Frustration

[EyeSeeCold]

How can you be productive without being arrogant?

I hate it.

 

[Solitaire U.]

It's easy...stop thinking of yourself as being productive and start thinking of yourself as being useful.

Alternatively, you could come to grips with the fact that you are the only one who sincerely believes you're that good.

Best of luck.

 

[dark]

Embrace the arrogance?

Or, do things you aren't good at.

 

[Required Username]

You could become depressed and have anxiety. Then when you do something priductive you feel like you havr accoplished someyhing and are happy because you feel as if you are on thr same level as a normal person.

 

[typus]

Can arrogance be defined in terms of exceeding one's own expectations of oneself? Do you expect yourself to not be productive, and since you are, consider yourself to be doing better than needed and thus feel entitled to some arrogance? Can you deliberately raise your own expectations to make sure that you don't reach them, and thus avoid the arrogance? Can you change your perception of yourself, and thus see that you in fact aren't reaching your goals, that you aren't being productive?

 

[Fukyo]

You could become depressed and have anxiety. Then when you do something productive you feel like you have accomplished something and are happy because you feel as if you are on the same level as a normal person.

Sad, but so true...

 

[quietgirl]

It's not possible. Sometimes I think that if I don't use my thoughts, they'll just disappear and then my unified theory might be missing the tiny part that would complete it. Then I think that if something is not truthful enough to be seen plainly then it's not worth preserving. Then I think that it's purely ego that wants me to think about useless things while people are dying of starvation. Then I think that if the world were more intelligent then less people would starve in the long run. Then I think how egotistical it is to think that I can educate the world and that I'm the one who is missing something. Then I go back to square one...

 

[quietgirl]

How can you be productive without being arrogant?

I hate it.

If something requires ego to do it, is it worth doing?

 

[Adymus]

If something requires ego to do it, is it worth doing?

Fuck.
Yes.

 

[Black Rose]

Admiration of total perfection is not arrogance.

The question is...

What is perfection?

Death? Life?

Simplicity? Complexity?

Yellow as the divine hue above all other hue's inherently not yellow and therefore cast as Evil?

 

[quietgirl]

My ego is my nemesis.

 

[quietgirl]

Admiration of total perfection is not arrogance.

^ it takes ego to assume that we have perfected the thinking that comes before an action

 

[quietgirl]

Ego isn't the same as arrogance although arrogance can be a characteristic of the ego.

 

[Adymus]

My ego is my nemesis.

Then you have made an enemy out of one of the most basic and necessary components of your conscious mind.

How exactly are you defining ego anyway? There is really nothing wrong with having an ego, unless your ego is blinding you from the truth. But in the latter case, it is not the fact that you have an ego that is the problem, it is the fact that you have let it run wild and dictate how you perceive things. Your ego should be no bigger or smaller than it deserves to be. Believing you are less than you actually are is just as diluted as thinking you are more than you are.

Do you seriously think Einstein never thought to himself:

"Is it just me, or am I way smarter than most people in the world?"

There is nothing inherently wrong about thinking highly of yourself, and there are many circumstances where you would be lying to yourself if you didn't.

 

[quietgirl]

Ego as in the primitive self. Reasoning that stems from a basic need as opposed to a higher purpose.

 

[Adymus]

Yeah okay quietgirl, you go ahead and keep suppressing basic human nature and tell me how that works out.

 

[quietgirl]

Acting contrary to the ego makes it more intelligent.

 

[Adymus]

Acting contrary to the ego makes it more intelligent.

We are talking about two completely different things aren't we?

And if we are, you should probably use a different word, because Ego means something else entirely. Because if you are talking about what I am talking about, then acting contrary to the ego would be a terrible idea and the people out in the world who are breaking new ground and making discoveries, and innovations are damn sure not resisting their ego.

 

[quietgirl]

I doubt Einstein thought about himself that way otherwise he wouldn't have turned up at dinner parties without any trousers on. He couldn't care less about convention or scoring himself against others.

 

[Black Rose]

Indecision is death.

Ego is the mental reflex acted before conscious thought?

 

[Adymus]

Being intelligent isn't an achievement.

No, not in itself.

But achievements, especially ground breaking and innovative once, require intelligence.

And the people that do achieve those things don't get there through mental masturbation and acting like faux Zen douche bags.

 

[Adymus]

I doubt Einstein thought about himself that way otherwise he wouldn't have turned up at dinner parties without any trousers on. He couldn't care less about convention or scoring himself against others.

Not caring about how other humans are scoring you is exactly what I expect out of someone with at least a somewhat inflated ego.

