PopcornJackTerry

My friend Carl made an interesting about my last post. He referred to what he called social currency and compared the internet to being like the modern day water cooler or bar-the place we go to talk about life. I certainly think that is true on several levels and to a certain extent, but to me the comparison falls apart at the concept of conversation and discussion. It is possible of course to elicit feedback on the internet (if it weren’t there’d be enough ranting hacks to populate a small island) but the feedback isn’t instantaneous as it would be in a conversation, and the response has the luxury of being measured and thought out before it is offered. It rarely is, but then again, the original posts are rarely as thought out as they should be. I actually took notes for this blog for just that reason, because I want to follow the cottontail of shallowness and validation just a little bit further down the rabbit hole.

What creates pride and self confidence? How do we learn these traits, for better or for worse? At our earliest stages it is parental guidance, namely do they compliment us when we accomplish something? There is some fine line, or at least a grey area in between too little to make us needy and wanting, always unsure of who we are, and too much that makes us smug and overconfident, too wrapped up in our own selves to think we could ever be wrong. I think it is possible that this area can be missed on both sides with the same person, namely because I know what it feels like to be both arrogant and insecure. Self confidence can also be an internal thing; we might have the innate sense to know when we are doing something right. Give a kid a bunch of building blocks, and there will some level of satisfaction when they create something. Which leads to the question: if the appreciation for what you have done comes from without, is it really self confidence, or is it just teaching you that pleasing others is what will make you happy.

I do the crossword puzzle every day. Let me rephrase that. I do every day’s crossword. It may take me a few days to get to it-in the case of last Sunday’s, five to be exact-but I get to them. I like the challenge, trying to figure out the theme, and with some of the new ideas they are inserting in the Sunday ones I’m ironically learning to think outside the box. They get progressively harder as the week goes on, so Monday and Tuesday I feel I should always finish, Wednesday sometimes finish and usually get close, Thursday I’ll usually get about half and Friday is a success if I get one quadrant complete. (If I get four answers total on Saturday, I nominate myself for an award.) This past Thursday I came within six answers of finishing it. I was thrilled. And then I looked around and there was no one to say “Good job.” And then I thought “Oh wait! There is the internet.”

I literally found myself thinking for a few minutes if I really wanted to post something about it. Keeping in mind that I tend to over-think things anyway, I found myself going through the following arguments in my head, in no particular order, and often times more than once:

* You just had a crossword-centric post not to long ago

* It’s just a crossword and it’s not like you actually finished it

* I feel so smart today

* I wonder who will see and comment on my post

* Does it make my accomplishment any more or less important if I share it?

That was the important one. That was the reason that none of you have read about my (almost) conquest of the Thursday crossword. I found myself realizing something important, something that ties back to my last post about the ubiquity of social media and the false sense of expectation it creates.

I realized that I have done thousands of crossword sudoku puzzles successfully and that no one has known. That never made me feel any less happy about completing them. The emotion that you feel is true to you, no matter who else knows it or how (or if) you share it. The more you put it out there, the more you feel the need for it to be continually validated, and it becomes an ever-tightening viscous little circle. To be self-confident means to have faith in oneself. You need to believe on your own in the goodness of who you are and the abilities that you have. That is an important lesson for me. Just because this machine gives me the opportunity to say something whenever I want doesn’t mean when i should. Not when I already know what I’m feeling and not when I know the other person already feels it.

Back before all of this technology, we had to rely on our own inner strength to deal with the uncertainty of the social world. When you put yourself out there in any endeavor, there was no instant gratification, so you had two choices: you could accept that, believe in the best (and yourself) and build that confidence in yourself. Even if the answer finally came back as not the one you wanted, you had already learned to believe in who you are, and so you had the strength to accept that. The other choice was to not accept it, lose your mind and end up in a loony bin.

It all makes me think of that tree in the woods and just what it sounds like when it falls. In a way we all have our own trees. Thanks to the internet, when your tree falls in the woods you can be sure that lots of people hear it. What needs to be decided on is how important that is to you? In other words, do you need other people to know who you are just so you know?

Shameless plug(s) time. If you like reading fiction, click here. If you like reading non-fiction, click here. If you like drinking and voting for drinks and helping me possibly win a trip to Rio, click here. If you want to see pictures from what could be one of the last nights that The Top of LaConcha is open, check my Facebook page tonight (city commission approved the spa plans) and if you want to see a lot, and I mean A LOT of motorcycles, get down there cause it is bike week. See you all soon.