Insults on a person's intelligence

[Emanuel]

Hello, I have an idea I want to share.

Today I wanted to listen back to the Call-In show I had the other day, and I saw that it had been posted on Youtube recently.

If you didn't get to listen in, I was calling about my lack of motivation in the activities I take part in. It was hard for me(anxiety provoking) to get on the show and expose myself to big chatty forehead, as he is kind of a supermodel of philosophy for me, and I always value his insights.

I think Stefan helped me gain a clearer picture of my problem and what I could do to gain passion and start to really live.

 

Now, I went to the Youtube page for the show, and I decided to look at the comments before starting the video.

The first comment was someone saying, and I quote: ''Why even continue talking to people like Emmanuel when he's clearly operating on half a brain cell? There are a lot of callers like that. Sometimes I wonder if they are just trolls?''.

As I read that, I felt hurt, sad and ashamed. I started to self-attack and ask myself if I was really that deficient, and if I was somehow wasting everyone's time with my issues.

I really don't feel well after this, and it sort of shifted my entire mindset that I had before, when I wanted to look back at what someone I highly respect had to say to me.

I don't know why I felt that strongly about that person's comment, but I did and I don't think it's a good thing for me to be so sensitive to others, especially if they are abusive.

 

I was also wondering why someone would say something like that, don't they know that it hurts(especially coming from someone who watches FDR)?

I just feel down right now and I'm unsure of what to do from now on, to get my ambition back. It's really sad that it can go away like that, with one snarky comment on Youtube.

 

Thanks a lot, and I await your responses.

Emanuel

 

[kalmia]

I'm not sure if I have listened to this one. I know I have listened to others on lack of motivation, and I find the topic useful. I doubt he would have taken your call and posted it later if it was a waste. Lack of motivation is a common problem. Some refuse to acknowledge it.

 

If those commenters are dismissing your experience, they are dismissing you and don't have judgements of you that are worth considering. I think learning who to be emotionally cold toward is a useful skill. Some may disagree with that. I may be wrong. I know I repress a lot of emotion. I also don't feel safe expressing emotions. I was recently doing some work for a woman who told me that she has never seen me express a single emotion. I thought that was a bit odd since I feel them very much.

 

Emanuel, were you attacked and shamed for expressing problems and emotions as a child?

[Emanuel]

Thank you for your response.

I believe I was often the subject of abuse from my parents and other adults, when I expressed some emotions which displeased them.

My parents were/are religious and anything that went against their faith was seen as heritical and had to be stamped out of me.

I had a lot of problems with my environment, but I couldn't express them, lest I wanted to be shamed, yelled at or hit.

 

I don't remember a single time where I expressed myself openly to my parents, which probably means that they were evil from my birth onwards.

I feel sad that it had to happen that way, and every time I think about this, it brings up feelings of loneliness and fear.

I know that very few people think about these issues, and that our culture is extremely sick. I'm scared of what people can do when they are so abused and alienated.

I'm scared of what I can do when I'm feeling alienated. I can hurt people I really care about, if I'm not in touch with my own emotions, I can't have empathy for them.

[kalmia]

It's hard to care about people from a position of weakness. And you are weakened by your inability to express yourself to people who will listen.

 

I refreshed my memory by checking the YouTube video you referenced. Did you ever look into materials to help with what you were asking about?

[Emanuel]

I actually bought some books on productivity and started to organize things in my life.

I gave up on many projects and I have started to develop a more long term vision for myself, and adapting my projects to that.

I'm not sure if I have found a passion, but I am moving forward in my life, although I am still having some difficulties with procrastination.

I feel like it's getting better over time, though.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

I saw that comment as well and remembered the call as I had listened to it before. It was a good call and you were great. The comment you quote was completely uncalled for and lacking any empathy. I felt it was another example of what I often see in the comments section. That is, a massively disproportionate and insulting criticism of any perceived flaws in the caller's performance. There are lots of perfectly nice callers who receive this treatment and I often wonder how these obnoxious comments make them feel. Aren't we supposed to be a community with an above average understanding the difficult and often painful problems people have to work through? It's like, a person opens up to others he trusts and one of them throws a rock. You had the guts to put yourself out there and risk being vulnerable and all this other jerk can do is insult you from behind the safety of his keyboard. So the comment is really about him and his issues I'm guessing. I'm really sorry it affected you this way and that the experience was somewhat spoiled. I can understand to some extent why it it did hurt you. If I called in to the show and then saw such comments, especially from FDR fans, I think I'd be kinda crushed. 

I think this comments thing is important. Consider the preposterously overblown hostility Stef got (from so-called friends) for posting a sad face after a donations comment on facebook. It seems that us libertarians and freedom folk are often just as shitty as everyone else.

I'd like to hear you on the show again sometime soon and maybe you could mention this incident. All the best to you friend.

[cynicist]

I was also wondering why someone would say something like that, don't they know that it hurts(especially coming from someone who watches FDR)?

I just feel down right now and I'm unsure of what to do from now on, to get my ambition back. It's really sad that it can go away like that, with one snarky comment on Youtube.

 

They really don't get it. I would never say anything so horrible and cold about someone as that particular youtube commenter did, but I myself felt humbled after having a call with Stefan. It seems very easy on the outside but when you are talking to the man directly about the traumas of your life you feel not only exposed but also struggling to focus in spite of your defenses and sometimes trying not to break down if the call gets very emotional. You have been trained all your life to avoid being honest and so when dealing with someone truly empathetic like Stefan it can be kind of overwhelming and your feelings of possible attack or confusion from childhood return to you tenfold.

