Before realizing you're picking sides, you need to be able to merely observe yourself. You see, everyone observes, yet few learn to be observed, and even fewer learn to observe themselves. Once you hack it, self-observation can be very enlightening. "Oh, you poor thing. Your wife isn't in the mood and you're hopes for afternoon delight are dashed. Let's throw ourselves a pity party in response." The observer might chuckle at the observed's plight. The observer watches and learns how the observed suffers over silly indignities and self-hatred. Over time, the observer teaches the observed to recognize the tension that exists in the gap between your expectations and reality. However righteous the expectation, you cannot thrive in the gap. And if you get what you want, you are exuberant and elated, but this too can be a trap. You start expecting everything to go your way, making the next failure even more devastating. The magic is in managing the gap. If you invest a lot of passion in your preferred outcome, you apply more tension to the gap. Incidentally, this is how dialectical materialism works. You set up a thesis (everyone should make $50k a year) and an anti-thesis (capitalism in inherently unfair) and wait for the Marxist to come along with the synthesis (take over the means of production and give everyone daily rations). You set up the game and you exploit the gap. In the end, they own nothing and are happy, and you own all their stuff and you're even happier.
Wolves pick sides. Chimpanzees pick sides. Meerkats pick sides. The behavioral predisposition to identify with a group and to "other" individuals outside the group is hardwired, and evolved in mammalian ancestors. The particular side we "choose" or are born into is culturally and environmentally determined. It takes tremendous discipline to overcome that urge. Very few people can do it. I have done it with sports, just like you, even though I was a die hard sports fan as a kid. Once I realized that it was simply a job for these athletes and they would easily switch teams for more money, I no longer chose sides in sports. However, I still do choose sides when it comes to the way a person thinks. My side is people who can think on their own two feet,. I "other" the sheep who can't or don't.
Regarding the last one, I constantly try to remind myself how little I really know. It makes me feel less judgmental or superior to even the dumbest people when I realize, that at times, I am as dumb as them, With dumb I don’t mean less intelligent, I mean less aware, Awareness is one of the few attitudes that don’t divide us in groups because it is impersonal.
Before realizing you're picking sides, you need to be able to merely observe yourself. You see, everyone observes, yet few learn to be observed, and even fewer learn to observe themselves. Once you hack it, self-observation can be very enlightening. "Oh, you poor thing. Your wife isn't in the mood and you're hopes for afternoon delight are dashed. Let's throw ourselves a pity party in response." The observer might chuckle at the observed's plight. The observer watches and learns how the observed suffers over silly indignities and self-hatred. Over time, the observer teaches the observed to recognize the tension that exists in the gap between your expectations and reality. However righteous the expectation, you cannot thrive in the gap. And if you get what you want, you are exuberant and elated, but this too can be a trap. You start expecting everything to go your way, making the next failure even more devastating. The magic is in managing the gap. If you invest a lot of passion in your preferred outcome, you apply more tension to the gap. Incidentally, this is how dialectical materialism works. You set up a thesis (everyone should make $50k a year) and an anti-thesis (capitalism in inherently unfair) and wait for the Marxist to come along with the synthesis (take over the means of production and give everyone daily rations). You set up the game and you exploit the gap. In the end, they own nothing and are happy, and you own all their stuff and you're even happier.
Spot on
Wolves pick sides. Chimpanzees pick sides. Meerkats pick sides. The behavioral predisposition to identify with a group and to "other" individuals outside the group is hardwired, and evolved in mammalian ancestors. The particular side we "choose" or are born into is culturally and environmentally determined. It takes tremendous discipline to overcome that urge. Very few people can do it. I have done it with sports, just like you, even though I was a die hard sports fan as a kid. Once I realized that it was simply a job for these athletes and they would easily switch teams for more money, I no longer chose sides in sports. However, I still do choose sides when it comes to the way a person thinks. My side is people who can think on their own two feet,. I "other" the sheep who can't or don't.
Regarding the last one, I constantly try to remind myself how little I really know. It makes me feel less judgmental or superior to even the dumbest people when I realize, that at times, I am as dumb as them, With dumb I don’t mean less intelligent, I mean less aware, Awareness is one of the few attitudes that don’t divide us in groups because it is impersonal.
I'm on your side :-)
Yes to all this. No team red or blue, freedom to not pick a side…starve them of the only thing they really care about…attention.