A concept structures sensation. We tend to see concepts as abstract or virtual or constructed and in a way they're all of these, but they're also self-organizing patterns in brain activity and in the similar flows throughout the universe.

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Ripples bubbles swirls and matrices

Sometimes I think we underestimate how actually "natural" our raw experience is. It's easier to think of brain activity like an operating system. But we grew in place like plants. Our thoughts and feelings are more akin to plant fragrances.

I'm sure I've offended a bunch of my friends. Hasn't everyone? People still seem to be pretty nice to me in general. Sometimes I wonder if everyone's like, "Ooooh, that Harlem is so crazy. You have to tread carefully. Be nice." But overall I think that isn't true. It's more like people tell me things are ok when I'm nervous or worn out or angry or all three. But usually they don't seem to know or care which I'm feeling, and I don't make it their business. So everyone thinks I'm chill (usually), because I am (usually - hey I have a high tolerance), unless I'm venting about something systematically wrong or feeling like my life is over and life was never good. You have to push to see my anger, or I have to trust you so much that I'll tell you what frustrates me.

I learned a lot about Trump supporters well before his political career, simply from my mother. Trump supporters have delusions - sometimes it's within the normal range of delusionality, and it just happens that those particular delusions support a faction. But other times the delusions are more extensive and pervasive. My mother, a recently reformed Trump supporter, is delusional in multiple ways.

I... am not, partly because I learned from her - the very hard way - how delusions work, the ways they cannot be corrected (even though you think that should really work), and how to make sure you are not being delusional yourself.

If you want to help a delusional person see better, do not - do NOT, really truly DO NOT - attack them. They will not gain a single thing from that except that you do not like them or have their best interests in mind. Attack them and they will trust you 0% and discard or discredit everything you say. That's a lot of how delusions work. You even have to be super careful sometimes when you think you're being innocent. Even simple, mild, friendly contradictions can trigger delusional people.

And - I should say again - basically everyone has delusions. But some of us know how to hunt them down.

The Republican Party today is a political party made up of people who are more susceptible to delusions than others. This does not mean that the Democratic Party has no trouble of its own with delusions.

But I think one thing we can all learn is that politics and delusions are closely connected. Many of the things we feel most strongly about are based on intangibles, hearsay, the preferences and rhetoric and assumptions of our peer group, and so on. We feel strongly - we feel so valiant about feeling strongly - to make up for the fact we don't actually fucking know.

This is one of the absolute core dynamics in, and problems with, politics. We get super worked up about stuff we don't actually know. Not in every single case; some people out there do know some things for sure. But if you see someone worked up, chances are they don't actually know. They are making many, many, many assumptions. Maybe they're partly right, and they're taking the evidence of partial rightness as a blank check to spew a lot of other stuff that just sounds right to them at the time.

Don't we all do this? I might be doing this myself right now. Hm. But the thing is, I do have a process. It's something I've worked very hard to develop and hone.

It depends on getting willing to doubt yourself and others and feel uncomfortable but not defensive (in other words, be vulnerable) and look for the real, solid, factual common ground and go from there, cautiously. If you're preoccupied with anyone's confidence or how you look, that's getting in the way. Put solid facts front and center, doubt them anyway, and build out from the least dubious ones, remembering that you're kinda guessing but in an educated way. It sounds shifty, but it's the best process. Seek information, facts, expertise. Don't be egotistical about it. Don't assume you know better than anyone else. Don't go down twenty rabbit holes and think what you've pieced together must be right because you're special for the twenty rabbit holes. The world is made of facts. Start with facts, but vet them. Use your imagination. Play. Discuss. Keep returning to facts. Don't dismiss things out of hand. Pay attention to inconvenient arguments that annoy you. Those are often gold, even when they aren't ultimately sound arguments. The fact you're annoyed and don't have a great answer and you want to get dismissive is a red flag. Don't be like that. Learn more, instead. Thank the argument that made you want to dismiss it because, if you're honest, you actually felt kind of bested for a second. Whether that point is right or wrong, it challenged you. Pay homage to that by learning more.

It's something I learned from talking to my mother: how not to be delusional.

And we are not taught this in school, apparently. Nor is it emphasized in politics.

It really should be, though, because politics is rife with inflamed feelings in search of evidence.

If we could, as a culture, as a species, as a globe, learn to hunt down each other's and our own delusions and bring them to light in the most helpful, compassionate way, many problems that seemed unsolvable before might begin to go away.

