Funny how conversations with people you know can change the way you look at the world and yourself. Or how changing aspects of yourself consciously can alter your perceptions, radically changing what you value or how you view the world.
Are successful people just intuitively good at figuring how to re-program (read: fool) themselves or others? Is this something you're just born being good at, or is an acquired skill?
Is it a coincidence that the most famous and successful people, as we define them in our society at least, are extroverts? They get energized by meeting people. Not only that, they learn from other people at the speed of light. Their emotional intelligence is usually off the chart, which gives them the unique ability to network and meet new people with ease. In a lot of ways, they have their own "internet" of people.
It is primarily the two abilities of re-programming the self and ability to network and learn from other people that are probably the highest predictors of success in whatever field a person chooses to excel in. Being book smart can only get you so far. The valuable bits of information are really kept in the heads of other people, that you won't find by Googling.
I used to look at this point of view with a certain disdain because I assumed it required mock sincerity. Self-proclaimed gurus, healers and self-help salesman usually make me want to vomit. But the truth is some of these people know what they're talking about. Especially the ones who aren't looking to make a buck directly from dispensing their "wisdom." They're describing a very real social placebo effect.
But when you see real life people employing similar belief systems that focus on the self, and seeing them become more successful, it's hard to argue that whatever it is they're doing isn't actually working on some level. They're trying to meet some kind of of bar or measure of success, and having that bar regarded as something that is quite real in their mind seems to make success more likely.
For better or worse, that is the price we pay for living in a society that defines the bar of success as being able to fool and/or educate as many people as possible. The most successful people in the world aren't those who produce the most amount of widgets per hour. They're the people who convince you that you need the widget to begin with and profit as a result.
Think about it. Some of the brightest minds and life altering ideas have developed in total obscurity and weren't the result of being motivated by success or fame. The people who came up with these ideas didn't go seeking contemporary success and fame in order to get posthumous and historical recognition. It just happened that way in hindsight, and we see people like Plato and Shakespeare as larger than life only after enough time has elapsed and we've decided (after the fact) that their work is meaningful.
I used to think I could be happy with the contemporary obscurity choice. But I see it's not even possible in today's society to get your basic needs without resorting to selling something that people actually need or think they need. If I had to pick, I'd want whatever it is I choose to do to feed a real need, rather than just help someone put another dollar in their pocket.
But at the same time, I realize that I need some financial success in the here and now in order to purchase additional degrees of freedom. I may not give a rats ass about being wealthy, but I'd like to have some type of shelter to rest at night, a working toilet, a hot shower, a full belly, and a soft bed where I can lay my head down. Do I need these things to live? No. Do I think everyone deserves access to these things as a basic human right, no matter how menial their job? Absolutely. And here we are, still the biggest first fucking world power, and we can't even do that.
I feel like I have to pretend or become something I'm really not in order to get what I want out of life. I have to "sell myself.". And that requires a bit of selling out and playing the game; or as magicians call it, playing into the role of performing a good trick.. It can be a slippery slope to believing in your own magic. But I don't have to believe in what I'm saying is actually valuable to everyone; just to me. If others find it useful, cool. If not, that's cool too.
Fuck society's expectations. There are people out there who have already figured out the key to success is to NOT care that the world is full of stupid, selfish people who mostly take up space and leave the planet and the people worse off than before they came into existence. Maybe it's equal parts caring and not caring. Not caring enough to know the odds are against you if you want to do whatever it is that makes you happy and makes your life meaningful, but caring enough to do what you want anyhow despite the obstacles and people in your way, and leaving behind some type of legacy that would benefit others in some way.
Making the Statue of Liberty disappear is a great trick. But it's also pretty fucking useless. It doesn't make me understand the trick any better by telling me "it's magic." No, it's not just fucking magic. And it's not God, or the spirits, or luck, or raw talent, or the flaming ego of the magician that makes what they do so great. But you know what, David Copperfield? If that's what makes you happy, go ahead and do that. Personally, I prefer Penn and Teller because they're good enough to show the audience that it's all just a trick.
The greatest trick of all time is to think success is anything more than a socially constructed illusion. If society were to collapse tomorrow, all the paper money, stocks and gold in the world would be worth jack shit.
In the end, it's just a skill someone has refined to the point of near-perfection. It's an ability to make others perceive the world as you do, either by the art of ego-stroking persuasion or by discovering and exposing fundamental truths about the world or yourself, that make others think you're onto something.
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