Another thing I have realized is how many problems in peoples lives are caused by dishonesty, both with themselves and with others. As an example, consider people with low-self esteem who get hurt easily. Now when other people interact with them, they have a tendency to use lots of little white lies, because they don't want to hurt the other person. We have entire social conventions evolved to handle this and other things like it. And these conventions cause constant complications when lies run into each other, when people misinterpret each other, and so forth. The roots of the problem are two-fold, the person not willing to be spoken to honestly, and the person not willing to be honest if it means hurting someone (even though the person is really choosing to hurt themselves). It's like "The spouse who will make a scene if told the truth is asking for a lie." I think that part of making this work is making it clear that you believe every human being has worth, every person is worthwhile. Then you can tell them bad things about themselves, or say "No, I am not interested in doing that with you" without saying that they are worthless. It is ok to choose one person over another. It is ok to not want to spend time with someone. It is not ok to consider them valueless because of that.

I find it difficult to keep it in my mind that everyone has worth because I have a lot of natural elitist tendencies, caused by the fact that I am much smarter than most people. I constantly see people do things wrong, make mistakes, fail to correctly analyze situations, and in general, be dumb. My instinct is to say "I am better than them because I am smart, they have less worth." But that is wrong. In the past year I have become convinced that you can learn something from everyone, that everyone does some things better than me and some things worse. I make mistakes all the time in my life, constantly, caused by my own fears, imperfections, and bad habits. I do things that make me shake my head the next day in disgust at my foolishness. Just because I can see the imperfections of others much better now does not mean that those people are worthless. It is tough when I meet someone new who I see instantly is a phony, acting in a certain way because they think/hope it will make people like them, and I realize they have low self-esteem, or feel a need for exterior justifications. Because I have identified their flaws, I suddenly feel superior to them, because I am not weak in the same ways. But even if I am stronger than them on an absolute scale, even if I do better at making myself and those around me happy, I am still a victim of my own weaknesses, just like they are, and I should not feel superior. We are all imperfect.

I am realizing how annoying it is to interact with people through this morass of social conventions designed to protect us from ourselves and from others. Not that some of them aren't valuable, but I think many shouldn't be used so much. I want to be able to criticize and be criticized by my friends without either of us feeling bad or thinking the other hates us. I want to be able to walk away during a lull in conversation without having to formally disengage myself to make sure the people know I am not rejecting them by leaving. And with a lot of the people I know, these things work, but with a lot of the people in the world, they don't. People get caught up in these bad habits, and then constantly agonize about getting out of the resulting situations.

Another issue: Its ok to not like things. Its ok to not want to do things. Its ok to be scared and intimidated. I am struck by the way friends who are very different from each other interact. One of them wants to do something, the other does not, because of a reason that the first doesn't respect, perhaps he doesn't think it is fun when its obvious to the other it has to be fun, perhaps he isn't very good at it and doesn't enjoy looking bad. There are many reasons not to do things that are not terrible reasons, but that other people don't give any respect to. So the second person finds themselves trying to argue their reluctance, trying to find reasons that the first will respect, because they want their friends to respect them. So they lie, and rationalize, and try to win, and the other plays the same game, trying to argue within the created structure of bullshit. Really, nobody wins. If they decide not to do it, the second person is stuck with their lies and rationalization, with the actual reason just hidden inside, never having been addressed. If they end up doing something they didn't want to, they probably won't have fun.

Now, I understand that some of the reasons people don't want to do things really are bad ones. Shyness, fear of new things, fear of being bad at things, need to be conquered in order for people to grow. It is sometimes the case that the person who gets talked into doing something ends up being happy, ends up having fun anyway. This provides negative reinforcement, because it makes the people who argued them into it continue to not take their protests seriously, and continue their behavior of arguing. And this reinforcement is correct, because it means the original protester was wrong. But if people are more honest about their reasons, and their friends respect these reasons, then they will have much better success at figuring out when the person is right and when they are wrong about what they want to do. And the whole interaction is cleaner, is purer, has less complications and regrets, when it is done more straightforwardly. It is ok to say "I don't think that would be fun for me." You have to be willing to take chances sometimes, to try things anyway, but you should also be left alone sometimes. You need to pick your battles with your fears, and your friends should be your allies in this, which means not telling you to fight every battle, but encouraging you to fight a few, and giving you max support when you do.

So thats a brief diatribe on human nature. On to academics.

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