Growing up involves getting to know yourself. It’s something that is troublesome if you have made a lot of mistakes or you don’t really like yourself too much. For me, I’ve known my faults and weaknesses for a long time and don’t really let them upset me.

In getting to know myself, I’ve accepted about 15 years ago now that I am an iconoclast in every meaning of the word. I want to destroy religious symbols and their meanings. I want to destroy everything that holds power in society. I question why everything exists.

I think part of growing up for me has been not only getting to know that, but the lesson that no matter what is at the top of society or liked by the most people, a replacement will come I want to get rid of just as much as what came before it.

I’m working on a new, more useful outlook on life. Instead of thinking of redesigning everything, I challenge myself to think of what small change could make something better. I think being an iconoclast for so long has made that a lot easier for me, since part of my thinking is always what is wrong with any situation, even theoretical.

I am relatively sure, for instance, that anyone advocating major changes to the economy, culture, or any other systems shouldn’t be put in charge of anything. I used to believe that we needed major reform because we were so far away from being “perfect.” I now believe that perfect is subjective and that major changes may have impacts that we can’t predict.

I’ve rethought a lot about how religion has shaped how people view things. I’ve put a lot of work into seeing life through other people’s eyes. One thing that it reveals to me is that the world is way too complex to understand every impact in every person of any single change.

I am an iconoclast. I also have grown up enough to know that just because something doesn’t work for me it should be gotten rid of. I obsess about efficiency and perfection in every area.

Sometimes being efficient and perfect is just being able to be stoic and accept what exists instead of yearning to change it.