RoR: Forum

Orion,

I think your problem with the "winners - losers" conflict is what I would call "teenage angst".

At a younger "competing for compliant females" age, you are generally more sensitive to perceived competition with your peers (females do as well). However, it is those that measure themselves most to the standards of others that tend to have the lowest self-esteem. On the other hand, if you have a high opinion of yourself (high self-esteem), though not unbearably unrealistic (like thinking your an Olympic God, when your obviously not) - then others (especially females) will tend to have a high opinion of you also.

Arrogance is not what I mean (believing that you are inherently superior to everyone else).

Confidence in yourself is what I mean (being able to judge your own self-worth independently of what others think of you).

The irony is that your "winners" are just as anxious to compare themselves to you due to a lack of self-confidence in themselves rather than an overabundance of it. They need to learn this lesson, just as much as you do.

Post 21

Friday, July 23, 2004 - 10:26am

Marcus,

Thanks for the feedback, and I agree with you on everything, with one huge exception.

What you age-define as "teenage angst" I think is not necessarily age-dependent. I witness it as a life-situational problem with people of all ages, particularly after a major setback, which tends to start us back at somewhere near square one in a process I'm tempted to label as "re-infantilization".

Your explanation that it is age-dependent is for the most part correct, so long as things go for us according to the normal life progression. But ultimately I think what you're talking about is an age-independent stage of development (in our initial phases of development), and re-development when we find ourselves almost re-infantilized by some life-crushing event.

And these things can happen; I point your attention to many of the survivors, families, and cohorts of the World Trade Center attack, many of whom have experienced a psychological devastation so near-total that they have had to almost completely reorient and re-incubate themselves and revisit many of the developmental stages they had gone through before in order to rebuild themselves anew.

Something in many peoples' natures seems to cause them to become very unsettled and even hostile towards people passing through these sorts of awkward rebuilding processes, but that does not change the fact that they must occur in certain cases for the individual to resume functionality.

Post 22

Saturday, July 24, 2004 - 2:29am

Orion:

"What you age-define as "teenage angst" I think is not necessarily age-dependent. I witness it as a life-situational problem with people of all ages, particularly after a major setback, which tends to start us back at somewhere near square one in a process I'm tempted to label as "re-infantilization".

Yes I do agree with you there, it does occur at any age. But I would say it is more acute at a younger age. I have noticed (in general) that Men and Women that date later in life, from late 20's onward, tend to not have patience anymore for that sort of competitive bullshit. They are much more open about who they are and what they want in a relationship regardless of what others think.

Post 23

Sunday, July 25, 2004 - 5:16am