Amanda Hamlin NOTE: I still need to put my
citations in …I just wrote this freethougt
I used to be one of those outcast kids;
consistently defying authority, bending the rules, complaining about the miserable
conditions of socio-political group dynamics, and, enviously, laughing at the
blissful states of conformists of any type or form. Sure enough, I was a
confused and angry kid in a downward spiral before high school even began.
However, I never could have anticipated how helpful my persistent cynicism and
perpetual bouncing from anti-this to anti-that, and ‘I don’t even care about that’…“I’m an electron!”-mentality would
prove to be.
In acknowledging the state my pathology,
naturally, I refused to assume just any label indicating a self-destructive or
depressive state – that’d be too cliché. I wanted to be the most
outwardly-happy negative-thinker there ever was. Once the whole anti-Islam
trend ruined the enjoyment I got from challenging any and all religious
movements, I invented my own belief system in attempt to establish some values.
This one was designed to adjust according to any situation. Careful social
integration, a feel-good reward system, and deliberative make-believe
principles were put to work. Self-deluding? Nah – but self-deception, pretty
much.
It turns out my little system is not to
original. People do, indeed, choose what they believe in, and what they pay
attention to/choose to ignore, and also, how they go about interpreting certain
situations, almost instinctively. I needed a new approach – I needed to
manipulate my own system. Having a high ‘need for cognition’, the battle which
began between my own philosophical awakenings and the active challenging
against imposed realities has been less of a headache, as it may sound to be,
and more like a game, a hobby, a useful back and forth practice, indeed! Now,
I’d like to get you on board and share with you what I believe may be possible
when you cut the BS labels about “being yourself” and realize that “creating
your Self” is far more rewarding and useful than trying to “express” our
already obscure emotions; and now, we may actually begin to feel them.
Using strategic social compliance,
conscientious behavior and speech, and genuine self-esteem creation and
acquirement, the commonly known art of “putting up a front” has never been so
profitable. In fact, I personally distinguish the strategic and good-willed act
as “Phronting” and the other as just fronting. In addition; I have such a
difficult time portraying myself online that I have begun to call it Phasebook.
For anyone who denies being affected by the institutionalizing, limiting nature
of social media sites, then you are either very lucky or an imposter.
I’d like to share with you a simplified process
used to phront and self-create; then, explain how/why everyone should upgrade their current phase accordingly,
and then conclude with some examples demonstrating the sound and relevant
implications of active engagement so you can see what I mean.
In essence, the goal is to fulfill a ‘prophecy’
which you set just for yourself - it must always be a Positive and genuine
quest for self-esteem, knowledge, and/or supreme truth, a “goal”, if you will.
This is known as creating opportunity structures for self-esteem, sort of like choosing
to engage in activities which you are, in fact good at; so, the likelihood of
success is high. Especially for a socially integrated identity construct,
remember that the desirable, anticipated result is NOT a given. Thus, you must
aknowledge that you cannot actually control anyone else's behaviour, but if it
makes you feel better, it must also be realized that humans are, in fact, irrational
beings. On one extreme, it is indeed a form of using humans for the personal
pursuit of pleasure, but it is non-exploitative. On the other extreme, you must
realize that you are using your own body as an instrument in the process - if
online, it is a non-issue, or, if in person, it is in the most objective sense
possible. Ergo, the prediction is made: a simple but common example may be
"If I give this person a complement of some sort, it'll make them feel
good". This statement must never be spoken. You do your thing; you get a
smile and a thank-you in return, and bingo: the fruits of your labor flourish.
You give yourself credit for having predicted the response, you done good by
spreading good feelings. The physical reward of increasing self-esteem either
in your self or the other person is unleashed as the experience is affirmed and
validated by others. This means, you must tell people about what happened, how
it felt, and how great it'll feel whence the favor is returned. Whether or not
the favor IS ever returned, the validation by your buddies and yourself will be
manifested in quite real ways. In a metaphorical sense, this creation of self-esteem
is like a reservoir of energy, so it may be depleted as well as restored. So,
the more you believe in active kindness as a positive practice and the more joy
is realized in making successful predictions, the more control you will obtain
over this new, strategic, and fluid identity's existence. This type of
self-deception may result in an "inexplicable personal alchemy" by
means of self-induced cognitive dissonance. What if that person was a criminal?
What if they didn't actually appreciate the complement? Was that just a waste of
time? This is where it gets good, and where the magic happens. This is where you
assert to yourself that you did, indeed, do a good deed of your free will.
However, you must acknowledge the possibility of but ultimately deny the
existence of this fact: You may have just screwed yourself. The more you insist
on taking the reign over this “high horse”, the more you try to validate your
new identity, the uncertainty yields new perspectives, new feelings, and
ultimately, the brain activity becomes physical enough, and fundamental beliefs
are incepted. For someone like me, who has consistently rejected most any belief
system which has been introduced by others, I find it very satisfying to
actively and imaginatively construct and evaluate simple but controlled experiences
in which my beliefs are established by comparative positives, as opposed to
externally imposed by fearful unknowns.