Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
Does anyone else feel like there is some indulgent aspect to posting? The whole reason I began posting on the motte was that "iron sharpens iron", but talking about the same CW issue for the 100th time isn't helping much more in that regard. I realized that as of late, I have been putting comments out there just for the sake of it, even when I don't have anything meaningful to add to the discussion; With the faint rationalization that "I can be someone else's iron".
I am not making some grand announcement to the world, but rather want to hear if anyone felt as such as well. I am going to reduce commenting for a while. Instead, I'll go back to reading more. I'm going to finally address my growing backlog of books and papers to go through. I will still participate in the motte once in a while, but only if I deem it to be meaningful participation and not just pseudo-socialization. For the near future, the motte is going to be partially read-only for me.
Partially related to this, I have had some severe panic attacks and anxiety about the way I am living my life (details not necessary right now). I realized that I am not "happy" , and that around 90% of the world has a life much worse than mine. The weight of this realization is heavily weighing down on my conscience, Just the sheer volume of suffering. I don't understand the psychology behind this, but my gut tells me that living a simplistic austere life more in service of others than hedonism (even small ones such as spending too much time scrolling Instagram or ordering takeout too frequently) is the remedy.
I'm not sure I really understand the difference. When I see something I disagree with I register the disagreement with whatever, sometimes feeble, justification I can muster on the grounds that people here who disagree with me likely have some reason for doing so. Then if I'm engaged with we sharpen eachother. If I don't that's unfortunate but this is the benefit of the CW issue coming back another 100 times, either I changed their mind such that they didn't need to engage, I understand this is not frequently the case, or I did not make my point well enough and will wait until the opportunity comes again.
Now if you're engaging with things you agree on I can see how that would quickly lose it's interest but I don't often do that, even people I mostly agree with I can find some dissonance worth addressing.
You have my condolences, we cannot help how we feel nearly as much as we wish. I won't give unrequested advice but you are not alone in this feeling and others have overcome it.
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