The Glade 4.0

How often do your views on things change? Do you see it as a strength or a weakness? How does it make you feel? Do you consciously allow them to change or does it just happen?

I am talking politics, spirituality, socializing, perceptions of people, culture, appropriateness, right and wrong, etc.

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"The map is not the territory."

Rarely, usually through demonstrated changes in the subject, and neither all good nor all bad. Growth, and failure, happens.

The knowledge base changes as well, the more you learn about something the more your opinions are subject to change, for either good or bad.

i.e. In my youth, as a boy, I thought the United States had won WWII, our awesome military might had saved the day. Later on I realized it was a WORLD war and many countries, most notably the Soviet Union, had contributed more, and suffered exceedingly heavier losses, much more than the US ever came close to.

Our contribution to the war effort was important, so were most of the rest of the world's contributions.

This changed my views on the awesome might aspect of the United States.

That what you are looking for 'peri?

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

That's a good response, Micheal. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I'll write my own.

My views constantly change so much that it's ridiculous. For most of my life, I had a bad habit of wearing viewpoints like suits. I would have perceptions of reality that seemed flawless for a time, until new evidence caused them to crash. This still happens frequently.

When I was in high school, I was strongly in support of war because I thought it was cool. I was very shy in high school.

In my senior year, I decided I wanted to join the Navy ROTC. Didn't happen from exercise induced asthma. I also wanted to lose my "innocence". I acted like a deviant criminal for a few months and caused some trouble, but never got caught. I got laid. I thought I did everything and understood everything.

This is about when I started posting on the Glade. I soon acquired very libertarian views because they appealed to me. I cared a lot about rights and freedoms... basically Elmo's viewpoints.

Socially I was stuck at being shy, throughout college until my senior year. I always tried to be a perfectionist and put myself under a lot of stress, because that's how my father acts. I thought it must be the best way. Being a social perfectionist makes you shy. Being a workaholic makes you stressed.

I started wondering why I wasn't getting girls like so many other guys were, and started caring about this. I dwelled on my physical attractiveness. Obviously, that must have been the reason. I was a shy extravert stuck in a cage of perfectionism... a stable reality. I could express my true views on the Internet but that was it. I trolled on the Internet to let loose my wild side. In games I griefed for the same reason. In person, I cared far too much about other people's perceptions of me. In person, I thought it "mattered" to care a ton about other people's feelings. This is what my father always taught me. It kept me in a cage of false social reality.

By my senior year of college, I started letting loose more and more as I started seeing patterns in the behavior of girls. I didn't want to invest too much "fakeness" in getting a girl when all efforts might be in vain anyways. I started to realize... slowly... that the issue was my socializing. At first I tried to recognize behavior patterns to make myself the best socially. I'm naturally really good at recognizing patterns. I did online dating because you write before meeting someone. I tried really hard to make a good impression of myself as a stable, normal person. I was really not stable or normal, but rather an immature person held in chains, only willing to express himself on the Internet where there are no consequences.

Recently, I let loose too much. My Facebook got banned. My entire extended family thinks I'm bipolar. I let the pendulum swing too far the other way. I didn't control AT ALL anything I had in my mind. I took honesty to the extreme, and made social barriers non existent. I repeatedly had emotional breakdowns.

I'm trying now to stabilize myself and have been successful. Letting loose with strangers helps me quite a lot, actually. I don't feel as strong a need to bother family and friends. I'm still highly immature, but at least I do not feel bounded by chains. I finally feel more alive.

Politically, I began leaning more and more to the left. I think a support system is great for society. I don't want people walking around with machine guns. I want cameras on streets to catch criminals. I find it highly important to control people for their safety, and for their physical health (not mental!). I think everyone should have the right to healthcare... or to make people here happier... the "privilege" to healthcare.

However, I wish people wouldn't so strictly follow social barriers that are self-imposed. I can't force people out of them, so I will only do so with myself... to have a more fulfilling social life for myself. I think most people are in a walking daze.

My sense of "reality" crashes all the time and gets reconstructed with new, slightly better, but still paradoxical and false ideas. I'm finally able to live more and more in the present. My family still thinks I'm mental. Maybe I am, but at least I feel alive and not like the walking dead... which is the way I used to feel. Maybe I was depressed but was just too proud to see a therapist.

