The Rote Shit Show

Note 40602:

Confidence is an attitude when humans think they have truth. In reality, some people have truth and some people do not. A level of confidence is no real indicator of this. The relationship between what people say and how it plays out in reality is the indicator. Their self-evaluation means nothing. Even though of course it's a little more complicated than that.

The best people know when and when not to have confidence about a thing. It's a balance achieved only by real thinking. I know this sounds trite, but it starts us off in a simple path toward the shit show. And by shit-show I mean over-confidence.

Religious people, for example, are the most confident bunch. I guess, in their own way, what they are saying is that they lack all confidence. They have a mystical concept of a thing (and not-a-thing) that is actually the one with the answers, not them. They don't need confidence because their source (the thing, not-really-a-thing) is the one with the answers. Not them. But is this really true? You don't agree with their "thing." They made the thing up in their head (whether at this point it is true or not, it is still pure rote). So even though they are acting like they are humble and lack confidence about life's greatest questions, they are, in fact, telling you exactly the way things are. Like John Travolta in "Get Shorty:" I'm telling you the way that it is! Yes, they certainly are. So even though they say they are humble, they are the most confident bunch. They seemingly via their God concept that they obtained through rote adherence (rote over and over again so that history itself has become a kind of rote machine) claim to be humble while simultaneously telling you 100% the answers (Oh! It's not me, its my concept saying it) to life's greatest questions. After all, they know who put you here and where you are going.

The confident attitude is the predecessor to the world's greatest problems. It can work and it can fail based mostly on about what one is confident. If confidence tells you that gravity makes you fall, it might save your life. If it tells you to shoot Larry Flynt because your God-concept tells you that the naked human body is somehow evil, then it gets you to exactly where we are today: The Rote Shit show.