ruji said:
I see this all the time where people explain the best-case scenario of not being affected by something they shouldn't. We say these things from a stable state, but eventually life will find a way to kick down your bathroom door with a loaded gun while you're taking a shit.
Well I'm not suggesting we can always win against life, or anything optimistic like that. My idea that there's a visceral and a rationalized version of one's reactions is pretty compatible with this possibility you're describing, but I tend to think the
really unfortunate possibility is the one where you
can't implement what would clearly be the reasonable solution for no reason than crude, brutal pragmatic issues.
The possibility that one's visceral reactions precede one's awareness of one's rationalizations is also there, but I have more experience with the first kind of unfortunate than this kind.
It's also important to note that I'm not suggesting any kind of altruistic/self-sacrificial ideal, my views are perfectly compatible with a selfish (but rational, just, etc) worldview.
I tend to think the reason people see this night-and-day difference between the best-case-scenario and the shit-hits-the-fan description you're giving is simply that I'd not agree with them on where they draw the lines on what they should and shouldn't be affected by; I place a higher premium on getting rid of irrationality (that is, unreasonable justifications that might lead one to impossible-to-shake feeling-reactions) and a lower premium on getting them to chase a romantic ideal. If one is unrealistic about drawing that line, then
of course there'll be a big difference between the best-case fairytale and the life-kicks-you one.
I think if one places a higher premium on rationality than almost anything else, it's possible to whittle down the issues to purely pragmatic ones. How feasible those are to overcome largely depends on one's circumstances, but that's why I'm emphasizing my views are about what you
can control. I find many underestimate the number of ways out there are tremendously