siniang
Policy Enforcement
This one is one I've been struggling with for a really long time and with every new horrific event, it's getting worse.
It's causing a lot of internal conflict because at the core my inherent nature is to naively believe in the good in the world and, by extension, people. That belief is what everything, my world view, my belief system, my moral compass, my actions are build on. Be good. Do good. Every single person has that potential if only they receive the necessary support, education, sobering exerperience, .... kindness.
I'm not religious, so I don't think people need to 'be good' in order to go to Heaven or something of the sorts. I also don't belief in Karma. But I do belief in actio equals reactio. We're cultural beings and social learners.
However, every single day actions of people show me that people - are not good. That they're doing and thinking and believing things that don't even begin to compute for me. In my lived experience - not what I want it to be and want to belief - people as a whole are awful. At best, they're indifferent, which ... well.... same same.
Now, those statements scream cognitive distortions.
Black and white thinking.
Generalizations.
Basically PTSD Crit D. 2: Persistent and exaggerated negative beliefs or expectations about oneself, others, or the world
But how can this be exaggerated if there's proof literally every single day?
Now, the counters usually are it's observation/survey bias. Or that I'm ignoring all the good people doing a lot of good things.
But those seem to be outliers. If they actually made a real difference, we wouldn't still be fighting the same issues, experiencing the same horrific events, even after decades, centuries, millenia. We wouldn't have countries forcefully and armed invade other countries, killing people, raping women. We wouldn't have an entire country merely shrug that millions of people died from a preventable disease. We wouldn't have 19 dead elementary school children 23 years after Columbine.
How can it be a cognitive distortion if every time I defiently want to continue believing in the good in the world it punches me in the face by illustrating in realtime just how bad people are and continue to be?
Are we not good enough?
Are we not brave enough?
To become something greater
Than the violence in our nature
It's causing a lot of internal conflict because at the core my inherent nature is to naively believe in the good in the world and, by extension, people. That belief is what everything, my world view, my belief system, my moral compass, my actions are build on. Be good. Do good. Every single person has that potential if only they receive the necessary support, education, sobering exerperience, .... kindness.
I'm not religious, so I don't think people need to 'be good' in order to go to Heaven or something of the sorts. I also don't belief in Karma. But I do belief in actio equals reactio. We're cultural beings and social learners.
However, every single day actions of people show me that people - are not good. That they're doing and thinking and believing things that don't even begin to compute for me. In my lived experience - not what I want it to be and want to belief - people as a whole are awful. At best, they're indifferent, which ... well.... same same.
Now, those statements scream cognitive distortions.
Black and white thinking.
Generalizations.
Basically PTSD Crit D. 2: Persistent and exaggerated negative beliefs or expectations about oneself, others, or the world
But how can this be exaggerated if there's proof literally every single day?
Now, the counters usually are it's observation/survey bias. Or that I'm ignoring all the good people doing a lot of good things.
But those seem to be outliers. If they actually made a real difference, we wouldn't still be fighting the same issues, experiencing the same horrific events, even after decades, centuries, millenia. We wouldn't have countries forcefully and armed invade other countries, killing people, raping women. We wouldn't have an entire country merely shrug that millions of people died from a preventable disease. We wouldn't have 19 dead elementary school children 23 years after Columbine.
How can it be a cognitive distortion if every time I defiently want to continue believing in the good in the world it punches me in the face by illustrating in realtime just how bad people are and continue to be?
Are we not good enough?
Are we not brave enough?
To become something greater
Than the violence in our nature
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