8/8/2019 People confuse me

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People confuse me? Be it men, women, black, white, catholic or Jew...well I dont really know any

Jewish people so I guess they are off the hook. But yes people confuse me. They confuse me to the

point where I doubt myself. Im not saying Im perfect because Im far from it but in life you learn

lessons on the way and most things you learn I think give you confidence in yourself and your

actions. But then I will find myself in situations with people and they make me think I am wrong; that

what I think is incorrect or that I have done something bad; when actually they are in the wrong;they are incorrect or they have been bad. My problem is sometimes people can be so forceful with

their opinions that I cannot help but look at myself. Maybe I have done these things? Maybe I have

been bad? Maybe I should change what I think? Sometimes they are right and I should change. But

sometimes and when I say sometimes I mean more than average it takes me months of dwelling on

things to realise I wasnt in the wrong.

Thats my problem! Dwelling on what people say are my wrongs whether they are right or wrong or

not. I think I do this because of lack of confidence in my own state of mind. I am a confident person; I

know Im intelligent; I know I can work things out but something Ive never been confident about is

my state of mind. What I mean by my state of mind is the lessons I have learned over my life of

what is right or wrong. The confusing part for me is; my right and wrong; although constant and Impretty sure correct; doesnt seem to be the same as others right or wrong.

So I guess Im talking about peoples different values and how they are different for everyone. So my

problems could be solved if I just accepted other peoples values for what they are their values

and try not to let them get to me. But it isnt as simple as that because unfortunately I have pride as

well. "Pride", quoting the words of Marcellus Wallace, Fucks with you. It will convince you in many

ways that what you are saying is right and what others are saying is wrong. It will make people

argue; it will make people angry; it will even make people hurt others just to keep face. People are

so full of pride that I have to wonder if this is the problem with humanity. Why do we have to be

better than each other? or have opinions that we feel are more valid than others? But the most

important question for me is when our opinions are challenged why do we feel we have to fight forour cause and get angry?

Everybody does it at some point, especially me. If I know Im right I will argue until I win. Some

people will just argue even if they are wrong. Some people will even join in an argument that is

already heated to stir the fire even further almost for fun or if for instance their friend is losing;

sticking up for friends isnt necessarily a bad thing but, what starts off as a beautiful thing; the ability

to share and communicate ideas and thoughts to each other; actually becomes a pretty horrible

thing; a battle of wills. Could it be put down to the level of intelligence of the people arguing?. If

someone has a theory on a subject and is talking about their theory then all of a sudden someone

steps in and says well have you thought about this? and the thing to think about destroys the

original theory as it wasnt very well thought out. Ideally it should just be looked at as a bit ofknowledge that needs to be thought about by the original theorist but 9 times out of ten the person

will just refuse to except that piece of knowledge point blank and will just carry on fighting their

cause just a little more forcefully. It could be an intelligence thing; but I think its human nature and is

even more prevalent in Academia.

8/8/2019 People confuse me

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I have a History lecturer, who will remain nameless, but he explained how Academic history works in

very simple terms. History academics run in gangs. You get accepted into the gang if you have

similar ideas on what actually happened in history. These ideas and theories are the gangs turf.

And to protect the turf these gangs of historians use the academic equivalent of a drive by

shooting which is called a peer review. So for those of you who dont know what a peer review is

its commentary written by academics on other academics research. So if you agree with a certaingang of historians they give you a good review and your stature as a historian becomes greater...but

if you attack a gang of historians views by committing the most heinous of crimes... disagreeing with

them; they write a bad review in the hope that your stature in the historical world will go down and

hopefully destroy your credibility as an academic. And yes even in academia some reviews are solely

there to destroy a persons argument whether it is plausible or not. Doesnt really seem to be the

way educated people should work to me. If we think about it in historical terms its this attitude that

kept the shape of the world flat instead of spherical as we now know it is today....but people were

persecuted for that simple crime of disagreeing with the norm. I can almost understand the reason

why this happens; because if you had dedicated a lot of time to a certain way of thinking and some

young upstart comes along and shatters the theories and ideas you have dedicated your life too;

pride wouldnt allow you to just let that go ...it would be natural to stick up for yourself.

Its the same with religion. If the people who want to believe in a god, and I mean any god, (I dont

really think it matters which) want to believe there is a god.... whats wrong with that? The problems

occur when those people decide that others, who dont believe in the same god that they do are

wrong and are willing to do anything to change minds. Thats pride. If youd been brought up

believing one thing and then someone said you were wrong I think youd want stand up for your

beliefs. The trouble is with religion is that nobody knows if anybody is right. And that includes people

who dont believe in a god or creationism. Im in that camp...but I could be wrong?

So from these thoughts Im going to come to the assumption that pride turns a beautiful possibility

into a pointless inevitability; that pride makes free communication into verbal aggression in all levelsof communication so where as in time free communication between everybody in the world could

help humanity reach its highest ever form of collective consciousness...instead it is going most of the

way to destroy any form of collective understanding and causing mass separation.

I think if people just accepted, as Ive suggested other peoples values and opinions as their

opinions and were just happy enough with the knowledge that what they believed to be true was

just their own opinions and it didnt matter if they were right or wrong. Somewhere in the future

with everybodys thoughts, opinions, views, truths, facts and theories, all out there and being freely

discussed without the fear of reprisal; we might end up actually understanding a few things?