 

[Bird]

How can you be productive without being arrogant?

I hate it.

I fail to see how being productive equates
arrogance.

You're going to have to explain this one to
me Icy.

 

[Solitaire U.]

But achievements, especially ground breaking and innovative once, require intelligence.

Not necessarily. Groundbreaking achievements almost always require nothing more than a lot of backs pulling in unison. The Great Pyramids, Transcontinental Railroad, Panama Canal, Titanic, Empire State.

The 'intelligence' behind all those things was largely relegated to playing with imaginary things in the background...money mostly.

It's like war. Intelligence enters a state of conflict with itself, rolls the maps onto the table, performs a bit of 'strategic planning', then sends all the mules out to settle it's abstract conflict.

You might want to give further consideration to Einstein, especially in relation to that last paragraph, before assuming your thoughts into his head, because by the man's own account he made far more wrong guesses than right ones.

Intelligence-worship is just another belief system. It takes a hell of a lot more than that to keep the world spinning.

 

[Citizen]

My arrogance is one of the main reasons I never get laid.

On to the real topic, why do you believe it is arrogance you are feeling? It might just be a truly rational approximation of your abilities.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Solitaire U.

Spoiler

It's easy...stop thinking of yourself as being productive and start thinking of yourself as being useful.

Alternatively, you could come to grips with the fact that you are the only one who sincerely believes you're that good.

Best of luck.

Well this extends to another issue of mine: I don't feel useful or that I have a purpose. Besides, it's not that I think I'm good, it's that my knowledge is vast yet insignificant. I don't know everything, so I can only act on what I do know, but when I do so, I must act like I know everything there is know about what I know, but I don't. So what do I know?

dark

Spoiler

Embrace the arrogance?

Or, do things you aren't good at.

Arrogance invites ignorance, which is something I hate even more.
Also incomptence feels just as bad as being arrogant.

Required Username

Spoiler

You could become depressed and have anxiety. Then when you do something priductive you feel like you havr accoplished someyhing and are happy because you feel as if you are on thr same level as a normal person.

I honestly felt this way upon learning of my eligibility to graduate from high school on stage.

typus

Spoiler

Can arrogance be defined in terms of exceeding one's own expectations of oneself? Do you expect yourself to not be productive, and since you are, consider yourself to be doing better than needed and thus feel entitled to some arrogance? Can you deliberately raise your own expectations to make sure that you don't reach them, and thus avoid the arrogance? Can you change your perception of yourself, and thus see that you in fact aren't reaching your goals, that you aren't being productive?

It's not about perception though. As stated earlier, arrogance invites ignorance.

Animekitty

Spoiler

Admiration of total perfection is not arrogance.

The question is...

What is perfection?

Death? Life?

Simplicity? Complexity?

Yellow as the divine hue above all other hue's inherently not yellow and therefore cast as Evil?

Total perfection cannot exist without total imperfection. Adjectives dichotomize the balance that is. Though I don't see how this relates to the intial post.

Indecision is death.

Ego is the mental reflex acted before conscious thought?

Not Ego. ego. And yes indecision is death, but so is constant activity. Without latency there is no consciousness.

quietgirl

Spoiler

^ it takes ego to assume that we have perfected the thinking that comes before an action

You understand what I mean.

Bird

Spoiler

I fail to see how being productive equates
arrogance.

You're going to have to explain this one to
me Icy.

quietgirl said it best. "it takes ego to assume that we have perfected the thinking that comes before an action"

My only worthy skill is criticizing and judging for usefulness/efficiency/accuracy, I can't help but feel arrogant when I do so. I want to be helpful without being pushy.

Adymus

Spoiler

There is really nothing wrong with having an ego, unless your ego is blinding you from the truth. But in the latter case, it is not the fact that you have an ego that is the problem, it is the fact that you have let it run wild and dictate how you perceive things.

+1

Citizen

Spoiler

My arrogance is one of the main reasons I never get laid.

On to the real topic, why do you believe it is arrogance you are feeling? It might just be a truly rational approximation of your abilities.

Is it ever true? Surely I do not have the ability to do anything perfectly.

 

[Citizen]

Perhaps, but you could also argue the definition of perfection, it is a highly subjective word, what is truly to achieve perfection in anything?

 

[Black Rose]

My only worthy skill is criticizing and judging for usefulness/efficiency/accuracy, I can't help but feel arrogant when I do so. I want to be helpful without being pushy.

If you practice being the opposite of insensitive when communicating: Problem Solved

But sometimes people are to sensitive so its not really your fault if miscommunication happen.

