While on a road trip across West Canada a few months ago, I was listening to an audiobook series by Robert Anton Wilson, in which he shared one of his outlooks...
Every politician is either stupid, crazy, or a bullshitter.
Thing is, I don’t remember exactly whether he was directly focusing the truth of the statement to reference only politicians, or whether there was a potentially broader application, in which he had meant that everyone - even not politicians - are either stupid, crazy, or a bullshitter.
Being one to often “overanalyze,” the concept stuck with me - as I occasionally would come back to the question of not which of the three I might be, but how it was that I’ve played the bullshitter - while bullshitting myself, so as to not even really know it.
Of course, such terms such as “self-awareness” are relative. Though, there’s enough self-awareness to know and admit I'm not stupid. Nor crazy. Yet, as to where I'd be a bullshitter... an upgrade in self-awareness might still be required to pick that one off.
Possibilities...?
Maybe the grandoise sense of self I spent a large portion of my life trying to convince myself of and had projected outwards. (Perhaps part Leo Ascendant, too?)
For years, I may have bordered on narcisstic - whether holding myself in high regard due to a higher-than-average level of intelligence, talent, and ambition, overcompensating for a deep sense of insecurity, or more likely, a combination of both. Whatever the case, I had not yet developed the character to truly back the confidence. And I had both tried to delude myself into thinking I was next to God-like - and sell others on that belief, even if not directly. There was probably alot of bullshit in that.
Or perhaps the conviction with which I advocated certain ideas and imposed my beliefs and values on others...
From self-righteous extremist views on health matters, to business ideologies, and even things like praising Steemit as the holy grail of lifestyle design... my enthusiasm has not always been balanced, and I've frequently sensationalized sharings to manipulate context so as to reinforce my beliefs while weaving the subcontext to paint others in opposition to them as wrong. Yeah, guilty as charged.
Granted, I've matured at least a bit over the last few years, such that I'd hope such type of bullshit hasn't continued sneaking past the filters of self-awareness and discernment.
But then again, part of being human entails having blind spots...
(And given that "smart/stupid" is essentially relative, one such blind spot could be that I'm not a bullshitter, though just selectively-stupid).
Crazy... I don't buy it.
The idea in general, I mean.
It's a term that gets thrown around loosely, essentially as a label on anything that we're not humble enough to simply state, " I don't understand this," or "this makes me uncomfortable because it challenges my ability to be comfortable with that I cannot control or easily make sense of."
"Crazy" is an abstraction. With typically-negative connotations.
Calling someone "crazy" is a cop out. It removes responsibility to probe deeper and understand the complex web of factors driving one's thoughts and behaviors. It's a shortcut to putting someone in a box and write them off, rather than put in the effort to learn the lessons they may have to offer.
Most people who'd fit into the conventional "crazy" category merely have a shitload of buggy programming.
Unprocessed memories. Unresolved traumas. Faulty beliefs. Shitty self-images. Conflicting values.
Sometimes, chemical imbalances. Whether from genetic predispositions, traumatic imprints, dietary & environmental factors, or corresponding mental-emotional-spiritual imbalances.
Not "crazy." Just the inevitable chaotic outcomes of a messy web of internal coding overdue for an upgrade.
But most people generally don't give a fuck about that.
They'd rather just write a person off who acts in ways too far out of cultural norms.
Though back to the bullshit...
Maybe writing like this is a fine example.
Pulling something seemingly random outta my ass - an application of creativity to the ends of producing something that has some sort of illustrious aura to it and sounds good... perhaps if for little more purpose than to fill space justifying a self-serving payout.
Who's to judge what's "bullshit" and what isn't, really?
Sure, there is the "bullshit" that may be straight-up lies, misinformation, and all varieties of manipulative rhetoric. Though then again, some could just be alot more innocent - plays on words, experimentation with ideas, and ventures into the imagination which are no more or less "real" or of "substance" than other ideas which might gain more acceptance due to their resonance with culturally-approved belief systems.
Most all of the time we’re writing - perhaps unless it’s an objective, factual account of events - aren’t we just moreless *pulling words out of our ass - i.e. “bullshitting” our way through, in a sense?
