here are a few thoughts I’ve had over the past few days, most of which occurred to me while cleaning the floor every evening. All of this is true for me, and neither virtue signaling nor martyrdom.
Here are a few thoughts I’ve had over the past few days, most of which occurred to me while cleaning the floor every evening. All of this is true for me, and neither virtue signaling nor martyrdom.
I’m not going to stop being nice to people, even if that means being nicer than I “should be” and even if it doesn’t reward me in return.
I’m also not going to be a martyr to kindness. If a person has a “policy of being kind” then that can both imply and impose a certain level of social blindness and intellectual naïveté. I’m going to “default” to being nice, but I will switch to the stern enforcer of boundaries when necessary. (Raised in Texas and graduated from military school in Georgia, I know how to open a can of WhoopAss1 when I need to.)
I’ve had many occasions of being very kind to people only to then watch them rip me off, do bad work, or conspire against me and then take credit for my work and (in academia) usurp my position and assume it for their own after I had done all the hard work and heavy lifting. I’ve created multimillion-dollar products for the nutrition industry, only to then get paid minimum wage with no benefits. I created a multimillion-dollar academic program for a school that I loved, only to then be betrayed by the administrators (who were stealing the new money from the school) while all the faculty that I personally hired sat silent, did nothing, and then took advantage of my vacancy to advance their own careers and petty popularity. I’ve paid employees and contractors more than their worth, only to receive bad work and bad attitudes. I am not going to “learn my lesson” and become cold and tight with people; I am going to “observe my lesson” and be aware of the risks of kindness, and then continue being kind, knowing that I am doing so at my own risk. If I change and become a cold bastard just because I’ve been occasionally abused, then the abusers have won in their domination of my character and personality; I am not going to give them that power nor that pleasure, which —for some of them as petty do-nothing second-handers— would be the crowning achievement of their lives.
I’m not going to stop seeing the beauty and perfection in the world, and obviously I’m not going to resort to a supernatural or religious explanation.
I’m also not going to turn a blind eye to the stupidity and cruelty and psychopathy that permeates the world. If something sucks, then I’m gonna say that it sucks. If something’s bullshit, then I will label it as such. If someone tries to rip me off, then I will tell them that I see the game and I’m out.
I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make life beautiful.
This is what we should learn from Artists: How can we make things beautiful, attractive, and desirable for us, when they are not?
Friedrich Nietzsche, Joyful Knowledge
I will continue seeing the world as logical, even if I don’t understand it at first glance, or second.
My task is to understand the world and – in teaching situations – try to explain the inherent logic of things to others.
I’ll make whatever money I make (or don’t make), but I’m not going to be tight with money.
I think that when I was younger, I was generous out of naivety and now that I’m older I’m generous out of genuine kindness.