Knowing at what level your worthy skill can be used with specific individuals will eliminate many conflicts.

 

[gnome]

How can you be productive without being arrogant?

I hate it.

You don't come off ass arrogant to me. You have given me some good advice.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

You don't come off ass arrogant to me. You have given me some good advice.

A most interesting typo. Not just arrogant but ass arrogant.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

If you practice being the opposite of insensitive when communicating: Problem Solved

But sometimes people are to sensitive so its not really your fault if miscommunication happen.

Knowing at what level your worthy skill can be used with specific individuals will eliminate many conflicts.

In real life, I don't become familiar enough with people to think I could help. It's mostly online.

 

[Solitaire U.]

@ EyeSeeCold re: multi-spoiler post...

I'm getting the impression you simply lack self-confidence. There is a big diff between that and arrogance. Arrogance isn't focused inward, it's all about fostering an impression of assumed superiority (that doesn't necessarily actually exist) in relation to others.

FWIW, I haven't gotten that impression from the many posts of yours I've read. If your oral skills are half as good as your grammatical presentation, you have nothing to worry about.

Though from your description I can certainly understand how you might come off as arrogant to some people.

This is somewhat difficult to describe...alright, for example...

When I'm passing on information/knowledge/whatever to my kids, the way I look at it is it's for them, like a gift. I never present myself as the authority on any given topic, and always begin with "This is what I know of...". Also, I refrain from elaborating unnecessarily. I prefer to either leave portions open-ended or explain to a point and then ask them for feedback. It helps a lot to make them active participants, because otherwise they're apt to become bored and lose focus on what they wanted to know to begin with.

I reiterate on this point. I never inform, only pass on what I know. It's always a gift, and I consider it an honor to give it away, nothing expected in return. I want to be able to ask freely when I need to know something, because as you so correctly said, I know precious little, even relative to my kids, and have no compulsion whatsoever to hide that fact.

Keep it simple, keep it brief, and keep it turn-based.

 

[Iuanes]

No, not in itself.

But achievements, especially ground breaking and innovative once, require intelligence.

And the people that do achieve those things don't get there through mental masturbation and acting like faux Zen douche bags.

What about 'Zen' people who are neither faux nor douche-bags?

Is meditation equal to masturbation? Is introspection the same thing as narcissism?

I'm not saying you're objections aren't valid to many, many people, but I don't agree that all non-scientific, non big Other achievers don't require a kind of intelligence or aren't pursuing worthy projects. Values ands end are radically self-determined after all, at least as for as I can think it through.

Not caring about how other humans are scoring you is exactly what I expect out of someone with at least a somewhat inflated ego.

But I would also expect this out of someone who legitimately has no socially constructed ego at all anymore. It is more like acting like you don't care about how people score you is a symptom of ego.

A person who has found their center and seen through their ego will likely see other people's problems as wholly alien, as the other's exclusive property. How they are 'scored' by others then, is not only not their concern, but not their jurisdiction.

Of course, conclusions about the ago depend entirely on how it is defined and conceived. It is a slippery thing, perhaps one of the most slippery .

As for arrogance. For me it is a matter of accuracy. If you are confident in your abilities and accurately rate them higher than others, then it is a simply matter of truth. Not rating yourself highly , or higher than you should, out of a sense of modesty (which can in fact by a source of arrogance, "I am so modest") or insecurity, is less true and might yield poor results.

 

[EditorOne]

Is everyone talking about the same thing?
1
: exaggerating or disposed to exaggerate one's own worth or importance often by an overbearing manner <an arrogant official>
2
: showing an offensive attitude of superiority : proceeding from or characterized by arrogance <an arrogant reply

I think most are talking about 2.

An attitude of superiority need not be offensive, although pulling that off is generally pretty tough. Presumably adopting an air of diffidence or mild self deprecation can neutralize the offensiveness of excellence.

Or something.

 

[Moocow]

As it stands, productivity, arrogance, and ego are not defined well enough to have a coherent debate about their relationship.

Eyeseecold, what does "productive" mean to you?
What does arrogant mean to you?

Forget "ego" for now. Freudian language is a great way to obfuscate your points.

 

[GYX_Kid]

i think of arrogant people as being obnoxious in some attempt to compensate for their suckitude, instead of being actually productive. in effect arrogance is the opposite of productive, as is domineering is the opposite of dominant if one tries to assfuck cool people.

i think someone who isn't ExxJ will more often have an easier time being able to focus on a goal, without feeling so much need to put other people down along the way. do you have any specific goal in mind?