The push from the bottom, the impact of narcissism on opportunity, the truth about liars

Wednesday 11/11/26

Part the first.

AI seeks to elevate the uncreative and lazy by pushing from the bottom upwards while pushing those who would have been at the top out of the picture entirely, filling the tank of life with nothing but shit without so much as a pocket of aeration.

The people who are shit that can't, as one might say, create for shit, have their chance to act like they possess attributes that they don't in reality possess which is the only way they can be "creative" and "industrious" and "talented" and "prolific." It becomes the mob rule approach to art.

Imagine what it would look like if there was a mob rule approach to doctoring or professional hockey playing? Would you want to go to that doctor? Watch that hockey game? Where it's just a matter of, "Eh, I feel like being this thing, and now I am" and those are the only doctors and hockey players you see?

Anyone who can create legitimate art now faces an even more impossible numbers game than they would have before. Instead of it being a billion to one shot that anyone ever sees their work--that is, without connections and the village gaming the system on their behalf--it becomes a trillion to one.

And that's to say nothing about a world in which people can't discern things for what they are because they're conditioned to this bland sameness, which alters standards. What is "good" now is something not good at all, but it's what people become accustomed to, kind of like how the music one thinks is "the best ever" in sixth grade resonates in this manner because that's all that person knows.

Let's say someone can create great work. They're going to fight this battle? Enter into that life? Devote that time and energy? For what? To be buried and never seen? Unacknowledged? While receiving little to no encouragement?

Sorry, there isn't anyone else alive who has that in them. First, the talent. Second, the commitment. Third, the strength.

There is nothing to check the flow upwards of shit. The total take over of shit. It's in the best interests of humans to do just that, but almost all of them are too obtuse to realize that. Plus, there are all the people who wouldn't be able to draw, write, compose anything otherwise and they don't want to lose this one thing that they stupidly think makes them, again, creative, talented, prolific, "special."

Part the second.

People's narcissism is exhausting. They've made themselves such that they would rather be complimented than actually be the thing for which they were complimented. Or be anything worthwhile or legit for that matter.

The aloneness and loneliness--for these can be separate things--of many stems from their narcissism. It robs people of the ability to perceive opportunity that would make them less alone and less lonely (and more enriched, inspired, fulfilled, energetic, alive, etc.) because they're fixated on themselves, but not in a productive (growth-fostering) fashion, despite their incessant boasts and posts ("healing journey") otherwise.

Anything good in life requires an opportunity to happen. An opportunity can occur on its own. Through luck. An encounter. One may make an opportunity for themselves where there wouldn't have otherwise been one.

Opportunity takes all forms (which doesn't mean true opportunities are regular occurrences) and one of those forms is someone else and what they may bring to our lives. But narcissism stops us from noticing. The narcissist is apt to insult that other person by condescending to them if they do anything at all.

Many people enjoy making it sound like they've done you an honor by acknowledging you, your existence, what you said, what you may have said to them. "I don't ordinarily..." they'll begin, and then say something meant to establish that they (very important person) are up there and you (speck) are well below, as a kind of unquestionable given, which they nonetheless always--and it is always--strive to reify precisely by acting this way time and time again like that will in turn create this wished-for hierarchy.

These people are invariably mediocre or worse. Ironically. You can instantly see them for what they are; but they never will.

I've learned that in almost all instances when someone posts a photo of a book they say they're reading, with some quote like, "My reading for autumn!" captioning it, that they are not in truth reading that book.

If you engage with them about that book, they won't even know you're talking about that book because they have no idea what's inside of it.

Very few people do a given thing because it's that given thing they're doing. They're really do it--which is to say, not actually doing it--for these other things. You will almost always find this to be the case, doesn't matter what the (purported) activity is. For example: to be seen as/get attention for being a smart person by reading the book in a photo.

Part the third.

There are plenty of reasons not to like people. But for me personally, nothing may be worse than lying. This includes lying to others and lying to one's self.

Regardless of any other qualities such a person might have, it is impossible for me to respect a person who lies.

I would argue that if one is a regular liar, one will have no redeeming qualities. There is nothing truly, consistently, lastingly "good" about that person.

A bad quality like lying isn't confined to this chamber of who a person is, locked up over here in a tower. It infiltrates all of that person. Contaminates every other sector.

A liar cannot be a good friend. A liar cannot be a good spouse. A liar cannot be a good parent. A liar cannot be a good teacher. A liar cannot be a learner. A liar cannot be a giver.

A liar can't be a great artist.

Liars only care for themselves, which they don't even do well, because to be a liar is to make yourself less of a person in every way.

Liars are self-ablaters. Internally, I mean, where they are in essence a limbless torso having removed their own legs and arms. Out in the world may be a very different case, especially now with what the world has become. Focusing on publishing, look at a liar like Roxane Gay. Or Junot Diaz. Ibram X. Kendi.

The gains of lying are external; the lying that allows for securing that which isn't merited, for example, or couldn't have been gotten any other way, which isn't far removed from that same functionary aspect of AI with which we began (The people who are shit that can't, as one might say, create for shit, have their chance).

The liar's "victories"--we're talking the "reward" of the lie--is something that isn't what it purports to be. It may be the same in other ways. The money that is scammed from someone else is still the same amount of money, for example, whether that money was scammed or given in good and deserving faith to someone who explained why they needed it.

Sure, it'll spend for an Ibram X. Kendi, but it still isn't the same.

One knows that person to be the limbless torso on the inside. It's likely that their self-loathing and insecurity resulting from the awareness of their lack of legitimacy then engenders more lies, as well as greater anger over not truly being the things their lies are meant to result in them being perceived as.

Life then becomes entirely about maintaining the lie because it fundamentally is a lie for that person.

Lies almost always beget more lies. The liar isn't someone who can say, "Enough," and then concede the floor to and advocate for the truth.

Any good the liar can do is physical. That is, if someone fell while walking, they could offer a hand to help them up.

But the liar can't do the person to person version of this on the emotional, mental, and moral levels. They can't be there for someone in the ways that count most, which we need from people, or at least someone.

They can't even do that for themselves. And if you can't do it for yourself, you can't do it for another, no matter who that person is/the official title/label of the relationship.

Note what I'm saying with that for. The liar may do what appears to be the right thing, but that doesn't mean they did it primarily for that other person. Often, it's for what the doing of that action allows them to have, keep, or get.

It's unlikely it'd ever occur to a liar to try or work towards that true person-to-person being there/uplifting on the overlapping emotional, moral, mental, and moral levels, expend the time and effort necessary to do so, because this requires uncontaminated, honest directness in one's thinking, which the liar has made themselves virtually incapable of and long out of practice with.

The liar doesn't do straight-line A to B thought (or A to B much of anything); the liar travels from A to B via all these other stops they wander to off the direct-line path where they see if there might be something--a masking agent, an implement of deceit--they can use to their benefit.

But here's the hardest part for the person who knows the liar, especially if they try and count on the liar: the liar is able to lie to him or herself about their intentions (which is typically a presumption of caring about someone else, rather than truly caring for them; a difference between in-theory should and actually is) and the extent of their efforts undertaken.

Some of the worst liars don't have any idea they're liars because they are more lie than person. It's like the idea of soap being self-cleaning; only this is the opposite, bad version of that.

Always be aware: liars are by definition self servers. The person they lie for is themselves. They aren't lying to try and help you; it's for them.