My own view of internet relationships is that you just can't take them personally, ever. I've taken a fair number of slings and arrows in my online posting history. Like most normal human beings, I've certainly felt my feelings hurt from time to time -- almost certainly by El D a time or two racking hard on some thoughtless point I made. I decided long ago to do my level best to take the personal sting out of the insults but read through them to see whether I might be wrong. It's been a much better approach.

Of course, that changes when an internet acquaintance turns into an IRL acquaintance and then even perhaps a friend.

I think there's plenty of room between "smarter than a 17K low-level office job" and what's been said about you. I don't think anyone around here doubts that you're rather smarter than that. But I think the problem isn't so much the disjunction between your actual smarts and your perception of yourself, but rather the extent to which your emotional immaturity handicaps your IQ. One can get into a semantic debate about whether one's ability to maximize the utility of one's IQ is itself a facet of intelligence or not. Boiling this down a little, I'd observe that taking time to think about how smart you are isn't particularly smart: it doesn't achieve anything.


Okay, here's an example. The statement "I'm better than my job" may well be true. But its truth value is beside the point, because it makes you sound cocky, arrogant and insecure all at the same time.

I don't think there's really much of a conflict here, but even if there is, so what? There are plenty of conflicts in our outlooks on things. The trick is to not let those conflicts prevent you from achieving stuff. There's no such thing as a perfectly unified life. One example: Christopher Hitchens. He spent a fair amount of time in his autobiography (called Hitch-22, which is brilliantly written, by the way; his command of the English language is absolutely spectacular) on this exact point. Many of his public views were absolutely irreconcilable with one another, but he never let that paralyze him.

It is immediately and blindingly obvious that they are not. For every person that plays in the Premier League, there are literally thousands of journos/writers/think-tankers/politicians. So your thought here is a) wrong and b) an impediment to doing what you say you want.

Apropos to your goal (5), immediately read the entire "Thinking of quitting my job" thread and doing just the opposite of every single thing A Beast has ever done.

Rasta,

"You might tell me that I'm too confident or whatever, but this really is a just an illusion created by the fact that I can write well."

No, it's because you believe things like you can write well.

Rasta,

Here's my suggestion re: your goals.

Instead of having six goals, start with part of one goal:

"maintaining a far more rigorous schedule of updating my own political blog and getting my message out there."

"I shall do all of these as soon as I return from Brazil on the 25th March."

And instead of starting on March 25th, start today.

Exactly the same advice as TypicalBro is getting, they really must be the same person!

Welcome to the blog forum Rasta!

Oh there's certainly no danger of me taking anything on the thread personally or indeed being upset by it. I've pretty much done what you suggested here throughout my time on TwoPlusTwo, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to gently point out inconsistencies and double-standards here and there, as well as chuckle at people desperately asking the moderators that my low-content posts proving them wrong on issues like cricket be moved to somewhere where they can't be embarrassed by them.

I'd agree, I think I'm more intelligent than the likes of El D think I am, but less intelligent than he thinks that I think I am.

Yeah, this is partly the reason I never really bother with proper IQ tests. They don't measure 'practical intelligence'. If I have an IQ of 158 that's offset by a crippling emotional immaturity, then sure, what really is the point?

I've never once said that, only reported that people have either said it either to me, or about me.

I'm a huge fan of Christopher Hitchens and would put him down one of my main inspirations. Reading his work even drove me to help out on a Free Iran protest at the puny little age of 19 because I was so keen to get involved in international politics, especially after the 'green movement' protests in the aftermath of the 2009 elections (that's kind of another story I guess).

I didn't say that the two fields were equally competitive, but just that for some people, they're equally unattainable.

Now according to El Diablo, the ceiling of my ambition should be coming to terms with the fact that I will forever be utterly dependent on my parents, which would render my chances of achieving the Premier League Golden Boot and a permanent position working for a political think tank equally unattainable at 0%.

Do you think that I have potential to become a good writer? or do you think that my pursuing a career in writing would be a fool's errand to the extent of the archetypal delusional fat man trying to become a Premiership footballer?

Rasta,

" chuckle at people desperately asking the moderators that my low-content posts proving them wrong on issues like cricket be moved to somewhere where they can't be embarrassed by them. "

What did you prove me wrong about?

That you personally dislike me, are not merely happy with my posts exclusively talking about myself and my life being isolated to one thread, but want to exile me from the forums because you don't like someone with a 3-figure post count laughing at your attempts to bully them online.

Fabian,

Rasta is pretty much the same as TB, tbabs, Bryce, jmakin, etc. Oh, and ytf!

At least jmakin seems to have taken a lot of advice to heart and worked hard to successfully turn things around for himself.

Rasta,

Everyone wants you exiled from the forums except for one thread, with 27 being the one exception so far I think. That has been the case for several weeks.

Rasta,

It's not because I dislike you. It's because you repeatedly drone on and on about stuff without adding anything worthwhile to the discussion.

Often you don't make any sense at all. Like here you claim I want posts of yours moved because it's embarrassing that you proved me wrong. Except, this is what you ended up writing: "Probably true actually."

That's proving me wrong and embarrassing me? Uh, ok.

Why? What have I done? I'm polite to people, I only respond with gentle mockery when insults come my way, and as proven today, even when I post about completely separate subjects to my own issues I just receive a load of hostility.

Rasta,

You've managed to whine, bitch, argue, and post a bunch already. Doing the same **** you always do. So I'll respond to your latest round of questions with the same advice I already gave you.

I was referring to the fact that I knew that if I posted on an entirely separate subject, you'd still shout from the heavens that I should be exiled, thus proving your claims to not dislike me personally are quite blatantly false.

Anyway, I'll leave you to run back to the mods.

"I try and pick on this little upstart and he just doesn't care! Mods! Mods! He just doesn't care about my 50,000 posts! He actually asks me why I'm qualified to make a judgement about something! He should feel bad goddamnit!"

Of course people are going to call you out when posting in non-containment threads after agreeing to doing (and starting a new!!) a containment thread.

I don't know why you keep talking about whether or not a post of yours is "referring to your issues". That is completely irrelevant.

Rasta,

You seem really confused about someone disliking you vs thinking you're a terrible poster.

Rasta, you use words in the most passive-aggressive manner that I have ever encountered. It's brilliant. Unpleasant, but brilliant.

Rasta,


Except that you weren't. You were referring to proving me wrong about cricket, specifically Tendulkar's level of global popularity. Which you tried to do, but then reversed your position on and agreed with me.

So now you're either just lying, delusional, or trolling.

I was under the quite justified impression that such an arrangement entailed that I was still able to post about random issues irrelevant to all that I had so far talked about like any other TwoPlusTwo poster.

Well, we've reached an impasse I'm afraid. I consider it entirely relevant, and clearly unfair treatment to be told that I'm not allowed to post anything about anything anywhere else.

Cricket...Like...literally cricket.

You've changed your tune from this morning darling

I will do, but it seems unfair that I'm essentially cleaning up their mess. I feel like Sam Harris after the Ben Affeck episode on Bill Maher.

Rasta,


How is me pointing out you flat-out lying changing my tune?

GnT,


Excellent suggestion. He can even use that as a writing practice exercise.