Without question, were a person to spend years writing, there’d undoubtedly be a large amount of “bullshit” produced in the process.
For myself, some of that definitely came in feeding an appetite conspiracy theories - both in unwisely sharing underdeveloped perspectives and misinformation out of context with others on social media in attempts of validating overly-pessimistic views on the world. There was alot of bullshit in that phase.
Or perhaps even the years I’d spent journaling - compiling mounds of books filled with neurotic ramblings, when I could have channeled all that scattered creative energy into something perhaps more constructive for the service of others, rather than the service of destructive patterns of addiction to self-indulgent overanalysis - be it through writing in another format for public, following through with musical ambitions, or creative business ventures...
a decade worth of neurotic rambles.
Yet...
Just as “crazy” might not “exist” in the sense people commonly accept it to, as described above... or “stupid” might be relative, a term dependent upon a contrast measured on a spectrum... so too, may there be other dimensions to “bullshit...”
Without question, “bullshit” is a term packed with negative connotations. Yet, is that not merely cultural judgement of something as simple and standard in nature as the excrement of a living being, the byproduct of biological functions?
Bulls shit. Just like any other animal.
And while the product might have gotten a bad rep for whatever reason, manure has always been a nourishing ingredient for new crops.
Bullshit, in particular, for none other than magic mushrooms.
Yep.
As anyone who’s tripped on psycilocybin can attest to, magic mushrooms are just straight fucking awesome.
The magic that can come through their experience... profoundly epic beyond description.
*And the bullshit serves as the catalyst to the growth of this lifeform, which can be a gateway to marvels of reality unexperienceable any other way.
Ponder that for a moment.
So...
If actual bullshit can lead to the marvels beyond the gate of psychedelic mushrooms... what’s to say that the bullshit generated through the creativity of man might not also sometimes serve as a potential catalyst or gateway to new, amazing dimensions to explore...?
If we’re just pulling words out of ass when we write, maybe it is all bullshit we’re just making up as we go.
Yet, within the soil of our words, may be planted the seeds of ideas that could grow such that upon ingestion - with the right set and setting, just as with any other psychedelic - one’s consciousness can be bridged and senses opened to new realms in which possibilities and magic abound...?
(Or was that just some stupid, crazy, bullshit...?) 😉
I would agree that I am not crazy or stupid. I do think that everyone has a little bit of bullshitter in them.
So if we are talking about manure and bullshit.. I guess one could say entire countries are being spoonfed via bullshit. ;) Without bullshit we would all starve.
So I guess its settled. Bullshit is a crucial part of survival.
As for crazy and stupid.. you pretty much addressed this but it is highly subjective. Someone with very safe and smart characteristics could consider someone who simply enjoys skydiving, slack-lining or any extreme sport to be crazy and stupid for taking such risks. The reality of it is, these people could be some of the smartest and level headed people.
I enjoyed your crazy bullshit post, it put my mind to work. :)
Excellent. Intention fulfilled of enslaving the minds to such contemplation. lol. :-)
Why? Ask yourself. Do you like being criticized? What do you feel if there are people who criticize?
This is real happening. Many people who are criticized even hurt. Offended and disappointed. Then do not do anything. This is what is expected of a criticism. Make people who are working instead of doing anything?
We you and I, past or maybe until now often criticize others.
Why? Because we feel right and the critic is wrong. It is said that we believe that criticism is constructive. It's that simple. Emang hell, we like to justify our own thoughts rather than accept the thoughts of others.
What do you think ?
Crazy is definitely a cop out in most instances. I've found people hate what they don't understand. They'd be quick to label you crazy/stupid if you were doing something that had not been done before. Most of the inventors regarded as geniuses and people who somewhat saw into the future were at a time considered as crazy, dimwit or whatever label most of society uses to describe that guy or group of people whose thinking did not fit into the accepted ways of doing things. It's always refreshing to read something that challenges the norm or brings a new outlook to a subject. Thanks for sharing.
amen. 🙏
I can't believe you came to psycilocybin growing in bullshit, because it's exactly what I had in mind. Though I was also thinking that "crazy" is quite subjective and relative because it is no more than thoughts and behaviors which are out of the norm. A little out of the norm is nothing more than eccentric, but at the ends of the spectrum it is labeled as crazy. And that's all it is - a label. Who's to say what is crazy today might be completely normal 100 years from now? If you got sent back to the Roman empire somehow in a time machine, you'd likely think everyone there was crazy - yet that was just the norm for that time and culture.
