Parallel worlds, part 2
In my previous post about parallel worlds, I didn’t actually define the term. What I mean is that, even though we obviously physically exist in a single world, we perceive it in wildly different ways, to such a degree that I’m hesitant to say that it’s the same world. I explained how the world completely changed for two individuals, one who got ADD medication, and another who was burned-out. I went on to list a number of other differences that I would imagine change your outlook on the world dramatically. While I haven’t had (or taken) the chance to speak with people who are radically different from myself, I’ll try to give my perspective here:
Being self-absorbed vs. having empathy for others.
Intellectually, I try to show compassion, but it doesn’t come naturally and requires me to make an effort. Understanding how others feel, and having that be a large part of your life, probably completely changes how you view everyday situations.
Being self-confident vs. having self-doubts.
In most regards, I’m pretty self-confident, and that influences many parts of my life. It helps me try new things and not worry very much, and when something goes wrong, I know that it doesn’t change my personal worth as a human being. Poor self-confidence, on the other hand, changes your outlook and might mean that you don’t catch the opportunities that likely do pass by.
I rarely have major self-doubts that affect my view of myself as a perfectly fine and capable human being, but half a decade ago, when I realized that I was a bad writer I felt low for a month. Unfortunately I don’t remember how it affected the rest of my life during that month, but it’s only now, writing this blog, that I’ve started writing for fun again. My conclusion is that poor self-confidence makes things that could be enjoyable very much not so.
Having self-discipline vs. being impulsive.
Having ADD, as exemplified in my previous post, makes self-discipline really difficult. However, I believe everybody has time management issues to some extent, and it’s only a problem for those who cannot get everything done that needs to get done. An analogy would be financial budgets, where being able to pay almost all the bills is vastly inferior to paying them all. Being able to do almost everything you need to means that things can still pile up, and I’m sure it makes a world of difference whether things keep piling up or not.
Impulsiveness is not the opposite of self-discipliine, and maybe these are my prejudices speaking, but I imagine that being impulsive makes it easy to become distracted from doing whatever you’re trying to do. I suppose being spontaneous is a milder form, which wouldn’t be incompatible with self-discipline. The opposite is also true: just because you have poor self-discipline doesn’t mean that you’re spontaneous at all.
When I started expanding on this list of different world views, I somehow expected to be able to do them all in this one post, but that would make for a really long post, and even though I appear to be able manage more than a couple of paragraphs at a time, I don’t think I’m ready for that long posts. Notice how I’m rambling? Yep, that’s a sign that I should probably stop now.
- Part 1
- Part 2