Tony self analysis

[Dragonflys]

Hi Tony

 

I wanted to ask you something different. I remember you saying in a recent post how you always had no problems attracting women because you always kept your cool. I think keeping your cool has a lot to do with what you think of yourself and your place in the world, and how you react to success and failure in life..

 

So I'd like to ask a few questions....

 

How do you see yourself?

 

How do you see others?..especially those with other morals, interests?

 

How do you view your place in this world i.e. with respect to others?

 

How do you treat yourself? (i.e. seriously, with a grain of salt?)

 

How do you view women?

 

What do you think of to make yourself smile when nothing else around you does?

 

How do you view rejection?

 

How do you view success?

 

And finally.....saying the first things that come into your mind....describe yourself in 3 words...

 

Sorry about all the questions, but I think we could all learn a lot if we knew the answers to some of these..

 

Sincere thanks,

 

Oliver

[Tony T]

1. How do you see yourself?

 

Unique, intellectual, intellectually curious, objective, generous, full/empty, full of answers/at a loss for answers, accomodating, best friend, forgiving, selectively ignorant about things I should know about, not easily understood...oh, I could go on for a long time...some things nice...others not so nice.

 

2. How do you see others?..especially those with other morals, interests?

 

This really varies from individual to individual. I see all people as unique and worthy of respect. But while I see some as generous, others I see as selfish. While some I see as kind, others I see as emerged in self. It is just very different for each person. And I try not to judge too much because I don't know what led them to where they seem to be in my eyes...and I am very wrong a lot of times.

 

Every person carries around worries and burdens we do not know about. Everyone has their own fears and concerns. It is not fair to see others in more than just a general way because humans are very complex and ever-changing.

 

3. How do you view your place in this world i.e. with respect to others?

 

I will answer in the words of the late author, Henry Miller, in "The Tropic of Capricorn": "Facts, there are no facts. There is ONLY the fact that man, every man everywhere in the world, is on his way to ordination. Some take the long route and some take the short route. Every man is working out his destiny in his own way and the only way we can be of help is by being kind, generous and patient."

 

In the same book, he wrote: "To want to change the state of conditions seemed futile to me. Nothing would be altered, I was convinced, except by a change of heart and who could change the hearts of men."

 

My only place with respect to others is to accept that they are on their own path and their own journey. While I may share wisdom and information with them, I must respect that they are working out their destiny in their very own unique way and, while I may become very frustrated, I should more rightly be kind and patient with them and respect the course they have selected. Every man is the architect of his own destiny.

 

4. How do you treat yourself? (i.e. seriously, with a grain of salt?)

 

My mother died when I was 13. That was a major turning point for me. At an early age I learned that life is impermanent. While the pain and suffering of people is very real, the only way to get through it is NOT to take oneself so seriously.

 

This aggravates people...because there are actually people who think this goes on forever and that everything they do is so significant. In the context of their immediate activities here, yes, there is importance, but to me the real significance is how we treat our lives as spiritual beings in temporary bodies. In other words, immediate problems must be transcended for the sake of experiencing the real meaning of why we are here. We were not put on the planet to be sure our credit cards are paid on time.

 

Almost daily, I go out of my body millions of miles out into the galaxy and look back on the earth and see only a small dot. I realize how unimportant all that takes place there is. And any day, like my mother, I can disappear into infinity and I will be nothing more than a smile on the face of some star in the sky and one day burn out again. So in this life, I have to practice smiling.

 

5. How do you view women?

 

My view is greatly affected by the death of my mother early in life. I have great respect for women. I have great honor for them. I have great empathy for the chemical and emotional stuff they have been charged to endure. In other respects, I see them as my equal. And in other respects I am in awe. And in some instances, I am in love. Women can be a work of art or a work of the devil...but so can men. But I think the devil prefers to work on women.

 

6. What do you think of to make yourself smile when nothing else around you does?

 

At different times, I think of different things. Lately, I think of Fishbulb and my whole being just lights up...and I have no idea what a fishbulb is. I guess being amused about something I know nothing about is the novelty.

 

Before Fishbulb came along, I thought of all the Emails I get offering me a job earning up to $6000 per month working 10 hours a week at home on my computer if I send $49.95 to a certain address as proof of my sincerity. That one is always funny.

 

7. How do you view rejection?

 

Rejection is good. It helps me improve. It keeps my perspective of myself. It helps me get away from those whose vibrations, lifestyles, philosophies are incompatible.

 

Realistically, I know that there are only two things about myself that can be rejected. My physical appearance and my behavior. I know that I have used those criteria to reject others, in some fashion, as potential lovers, etc. So if I can use those criteria for rejecting others, they have every right to do the same toward me. It's an eye for and eye thing. Perhaps even a karma thing...I very much believe that what we put out comes back to us.

 

Rejection is man's biggest fear. But it stems from man's very primitive state when he depended on the acceptance of the group unit for survival. Rejection could ultimately mean death for primitive man without the critical support of the commune or clan. Today, rejection has a different meaning. It does not mean almost certain death as it did thousands of years ago in our evolutionary process. But that part of our brain which has learned this still exists.

 

Rejection is not an assault on one's personhood but a reflection of another person's criteria. And rejection is not always permanent. I am not very good friends with those who once rejected me based on inaccurate information or wrong impressions.

 

And most rejection is not even rejection because the person rejecting doesn't even know the other well enough to reject. He may just not have enough time to decide one way or the other. But many people have weak egos and just can't handle it. They ignore the many who love them to focus on the one who doesn't.

