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I’m not nervous. I’m saddened by the lack of courage, lack of independent thought and this common belief that it is healthy and worthwhile to try and control h

I’m not nervous. I’m saddened by the lack of courage, lack of independent thought and this common belief that it is healthy and worthwhile to try and control how other people perceive you.

mattgreenrocks 6y ago
There's a perceptible slide towards culture telling people they need to worry more and more about extrinsic measures of value (e.g. what others think) in lieu of teaching them how to assess things for their intrinsic values, and weigh those along with external perceptions. It's no wonder we can feel like we have little agency at times: we've used outside sources for validation instead of building resilience. I used to be big into IRC, or in smaller channels. Eventually I noticed a certain persona was overrepresented on IRC: a sort of cynical, sarcastic type that could probably use a bit less time on IRC, but couldn't muster up the will to change. I see the same thing with social media, and, worse, we've normalized the addictive behavior, and made it easier to stay connected away from computers. I don't want to be that person.