I have often wondered why I've had luck in life when others seem more worthy, but I am not complaining. Serendipity? Dumb luck? It can't be discounted.Papus79 wrote:I may have phrased that too colloquially. I meant something to the effect of mysterious dynamics interfering with what would have been a grim/grizzly fate. Some people get pulled out in the nick of time, other people are left to become human black holes. Aside from fighting to be my best maybe, or saying no to some of the most toxic narratives/stories that were offered me, I can't think of much else that would make me distinctly more 'worthy' of help than the next person.Greta wrote: How do you mean "bailout from nature"?
Yes, but it often takes a lot of work to dig up novel ideas and the one who does the work is rewarded.Papus79 wrote:That's where I think the fight for claiming ownership to a novel idea is somewhat wasted, rather more importantly we should just aim to line ourselves up with the highest quality ideas we can manage. A bit like how Jordan Peterson constantly brings up the centrality of the question 'how should I act in the world'. Those are personal quests, personal journeys, and for as much as you might end up indirectly taking a near identical path to millions of people or being a cookie-cutter INTJ, ESFP, or whatever other MBTI block you go with, its almost irrelevant because on thing holds true regardless - no one can be you for you regardless of how traveled your personal trajectory through life is.Greta wrote:If any of us were raised by wild pack animals for long enough we would not develop a human mind. Much of what and who we are is effectively programmed in by experience. So much so that that we take it for granted and attribute much of our mind's contents to our individual selves. Yes, we are all individual :) Regular web use reveals our parrot-like nature, with web commentators operating almost like neurons passing the latest messages around - terrorists blah blah, political correctness blah blah, climate change blah blah, Trump blah blah, religion blah blah, ad infinitum.
When I look for things in my head that are truly original, well, there doesn't seem to be much. My mind is like one tiny visible cranny of a huge consciousness iceberg that consists of the shared knowledge and ideals developed by people (and others beforehand) over countless prior generations of survivors.
I don't doubt our individual qualities, though it seems to me that they are subtler than they seem and feel to us.