>My only consolation is knowing that I'm seeing the world more accurately than I used to.
also known as growing older ;-)
also known as growing older ;-)
I'm probably more "idealistic" than I have ever been; it's just that I no longer have the silly "Let's just do this one simple thing" attitude. I've just found that getting places is always a lot more difficult than we think. Usually, it's people, and all their messy personal issues, that gum up the works.
The good news is, is that I am actually accomplishing more than I did, when I was younger. I'm devoting less energy, and it is often more frustrating, but shit gets done. A big reason, is that I understand myself, and the people around me, a lot better than I used to. They are no longer "NPCs" in my Game of Life.
As to the article, I seriously feel for the author, but I am not exactly in their shoes. I don't have anything against them, but their cause is not my cause. I don't have a dog in this race. I have nothing at all against trans folks. Many of my friends are varying types of LGBTQI+ folks. If I'm not going to bed with them, then who they love, and what they do, when I'm not around, isn't my concern. I'd usually like them to be happy, and support their choices, as long as they don't interfere with my life. I'm even willing to go out of my way, in some cases, to support them (that's what friends do).
The one thing that is almost guaranteed to make our cause to go floop, is insisting that everyone else is either with us, or against us. This is especially annoying, when our cause is important to only a small minority of stakeholders.
For some reason, almost everyone in our life ends up in the "against" column, and many of them started as people that actually supported us, but weren't willing to go much farther than that. So now, they are actively working against us, as we declared them to be "enemy combatants." The "woke" stuff caused exactly this reaction. It's not just left-leaning stuff, either. Activists of every stripe, do the same thing, and then act all puzzled, as to why everyone seems to be against them.
As Dr. Phil might say, "So...how's that working out for you?"
Masterfully said, I'd love this to be the pull quote here.
- Ronald Reagan, 1972
I get that there are some 'purity test' type people out there, and they're annoying, but they're a small minority in most things.
https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a...
How are you making that happen?
This is an honest question.
As I've gotten older, and developed a deeper understanding of the intractability of the world's problems, this change in perspective has cratered my motivation. It was one thing to give my all toward what seemed like it mattered, back when the scope for possible change still appeared to be great enough that one could imagine living in a better world: but knowing now that no matter what I do it's just going to be more of the same old bullshit, with maybe - at best, and this unlikely - one or another of the rougher edges on the great, awful machine of exploitation and suffering which powers our civilization slightly filed down, so that maybe a couple of people here and there don't get hurt quite as badly as they otherwise might have, while the core of the process continues crushing the life and beauty out of the world, unchanged... it's difficult to muster up any real energy to do anything about it. I still go through the motions, when it seems like I must, for conscience's sake; but I don't believe in it anymore. The source of my past effort is all gone.
I miss that past self, but I can't imagine how to believe that any possible accomplishment would actually matter anymore, enough to justify putting my back into it. What's your secret?
I can assure you that the work I do, makes a pretty big difference in some lives. We're not out to change the world. We're only trying to police our own area*.
Being older and more experienced, means that the work I do is much more effective, and much more economical (we don't have a lot of means). It also means that I work well with others, and am much better at team stuff.
*> “I was in the Air Force a while and they had what they call “policing the area.” And I think that’s a pretty good thing to go by. If everyone just takes care of their own area then we won’t have any problems. Be here. Be present. Wherever you are, be there. And look around you and see what needs to be changed.”
-Willie Nelson
Even in less obvious cases that don't involve old age, we often call something growth, when we should just say change. Sometimes we are all just more set our ways. Others, our "learning" is just abandoning principles so that we can follow random emotional fancies. Knowing when we are actually seeing the world more accurately, instead of being wrong in a different way, is quite challenging. We all want to think we are getting better, which is precisely whi we are blind to the ways in which we aren't. The convenient story often defeats what is actually true, but inconvenient.
Not entirely dissimilar to the exploitation of eg college athletes.