 

8. How do you view success?

 

Success is very vague. While I may be successful in answering your questions in your view, I may be a dismal failure to others who read this. While I may be successful as a student at the University of Alabama, I may be a complete failure at Harvard.

 

So I guess I must view success as how I feel about my life at any given moment. If I am happy where I am, doing what I am doing, I am a success. If I get constipated, then I consider I am not so successful at digestion.

 

The trouble people have with this is that they depend on the opinions of others to define their success. People define themselves in terms of what work they do or how well they do it rather than who they are. We get in trouble when we look outside of our inner selves to make judgements about ourselves. If we are doing the very best we can, we are a success. If we don't judge whether we are successful or not, we are even more successful.

 

9. And finally.....saying the first things that come into your mind....describe yourself in 3 words...

 

Kind, generous, tired.

[Dragonflys]

Tony,

 

Thankyou for your very thorough responses to my questions

 

I'd like to discuss a couple of things you said...and please bear in mind I do not have a degree in psychology (I am a scientist) so you may find some of what I say confusing. I apologise in advance.

 

(Q1) How do you see yourself?

 

Unique would be my first word aswell. I think as a whole you see yourself as a person of great capacity to grow, and importantly you are accepting of all around you from an objective point of view.

 

I think personally, one of the things I grapple with is how much of the world around us can we take on subjectively. How much of ourselves should we give?. I know of myself that if I am totally objective about the world around me, I feel in a very lonely place - even if I am protected from getting emotionally hurt there. Maybe the others around me who are like this are not lonely there, but I am.

 

(Q2)How do you see others?..especially those with other morals, interests?

 

I agree with you here, we should not judge people merely by what we see, for we never understand why they are that way. Remember the quote the one person put up: 'everyone around us is trying their very best at this very moment'. Sometimes we encounter people who do not respond to us, simply because they do not know how to. Everyone has a different perspective on what is important and what is stimulating.

 

(Q3) How do you view your place in this world i.e. with respect to others?

 

In response to Henry Miller: sometimes its the people who were NOT kind, generous, and patient that started them on their path. The early period of our life is when our perceptions of the world are moulded most significantly - those who take the long road seem to be unlucky. From you say here, there is a real futility in trying to 'fix', fixing is so much more difficult than creation (I think of the creation of chaos). Our role in this world is to provide guidance by expressing the good within ourselves. Its realising that some simply cannot see that is important.

 

(Q4) How do you treat yourself? (i.e. seriously, with a grain of salt?)

 

I grapple with this question all the time. I tend to try to treat myself seriously with regards to my character. What I find happens is that I feel disappointement in myself occasionally when I don't live up to my expectations of myself. So should I have them?. Its like I am balancing where I 'feel' I may go and listening to an objective voice within myself (or voices in my upbringing) that tell me where I 'should' go.

 

So I'm not sure here, I think its OK to treat oneself seriously as long as it does not transcend into expectations of others. My expectations of others is the part of myself that I really feel has changed most recently, and that certainly makes me feel like I am being kinder to myself.

 

(Q5)How do you view women?

 

I think the most important thing you said with respect to your view of women was when you said something like: 'I have been hurt many times by women, but I did not blame them, I just worked to change the situation.

 

I think within the limitations of human understanding, this is the ONLY approach we can take.

 

(Q6) What do you think of to make yourself smile when nothing else around you does?

 

I put on a good song.

 

(Q7) How do you view rejection?

 

I had a friend come visit me from Australia in August last year, and he is the very easy going, confident, friendly sort of person. His approach to meeting people was simply to have a positive attitude and be aware of how little they know you. That way you can never be hurt by rejection, but you give yourself the most opportunity to meet fulfilling people. You seem to have a very similar view.

 

(Q8) How do you view success?

 

Sometimes we find ourselves in social situations with people who are very different to us and can feel alone. I think our tendency to judge ourselves based on another's view is merly to gain acceptance and companionship in these situations. But it is much better to change situations rather than mould yourself unnaturally into them.

 

(Q9) And finally.....saying the first things that come into your mind....describe yourself in 3 words...

 

Me: unique, loving, confused

 

I just want to say finally that what I have learned most in recent times is how different people are and how much of what I give may not register. When I was younger I always searched for some 'spirit' in every person I encountered..for some reason I had a belief that every person was good and could understand me - in 99.5% of cases I found good there - but in hindsight I realise how hard it was to find it in many cases (an how unnecessary).

 

I always believed that if I closed my mind to the people around me and looked at everyone objectively (and become reactive) like so many do that I would be in a very lonely place. I still believe that, but I realise I should be kind to myself a little more and not try and solve the world.

 

Oliver

[Tony T]

Your responses were very interesting as well. I think the world is getting smaller and we are understanding each other a bit better. But it's always important to remember we attract people who are very similar to ourselves. So we have to keep in mind that there are many people out there who we may have minor contact with who think much differently than we do.

 

I think it is important to have elasticity of mind, especially for a scientist such as yourself. To make conclusions about humans is to set a law...and human behavior, human motivation is such a terribly imprecise science. Psychology is a blend of philosophy, religion and speculation along with statistically developed probabilities that are as subjective as they are objective.

 

It's difficult enough for each of us to understand our own selves from minute to minute. How can we possibly feel capable of extending ourselves into the psyche of another?