 

Remember that your experiences were carved into your brain while you were young and vulnerable and over many years, so there is no shame in feeling them now. It's fine to feel down about the fact that the average person is fairly cold and uncaring, it is sad. I wouldn't expect sympathy from people on youtube, since many of them watch Stefan for his material on the state/economics without interest in the personal/relationship stuff; You see them whining all the time about the call-in shows and the length of his uploads in general. I don't really consider them a part of the FDR community, unlike the people who frequent the boards and chatroom.

[Jer]

and I decided to look at the comments before starting the video.

 

There's your problem. Youtube comments are notoriously idiotic and deserve as much of your attention as messages scribbled on the wall of a bathroom stall. You value Stefan's opinion more than some random on youtube, right? So just remember his time is valuable too and he will end the conversation if he thinks it is unproductive.

[Emanuel]

I've come to realize that I suffer from a lack of confidence in myself and my value.

I've gathered many resources about self-esteem and other subjects that I think will help me find what I need in myself and in the world.

 

Thank you all for your caring comments, I highly appreciate your time and wisdom.

From now on, I will try to question everything. I will try to express my needs and thoughts when they arrive.

I will try to recognize my value and the value of other people's influences in my life.

 

Again, thank you very much for responding, and I hope you all have a wonderful day.

[aFireInside]

I havent listened to that one, ill search for it  

 

But ill tell you this, sometimes people seem stupid to us because 

they might not be seeing or processing something on the show 

 

that is because it is obviously hidden to them thats why they are calling.

To others it might seem clear but to the person with the problem most of the time it is hidden ... 

 

I experienced this before also, things that i just learned about my self seem so simple i couldn't believe i missed them ... 

 

 

 

And people on the comments are trolls, and even if they listen to FDR they can still be trolls .. 

They are supper trolls because they have all this knowledge to hurt you with . 

But just ignore them ... they are doing it to make themselves feel better not to help you 

[Armitage]

Hello, I have an idea I want to share.

Today I wanted to listen back to the Call-In show I had the other day, and I saw that it had been posted on Youtube recently.

If you didn't get to listen in, I was calling about my lack of motivation in the activities I take part in. It was hard for me(anxiety provoking) to get on the show and expose myself to big chatty forehead, as he is kind of a supermodel of philosophy for me, and I always value his insights.

I think Stefan helped me gain a clearer picture of my problem and what I could do to gain passion and start to really live.

 

Now, I went to the Youtube page for the show, and I decided to look at the comments before starting the video.

The first comment was someone saying, and I quote: ''Why even continue talking to people like Emmanuel when he's clearly operating on half a brain cell? There are a lot of callers like that. Sometimes I wonder if they are just trolls?''.

As I read that, I felt hurt, sad and ashamed. I started to self-attack and ask myself if I was really that deficient, and if I was somehow wasting everyone's time with my issues.

I really don't feel well after this, and it sort of shifted my entire mindset that I had before, when I wanted to look back at what someone I highly respect had to say to me.

I don't know why I felt that strongly about that person's comment, but I did and I don't think it's a good thing for me to be so sensitive to others, especially if they are abusive.

 

I was also wondering why someone would say something like that, don't they know that it hurts(especially coming from someone who watches FDR)?

I just feel down right now and I'm unsure of what to do from now on, to get my ambition back. It's really sad that it can go away like that, with one snarky comment on Youtube.

 

Thanks a lot, and I await your responses.

Emanuel

Operating on half a brain cell is an insult - not on intelligence exactly, but that person saw you need help, you need interaction and yet he stepped out to deny it to you. That's bad. 

 

I have some intelligence, yet I am sensitive about it (probably because I have little else left) and I do get insulted. However, nobody is equally intelligent in all areas. The academic IQ tends to be impractical. Also, people with deeply ingrained habits just slip into them without noticing and use all their intelligence to defend them. This slipping into habits without noticing is the problem that intelligence can do nothing about. 

 

One thing I noticed, when I listened to Stef's older podcasts from 2006, he talked about how he's against Freudism. Freudism is this mindset or school of thought, that has explanation for everything. Either you love your parents, in which case it's Oedipal syndrome, or you hate your parents, in which case you want to fuck your mother/kill your father, or there's nothing, in which case you're repressed. Either way, Freudism is right, is logical and you need Freudism.

The context that Stef talked about, he had a problem with Christine and turned out he was the one who actually applied a Freudism-like reasoning. If I remember. So they had a few hours of talk, talked it over, resolved it, found where the problem was.

 

I think intelligent people like Stef have a huge propensity to Freudist reasoning. They can imagine so many possibilities, that they have virtually an answer for everything. Either a person is all enthusiastic about anarcho-Capitalism, or he is damaged by parents in the childhood. It is a bit more complex than that, we use our reasoning power to construct a logical, closed interlinking sphere of reasoning in which we are always right and don't have to change. 

Stef has the luxury that he has one person who he knows and loves and who can get through to him and get him out of it - although it takes hours of talk and an awful lot of self-knowledge and you need to LOVE the person who brings you the bad news, so you don't shut yourself out.

 

The problem is, doing that over the internet in a short time is very difficult. I encountered it myself, when I had a talk with one guy from here via Skype, he saw what my problem was - basically avoidance of positive cooperation with like-minded people. And I was not aware of it, I had perfectly logical reasons why don't I do it... yet in that area I didn't use all my brain cells, I used by default just a particular one that led to one inevitable conclusion and no more.

 

So I think we must not get insulted - sometimes anything we hear will sound like an insult to us. But even the most intelligent person will have areas where self-knowledge is lacking, if only because in all other areas self-knowledge is so high, that we can't possibly imagine we wouldn't notice it. Then we feel hurt and insulted as a whole, if someone points out that in one small area it's not as good.