Haha, Kim and Ayes, good perspectives there!
When you're older, at least you can understand these things better, even if you still can't use them in every day life. :D
Probably never will be able to, like those idealised self defence moves that martial arts experts always show off with their overly helpful play acting students. Yeaaaahh… How many will ever be able to use those in a real situation?


One big thing I've learned for myself that I hope to be able to use is not to be as adaptable and flexible as I am. It makes social situations easier but you lose respect, give ground and end up worse off.
The way I relate to people is a subset of that. For years I've used a Jungian perspective: I suspend my own reality when dealing with someone and temporarily replace it with theirs.
They believe in alien abduction, OK, now I'm living in a world where alien abductions are possible. They believe in vampires and ghosts, OK, I do too, stock up garlic!

-Again, that's a great way to relate to and get along with people, but you can also end up enabling ignorance or bad behaviour like racism, sexism, etc. You also subsume your own personality and ideas beneath there's, which is a bad idea for a lot of reasons.

Ha! Yes, Ozone, I too find myself being drawn into other people's worlds; not just trying to see things from their perspective, but totally doing it! - like a social chamelion! (I've often noted how I start imitating the accent of whoever I'm talking to… different thing, I know, but same playing field…). It seems, on the surface, a good trait to have, but sometimes I wonder about it being overdone…
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For example, I think, being able to so easily see other's perspectives means being able to see ALL perspectives and angles easier, which makes it very easy to take the counterpoints. I'm often accused of playing the devil's advocate, but what I CALL myself doing is just presenting the alternate scenarios or viewpoints… but I've noticed something. When you can alway see all viewpoints, and relate to them, you sort of never develope strong viewpoints of your own!
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And this is a Truism! If you don't feel a strong conviction about something, you likely won't ever act on it! All the great movers and shakers in the world had a strong conviction about their cause. I'm pretty sure if Ghandi spent a lot of time contemplating the benefits of British rule (and there were plenty) his non-violent rebellion never would've gained traction!
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So, I find myself the opposite - I don't stand up for causes enough, because I so often see the other side of them. I fear having strong convictions, because I know how badly they can be misused (Hitler, anyone…) So I avoid them, and do little to change the world (or my little corner of it)…
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Therein lies Wisdom, learning to balance conviction while being able to relate to other viewpoints… or maybe I've gone totally off the rails… :)

ozoneocean wrote:

There are no “higher” parts of your awareness or conciousness, and unless you're starting out with repairable brain damage, you can't expand it. Your awareness of the world is very finite.

Very perceptive. One path to wisdom is realizing the limitations of your percreption of reality and expanding the your awareness of your limitations. Just being aware of being aware. Or put simpler: Just being.

Yas folks, it all goes back to the Lao Tzu and the Tao De Ching. Knowing that you don't know is the a high form of self-awreness. Knowing that you can't know is the highest and then being happy in the fact that you really, in the end, don't want to know.

But then that is how I see it and you may see it differently so long as what you do works well for you and doesn't hurt others all is good, walk beside me and be my friend. Just know that I am distant and often react with a snap because my thoughts are elsewhere and I don't like my reverie being interrupted.

But then life is one big interruption of my reverie. Maybe the after-life is an eternity of me not being interrupted but then that would get boring.

Hell is in your perception of things, not in how the things actually are. If a tantrum releases your frustration to allow calm, rational problem-solving play out the tantrum then sigh and get'er done.

I think there's one more thing I've learned…

Better a group of people managing a webcomic site than just one person. No matter how nice that person is (or isn't), they will eventually go insane.

Not implying anything. Really! I'm not… yeah…

True Lonne. True.
I think that's the old one about “Power Corrupts”.

If I may, I want to share my own insight into becoming an adult.
No one gets to adulthood magically knowing how to adult. There is no adult of any age who genuinely thinks “Yeah, I know everything about how to adult. I've got my adulting degree right over my fireplacetainment center.” When new things crop up, it's just as scary as when you're starting out as a teenager trying to be responsible and mature. The only difference is that as you get older, you've had more of those “Oh god, shoot! DAMN!” moments to draw from, and you remember what worked and didn't work then.
Being an adult is a rough thing, but incredibly liberating at the same time. As an adult, you learn that everything is your fault all the time, and you have to try and fix it. But, you get to make the decisions. You get to decide what to do. The consequences can be really harsh and sometimes have terrible, awful fallout, but the consequences are because YOU chose to do or not do something. No one else is deciding things for you and suddenly things go wrong.
So, yeah, you can decide to eat hot dogs and ice cream for breakfast. I don't recommend it, but that becomes your choice. And if you do, the stomachache that comes later will be your fault; but damn if you didn't enjoy those hot dogs, huh?
My advice; learn how to make decisions, and learn how to take responsibility for those decisions. Sometimes that means owning up to bad ideas and dealing with people getting mad. But acknowledging what you did wrong means being able to fix it, and sometimes the fixing becomes the important thing. Go forward with what you want. Try to be considerate of other people, and don't actively hurt anyone. If you do, apologize and make up for it.
Don't sit and wait for things to happen. Don't hope that things will change, and THEN you'll become what you want. Because if you're not making the choices now and shaping what you want to be now, it's a lot harder to try and pick up the skills you need later. Make the mistakes, learn from them, improve, and try again.
I know we've all heard this advice before, but I'm speaking from personal experience; DO IT. Just do it. Don't regret not doing it sooner. Love what you do, even when it doesn't turn out perfectly. Sometimes the mistakes lead to finding something better.
And if nothing else, you'll have a funny or moving story to tell later.

No one is 100% reliable. Even yourself. Just because you haven't messed anything up now doesn't mean you won't in the future.

What makes a true master at something? The fact that he continues to learn and expand his knowledge. I'm not sure what to call someone who thinks they know something so well that there's no more need to learn (after all, if they're the “master” at something then they know everything about it. right?)…