Valuing diversity

If you are reading this blog, you probably have wondered, why is this lunatic so negative? How does this fool even get up in the morning? How on earth does he manage to get anything done? Why is he so critical? Why can't he be more positive? Why doesn't he praise me more and tell me that I'm a good person and I'm worthy to be alive?! All because I am very special and unique, just like the rest of the 6 billion people on Earth!

Well, I'm not your mommy who coddled you. I don't want to be the daddy you wish you had. I sincerely believe that we have the possibility of doing anything and achieving whatever goals we set for ourselves. All I am pointing out is the realistic probability of accomplishing them. According to the laws of quantum mechanic and what we know of elementary particles, it's possible that we can walk through walls, but the probability of aligning particles just right for one particular person to walk through any one wall is infinitesimally small. Yet, dreamers continue to fantasize. There will always be another get-rich-quick scheme right around the corner. You can get your student loans paid off without having an income. There will be another Nigerian prince who needs to use your bank account to transfer money out of his country. In a few more months, someone will come up with yet another fool-proof method of getting girls. I would be very selfish if I don't tell you about my plan to have a massive passive income from blogging so that I can retire from my real job. And there will be a cure for cancer too!

There are couple of culprits for fueling this delusional thinking in people. The main cause being the feel-good self-esteem building humanist movement that started in the 1970's. This problem is especially prevalent among American kids who grew up in single-mother households; they are brought up to think they are kings and queens of the world without their fathers to rein in their childhood fantasies. Most of them think that they can be anything they want, all because their mothers told them so, but almost everyone of these kids is expecting constant praise to get anything done! So the end result is that we now have grown ups with the Peter Pan syndrome failing to live up their dreams and of course, they blame everyone else for their problems except themselves.

Well, life is tough and it's about time that someone comes along to smack some sense into this whole bullshit self-improvement I-can-be-anything movement. Truth is, I think this movement is a joke and I'm not the only person to see the whole absurdity of it all. This reminds me of a dear Jewish friend of mine who explained to me. According to him, had all Jews been positive and optimistic during World War II, while Hitler and his minions were gassing his people, none would have escaped and continued what's left of their culture. That, my dear readers, is why in difficult times, the genes of people who examine life realistically, critically, and to many, negatively, persist and thrive. In periods of prosperity, the delusional optimists will triumph without any doubt. But when shit hits the fan, just like when this whole housing bubble popped and the hedge funds collapsed, who will come clean up the mess?!

Instead of waiting for disasters, we might as well prepare for them. Better yet, we should call out those hustlers. When something is too good to be true, it probably is. Nearly one year ago, I got into a huge flame war on a forum for calling out two hustlers who claimed to have game; I waited until they started to rip people off. A few months later, another group of hustlers tried. Not even half a year later, another hustler emerged and yet another recently. So instead of asking people to pay for his dinners, or pay him half-price for his expert dating advice, he was asking for people to give him money in unmarked envelope and the latest one, give him gift cards! Wait until the IRS get wind of their "income." At what point do people see these internet forums for being the cesspools of losers and hustlers?!

Putting these entertaining anecdotes aside, the world is a big place and there are many types of people with differing opinions. I'm sure some of those optimists have done some good things and a few have achieved beyond their wildest dreams. But those are miracles, and miracles are exceptions. Just as there are some comatose patients who wake up after decades-long comas, what we don't ever get to see are the tens of thousands who died of bed sores. Just as in almost every lottery drawing, we will get to watch the jubilation of one or a few winners, but we will never find out the millions more who lost. So instead of paying to win that lottery drawing or waiting to wake up from that coma, we can follow many well-known well-trodden traditional paths to success. Better yet, if someone thinks s/he is so special and unique, s/he should go discover his/her very own path to success instead of paying some hustler to learn to do it. Be creative and be original!