I'm not gonna touch stupid, because I likely am. Nor will I touch bullshit because - psycilocybin. Plus bullshit is just dirty and smelly.
lol. :-)
"Bullshit"like any other human flaw is part of the experience. We need to step out of our perfectionism and embrace the fact we are flawed to the extend that we might not even determine what are our flaws. Rejection of these flaws won't change them. sometimes it is out of insecurity that we tend to be overthinking to cover the gap we feel within, I believe narcissism is another coping mechanism of insecurity.
holy shit! LOL I love the way you turned that around with the mushrooms at the end! what a metaphor - on many levels. Totally get what you mean. You brought a whole new dimension to the crazy/stupid/bullshitter comparison - awesome post
:-D
@rok-sivante I like your post :)
I'm just saying, madness is the inability to communicate what's in your mind. Like when in a foreign country, you can see and understand what is going on around you, but you can not explain what you know or what help you need, because you do not understand the local language. We've all experienced it..😁
I think Everyone is unique in his/her own way and have got a level of expertise naturally. Hence, it is not always a good idea to write people off as assholes.
When stated blogging last year, people around me used to see me as an asshole until December when I exchanged some 25sbd at unit rate of 15$ they realized that I might not have been a *use-for-nothing guy all this while. That there is a hidden meaning to what I do. And today, most of them are here too
We must always follow our heart irrespective of what others think
@eurogee of @euronation & The Host, Show Us Your Witnesses Weekly Contest
Mushrooms are highly enjoyable!
^ You BS'd me here
Then caught my mind out at the end too. Bullshitting is a creative art :D
😎🤡😈
You made me crazy and stupid at the same time with this post. Its like words are circling my head and won't align.
Deep thoughts.
Real Psychology.
Right words.
Crazy you. :)
@smafey
There should be a TL;DR to filter out all the BS in this article.
JUST KIDDING
I really enjoyed it. I once realized--on magic truffles--that if I dedicated my life to writing about the trip, I could never fully express how insightful and powerful the experience was simply because words are not efficient.
If you asked some of the greatest writers of all time--Ernest Hemingway, for example--"Ernest, great job writing The Old Man and the Sea...but did you nail it? Like really nail it? Did you really get that thought you had in mind across?" I am almost certain he would say no. I believe the same goes for painters like Picasso, Van Gogh, Michelangelo.
But there is hope. The first words were almost certainly grunts, and crude puffs of air. That evolved to more complicated inhaling and exhaling--fast forward tens of thousands of years and we now have English, Arabic, Spanish, Japanese, so many different languages.
What will we have in 1,000 years? 10,000? How will we be able to bullshit then?
Haha, great views and ponderances... :-)
Big Smile:)
I like how you turned the Bull shit in the end.
And the shit, in general, is mistreated. All shit. Human shit, animal shit and what else there may be. It is all manure. I guess you know that in some cultures it wasn't well observed when you - after dinner - did not let your manure where you got the food. LOL.
... It reminds me of a night long ago when I ate psylos baked in chocolate and after the effect had fully unfolded, I laughed incessantly at first about the situational comedy that only I understood at that moment and then cried like a torrent, because everything seemed to me to be too absurd and the masks around made me suffer. When a friend of mine tried to comfort me, I told her to stop talking nonsense. I thought she didn't really understand what it was about. But I still don't know if that was true.
Anyway, I find it was an organic speech of yours.
Thanks:)
😊
I don't see why they should be mutually exclusive, they can be stupid, crazy AND a bullshitter.
true true...
I really like the article because you have expressed all the feels in this article.. Writing articles of this caliber is quite a difficult task.... Keep it up @fok_sivante loved reading your blog!!
🙏☺️
You've been posting a lot of really interesting stuff lately.
It seems you're maturing quite fast these days and discovering new sides of you, which is great... what happened?
