What Is Self-Respect? (10 - 24 - 23)

Wellness by Nathan Hill, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=153203: "They find a view of the world that agrees with them, a spot that feels safe and secure, and they plant themselves on that spot and don’t move. Because if they did move, their certainty and security and safety in the world would fall apart, and that’s too scary and painful to contemplate. So people prefer their illusions — that the world is definitely a simulation, or that acupuncture is a thing, or that juice cleanses work, or that Ebola was created by the government. It’s a little assertion of sovereignty amid the chaos. In the face of insurmountable threats and distressing precarity and pain, the body longs, more than anything, for certainty. You could say that certainty is, in fact, the flip side of pain — it’s what pain looks like reflected off the fun – house mirror. When I see people on Facebook express their loud inflexible certainty about some political thing, what I believe they’re actually saying is I am in great pain, and nobody is paying attention . This is also true for people who believe deeply in soulmates, like, say, your husband. What Jack really needs is the illusion of certainty… * “Believe what you believe, my dear, but believe gently. Believe compassionately. Believe with curiosity. Believe with humility. And don’t trust the arrogance of certainty. I mean, my goodness, Elizabeth, if you want the gods to really laugh at you, then by all means call it your forever home .” Conservaphobia: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=144168 Conservative Claims of Cultural Oppression: The Nature and Origins of Conservaphobia, Part Two, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=144294 Conservative Claims of Cultural Oppression: The Nature and Origins of Conservaphobia, Part Three, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=144821 REVIEW: The Star Chamber of Stanford: On the Secret Trial and Invisible Persecution of a Stanford Law Fellow, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=143937 Stanford Star Chamber, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=143824 Reaction to Stanford Star Chamber, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=143994 https://ronyguldmann.com/ Joe Biden’s Hero’s Journey To Israel And Back, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=153185 Concepts Illuminate & Obscure Reality, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=153136 NBC News: Michael Benz, a conservative crusader against online censorship, appears to have a secret history as an alt-right persona, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=153009 Israel vs Hamas, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=152992 What Makes A Great Pundit?, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=152961 What Happened To Jean-Francois Gariepy’s Ex-GF?, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=152955 * Road to recovery: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=130767 * Ideas that give me energy: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=130933 * https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=136900 Our Problems Are Not Our Problems, They’re Just Symptoms Of Deeper Problems * https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=136247 With or without you * https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=133894 I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other Self-Help * https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=133768 Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless * https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=132822 Bypass your self-destructive tendencies * https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=132737 A life that works * https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=130933 Bringing souls out of hiding My best posts: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=143746 Your Hero System Is Your Morality And You Get It From Your Tribe, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=150319 * My Principles For Understanding Reality (7-14-23), https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=149194 * My rules for life, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=147702 * Recommended reading, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=149155