I have a much more forgiving view of people now. They don't bother me too much. Everyone has their own opinions and I can't be responsible for changing them. I don't hate girls for the way I sometimes think they are. Everyone is an individual. I don't hate reality... it's actually a great game to play. It's a game that constantly moves as you play. Sometimes I'm slightly pessimistic, but I can't always expect to be in a good mood. At least I recognize that I'm the source of all my emotions. This fact has helped me a lot.

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"The map is not the territory."

This is not necessarily a bad thing.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

It takes a lot to change my views on things these days. It's not impossible, but at least politically, I've seen enough in my life to make my conclusions and cement them. Every now and again something pushes at the margins here and there. If anything, the Glade has definitely galvanized and cemented the reasons why I am not a conservative.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Imperi - You are young and still learning about the real world (outside school/academia and your parents influence) at a very rapid pace. Believe it or not, the fact that they are changing as you discover more, learn more, is, as Talya put it, not necessarily a bad thing.

Just try not to become (very low chance) one of the idiots who has the same opinion as the last person they talked to.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

The older I get, the more people's ideas bounce off of me... I rationally consider them but I don't automatically agree as much.

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"The map is not the territory."

Slowly and only after a good deal of debate, research and thought. Every once and a great while something will happen to cause a huge shift. For me it was the Terrie Shievo (sp) incident in Florida that changed my view of the Republican party, and caused me to leave it.

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

My views rarely change...but that's mostly due to the fact that those who oppose my views are pretty terribly at defending their own and often come off looking and sounding like complete retards. Then again, I'm pretty bad at it as well, which is why I rarely attempt it.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

I use to be a lot more black and white on issues, however as I grow older I'm seeing more and more shades of grey. Couple of examples I guess, not gonna go into detail cause that’ll just take too long hehe.

I use to believe that an abortion should be a woman's right regardless of time of term, however studying and thinking through things I now believe that it's a woman's right until the 9th week when the child develops organ systems.

I use to be an atheist, however after studying and talking to many people I learned that god does not have to be an image or person. God could simply be the energy around us, the bond of the molecules, the interactions between atoms, the attractions of electrons and protons. I started developing my own belief system and guess I’m an agnostic now.

I use to believe that people should have a right to their own money. However as time goes by I see the good taxes and health care system (at least in aust) provide (to the truly needy) and am not so opposed to it as much anymore.

I use to believe that people are born into their blood. (kinda like nobility but asian style) However I now see that it’s more a choice what you achieve with your life rather than what you were given. I’m a lot less understanding of those who believe they were born into a lifetime of poverty.

There’s lots more, but these are just a few that came to mind.

I have an opposite approach. I am not a sage of any sort, and if there is one thing I know, it's that I don't know half of the beginnings of anything.

That said, I am a man on a journey. As much as I understand my human limitations, I constantly seek to challenge them, and to try and learn just a little bit more every day, in every situation. There is no merit to winning an argument if you are not correct in your assertions, and to this end I challenge myself constantly. I don't want to "win". I want to be right.

You can't be sure that you are right if you close off your mind and refuse to learn, and learning is simply changing ones own mind.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

QFT, Rynar.

I've come to the conclusion that my opinions about anything can be swayed by reason. I try to consistently reevaluate my positions; if I can't use logic and reason to convince myself about something, why should I have that position at all? Basing the framework upon which I build my life by the way I feel about things went out the window in my early twenties. Hell, Dennis Kucinich changed my mind simply by getting off the bleeding heart soapbox and reasonably stating his case.
I find that listening, really listening, to the logic of those I disagree with most strongly allows for the most expansion of my preconceptions. Closing out someone because you don't like the positions they hold seems to be the quickest way to reach the utmost height (or depth) of ignorance. I'd hate to think that I'd grown so unthinking that I'd describe my opinions using metaphors that include stone and steel. Like Rynar, the only thing I am absolutely certain of is that I know just enough to be aware of just how little I know.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

The political world is especially complicated by the fact that people expressing truth compete with people chasing power, and it's nearly impossible to tell them apart.

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"The map is not the territory."

Which is why truth is not to be found in the words of men, but instead the results of their actions.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

That's a good point. Or you can look back at their words after lots of successful action.

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"The map is not the territory."