It's a hope. That's the best I've got right now.

I have a complex about confidence - what old-school psychologists used to call a complex. And I know this. It isn't a surprise to me or anyone.

It isn't that I entirely lack confidence, or don't know what it is, how to boost it, how to be reasonable about it. Actually, in some ways I'm very good with confidence. That's because I'm happy to question it, almost eager to. I'm quite comfortable with being knocked down and torn to shreds - insofar as anyone is, which is not that comfortable, of course. But it's a kind of discomfort - a willingness to go out of the comfort zone - that I do embrace, embrace so regularly it's almost all the time.

Willingness to go through unpleasant emotions and self-questioning is a kind of confidence, whether it looks confident or insecure to others.

At the same time, we shouldn't call everything good "confident" and everything bad "insecure." There's a sort of unfalsifiability in this whole confidence game we talk. Premise A: Confidence is good. Premise B: Insecurity is bad. Conclusion: If it's good, it's confident, and if it's bad it's insecure.[1]

So we get stuff like "Actually, really confident leaders are humble." Why? Because being humble is good, and everything that's good is confident. See the fucked up logic we all pass off as sensible? Or maybe I'm not portraying it in HD. I don't know. That's how these discussions often sound to me, though. People worship confidence to the moon. So you find someone who's too confident. What about him? Oh, no, that's not confident, that's actually insecure. OK. Then you find someone who isn't confident but who is actually pretty great. What about her? Oh, no, she isn't insecure, look how far out of her comfort zone she is! OK, sure, but she has imposter syndrome; isn't that insecure? Oh, no, imposter syndrome isn't insecure, imposter syndrome means that you're brilliant and can't see it. OK. But... isn't that actually not an accurate definition of imposter syndrome, and if you're brilliant and can't see it, isn't that a lack of confidence? Oh, no, not at all. I mean, look at anyone brilliant, and they've gotta be confident to get there.

And so it goes, round and round in circles, because the logic is, actually, fucking circular.

Do you see why I have a complex? Because I insist on questioning what people confidently say, even if I am the one confidently saying it. Why do I do that? Because it fucking works. Because it makes me smarter. It makes what I say more reliable - even if, at the same time, the questioning and insecurity and discomfort I endure and sometimes show others very clearly makes them lose respect for me and stop listening to me. (This drives me up the wall and contributes to my complex about confidence.)

In my experience, disregarding confidence and usual attitudes about it has been a huge help in making me a more accurate thinker. Which... should be a reason for confidence, I suppose. And it is, sometimes. I am not against confidence. I am against being stupid about it. And unfortunately everyone is stupid about it, so it sounds as if I am against confidence, and resentful of people who have more of it than I do. And that is possible, but I really try for that not to be situation. I am not a very jealous or very resentful person at all. (And I make additional efforts.) If you are not harassing or harming me or others, we are good. Jealousy is not a problem; when I'm jealous of people, I admire them. I'm very much a live-and-let-live kinda guy, and I love that about myself and haven't the slightest intention ever of changing it.

And just that last statement you might call confident, because it seems good. But isn't it, maybe, overconfident? In which case it's insecure?

One day, I think that instead of the word "confident" we will have about 20 words meaning different things that we are currently all bundling under the one word. Then I will no longer have a complex about confidence, if I'm still around :)

[1] If you remember some basic logic from school, this argument is neither sound nor valid.

I don't like to take pictures of people, because they pose and I feel awkward and then nothing is natural or artistic.

If someone hands me a phone to snap their happy group, I don't mind; I'll take half a dozen, hoping one will be half-decent. So it isn't that I lose a sense of connection. I like that they're having fun and trusting me to capture the moment. It's that my style has never been about posing.

It's one reason I'm not photogenic. I prefer to pretend I'm not being photographed - and that means most photos come out unflattering, I guess.

The phoniness of holding a smile expressly for the camera - it makes me squirm, even when I enjoy it and hope the photo turns out well. I avoid photo ops.

And I avoid putting people in those photos by not trying to take them. Almost all my photos are of plants and streets and skies and waters and oddities.

Sometimes I get photos of people who don't know or don't care that I'm photographing. But I try not to be a voyeur. I feel strange about a photo showing a stranger enough they could be identified. So I'm not trying to take photos like that, either.