Feelings Don’t Matter

I am not talking about emotions, love, joy, fear, anger, etc, these do matter. I’m talking about felling smart, feeling strong, feeling right, feeling that something is good, right, wrong, or bad. These feelings don’t matter, being and facts are what matter. Being smart, being strong, being right, that something is factually good, right, wrong, or bad. Feeling is not being, seeking the feelings is not seeking to be and seeking to feel is highly unlikely to lead to one being. It just leads to people thinking they have knowledge they do not and may not even be able to have.

The problem right now is that so many people seek to feel, not be. People want to feel strong, people want to feel smart, people want to feel like they are doing what is right and that they are right. There are ways to find these feelings with out being any of these and those are the easiest ways of finding these feelings. People bullying those who are weaker than them or not as smart as them so they can feel strong or feel smart. That bullying only creates the feeling of being strong or smart, it doesn’t make one strong or smart. It is easy to confirm ones existing belief, creating the feeling of being right but that doesn’t make one right. Ignoring and denying any contrary evidence will make one feel right but if they are wrong then they are living in a delusional fantasy world. Relying on ones feelings to form an opinion may feel better than dealing with facts and reality, but it only confirms one’s presuppositions regardless of if they are right or wrong. The real world isn’t like Star Wars, searching your feelings will not give you the truth.

These easy ways of finding those feelings are often the more destructive ways. For example: Bullying, abuse, and harassment (they are all abuse so I’ll just use the word abuse for all of them). It is harmful, not just to the victim, it is harmful to the abuser, reinforcing destructive behaviors that will inevitably backfire, harming them. Abusers don’t deal with the insecurities leads them to abuse, allowing these insecurities to remain and even grow. It will lead to the abuser victimizing others, including those they care about because they’ve convinced themselves abuse is normal or even right. It harms communities and society, witnessing abuse can harm the witnesses, victims with no outlets for the emotions brought on by the abuse can lash out and become abusers themselves, and it promotes a culture of violence and abuse. On top of all these, abuse doesn’t make one strong or smart, in fact these are acts of weakness stupidity, not strength or intelligence.

Surrounding oneself with people who agree with one’s beliefs and actions reinforces those beliefs and actions. It makes one feel like their beliefs and actions are right and good. When those actions and beliefs are actually harmful, to the individual, the individual’s family, or others, those harmful beliefs and actions are still reinforced. Any doubt or moral self doubt gets pushed out of the individual’s mind, the certainty that they are right and doing the right things grows. The individual continues their harmful beliefs and actions harming themselves and others. When the individual is in a position of power, those people who agree with them get replaced by sycophants who will not only agree with the individual, will take advantage of the individual. The individuals actions would only get worse, and because of their power they will harm far more people.

The Dunning Kruger Effect is the tendency of those with little knowledge or skill to overestimate their knowledge or skills and underestimate everyone else’s while those who have knowledge or skills tend to underestimate their own knowledge or skills and overestimate everyone else’s. This is a tendency, not an absolute, there are plenty of people who know very little and are fully aware of it, many of them will even underestimate their own knowledge, and there are people with knowledge that are arrogant egotists who overestimate what they know. What separates those who accurately understand how much know or underestimate what they know from those who overestimate what they know? Feelings. Those who seek to feel like they know will find ways to feel it regardless of how much they actually know and in feeling they have knowledge they don’t they will act on knowledge they don’t have, making mistakes. For those who do have knowledge, their seeking to feel like they have knowledge will only lead them to overestimate the knowledge they have, leading to mistakes. Those who lack knowledge and know they lack knowledge are much more likely seek those who do know or seek to gain that knowledge, and those who have knowledge but don’t overestimate themselves will continue to learn. These people are less likely to make mistakes.

Facts matter, truth matters, living in reality matters. Being wrong will hurt you, even if it is a little wrong. Little wrongs can kill families. Little wrongs like putting off replacing the battery in a smoke detector to save some money, if a fire happens, nothing will worn the family and they will die. “It’s okay once” is something many people have told themselves. For example: “It’s okay this one time, I’ve only had a few drinks and I don’t live that far away, I can drive this time.” But it won’t be just that one time, and it won’t always be just a “few” drinks. About 11,000 people a year die in drunk driving related accidents. Abuse starts out small, abusers don’t start out beating people they are in relationships with, and abusive relationships don’t start with beatings. When the little abuses start, those abuses are rationalized or minimized by the abuser and those little abuses will grow into big abuses. Little wrongs add up, little wrongs can grow to become big wrong, and a little wrong can kill you or the ones you love.

Seeking to feel right or looking at one’s feelings for answers does not give facts or truth, only feelings. As good as those feelings feel in the long run they will harm you, people you care about, and others. Those who are smart don’t always or even often feel smart, those who are strong don’t always feel strong, and those who are good people, don’t always feel like good people. People who know enough to know what they don’t know are confronted by what they don’t know, when one is confronted by what they don’t know they don’t feel smart, being strong, either mentally or physically, takes work and that work doesn’t always leave one feeling strong, and those who are good people have moral self doubts. Seeking to be, not feel, in the long run benefit the individual, they learn how to deal with the doubts and feelings that they don’t like, they use them to learn, grow stronger, smarter, and become a batter person, gaining and maintaining their smartness, strength, and morality, even if they don’t feel it. And the key to being, not feeling, is to never stop learning.

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Image by Colin Behrens from Pixabay used in header image.

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