I’ve been able to cheat my way through life. If I am being honest, there hasn’t been a single point where I really challenged myself.

It’s the one flaw that I see in myself that will always hold me back. It isn’t due to lack of passion. I can become very passionate about something. It just stops being a challenge for a time once I become passionate.

The challenge is once I stop being passionate. I am still “good” at the thing I am doing. There is a big gap between good and great, though.

Recently

I sometimes am amazed at how quickly I can flit between things. A recent thing I took up involved reading other people’s thoughts on different topics that matter to me. I was using WordPress.com with its reader to track tags and search for words.

That has gotten boring, fast. I don’t feel like anyone wants to engage how I do, on a person to person level. I guess that is the challenge of finding random strangers to chat with over banal things. They might not want to talk back.

It is further than strangers, though. I have found that with just about anyone besides my brother, they get very frustrated by talking with me about topics. People seem to generally hold their opinions and worldview as very important to them. It is fairly clear that they don’t want to have a dialectic where we try to achieve a synthesis of our worldviews.

The World

I see this even in some of the more famous pod casters. Someone like Sam Harris talking to Ben Shapiro still results in topics being changed before a complete understanding can be had. When that doesn’t happen, it results in a conversation like with Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson.

If there was a moderator to attempt to spark a different way of phrasing things, it could be helpful in those situations. Someone like Sam Harris focuses on changing someone’s mind or showing that he has logic on his side. Someone like Jordan Peterson focuses on trying to be understood in that scenario.

It is frustrating to see Sam trying to change Jordan’s mind while Jordan feels like he isn’t expressing himself correctly.

That happens a lot to me. Where people feel like they aren’t expressing themselves correctly. I do my best to help them and restate what they are saying to me back to them. Otherwise, the conversation will die.

Purpose

Arguing with people is something that I really like doing. I don’t really care about being right at the start of those conversations, I care more about understanding myself, other people, and the world better.

I have taken a lot of time to try to get to the point where all of that makes sense to me. There is still a ways to go, but I am feeling like I need something more actionable.

It is funny how simple it is to make myself feel like I am doing something worthwhile. Cleaning the house, writing out my thoughts, cooking, and having a focused course of study are what I am doing right now. I may be having to put effort back into some job specific things.

It is interesting to me that I don’t really want to do that. Not to the extent that I really should do it, anyways. I am fine with the idea of executing on things. I am not excited about the idea of having to study uninteresting things. It is even less exciting that I may have to take some certifications if I want to be optimal as a reseller or consultant.

Ending?

In the end, I am a weird one. I want to be left alone to study things. My default mode is to argue, debate, fight, or work through a problem with people. I want those problems to be things that matter to people.

I’ll find a compromise. One that makes me play money while still making me feel like I am moving forward with life. It’s just hard when I get hyper focused and obsessed about things.

When I look back at everything I’ve done in my life, I am happy with it. When I look at who I am, I feel like I am very true to myself.

There definitely is room to keep finding out who I naturally am. I think that is true of everyone, though.