Just age?
Or was it any experience, like fatherhood or something? Or something you read?
I'm interested in knowing where of all this thinking came from.
Mmmm... I’d hope I was growing wiser with age...
Though if there were any single influence that’d adequately fit as an answer, it’d probably be introduced in this 4-part series written last June...
Ahahaahaaaa.. and so.. with joy and infinite realms of possibility abound, I for one am the stupid crazy bullshitter feeding a flower of consciousness to be smoked by fellow steemians! Me like dat 👌
I am interested in deepening the meaning in a paragraph in this post, which is: "For years, I might have bordered on narcisstic - whether holding a level of intelligence, talent, and ambition, overcompensating for a deep sense of insecurity, or more likely, a combination of both What is the case, I have not yet developed the character to truly back the confidence I was next to God-like - and sell others on that belief, even if not directly."
In my opinion, because God creates, then every one of us as a believer must recognize that the one who owns our life is God. Thus believers must make God the sole owner of life and shelter in this life. Here we must realize that, as human beings who are still living in this world, we have a mortal body, which is very limited in its ability, because the human body we wear today is the body of sin, the result of the fall of man into sin from the beginning, and the god is a refuge from the nature of this lie. May we not do lies and bullshit in finding a way here. I myself think that God is everything in my life. Ask for forgiveness and abstain from all bad deeds in life. May we be blessed, successful greetings to all of us.
hmm, I do not know what to comment. this is very unusual @rok-sivante. You can help me. I'm sorry
Haha. No need to apologize. And sometimes no need to comment all the time. :-)
good luck.i like it. that's really nice post @rok-sivante . thanks for sharing
You really sounding tough man.....chill @rok-sivante
More like a rap battle with politicians...
Good one ... I feel you.
@rok-sivante ....... your post is so nice and helpful. nice think. you are a too good person
I think politicians have been shamed too much. The writer should have generalized the statement. Most people around us have a trace of bullshit in them. It is not specific to politicians. I think people are just angry with politicians because they are the ones controlling the funds of the state. And yes as you rightly stated, that bullshit can have positive connotations too.
I think that the powers at be are bullshit and people are so drowned in the horseshit they can’t climb out of it. I guess the grass is greener though..
a very good post my honest friend I get more insight from you @rok-sivante I will always follow you.
wow ... very interesting postingannya and I think this is an interesting analysis to read and understand. thank you for sharing
Wow a great read. Really good info! Thanks @journeyfreedom
once in a while we might be able to do crazy or stupid things, but that does not mean we're stupid, but it's only done to entertain ourselves and not ordinary nonsense
A journey always an inspiring way to find idea in writing, its depends on how we turn the feeling in to a beautiful result thats come up in the post. Thanks @rok-sivante
You make me laugh at your article... (^_^)
But you have your point! I agree with that...
They must put an effort to learn the lessons they may have to offer to the others.
One man's bullshit is indeed another man's fertilizer. Popped over to check your blog, as I noticed you unvoted one of my posts. I don't blame you I wasn't sure why that particular post got the upvotes it did, when other posts that take more effort to produce earn next to nothing. Anyway, no hard feelings I upvoted you 100% and followed you, 'cos you're pretty funny.
Half my votes are cast through a bot “randomly” (Or according to some sort of algorithm, rather), so I’m guessing that might have been why... :-)
OK! :)
i look it's very nice post, you have more creativit and i want to following you every day but i'm not understand of your language, i'm sorry brother @rok-sivante because I'm from Indonesia
if you have time, let's visit my blog @bangmimi thanks
enlightened enlightenment buddy.
I always wait for your work @rok-sivante.
Every politician is stupid, crazy, or nonsense.
@rok-sivante, apparently, you have a soul activist as well :D
Can i get an upvote from you guys please
The #1 Thing To Do If You Want Upvotes (And Exactly What NOT To Earn Follwers And Respect)...
Read this.....https://steemit.com/steemit/@rok-sivante/taking-a-stand-against-spam-on-steemit-when-to-law-down-the-law
This spam....you may get flagged...
Ohho it's as if people are getting free upvotes.... Haha please give me too
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