[noname123]

Hi Sir,

Thanks for spelling out the truth. For those who are young and impressionable, listen to this man. Let me paraphrase his two points,

1) Being a nice person will not only earn you any affection you crave but the opposite, contempt for being an agreeable person.

2) Professional help is an oxymoron. Psychiatrists waste money and time.

In my humble opinion, fundamental human problems involve three things, social class, money and sex. Sanitized into our civilized world, it means "pursuing your passion," "entrepreneurship," and "being a good citizen." Shrinks will not grant you any of those things. You have to do the dirty work yourself.

[gnosis]

"Being a nice person will not only earn you any affection you crave but the opposite, contempt for being an agreeable person."

This has not been my experience. I like nice people, and dislike assholes. I know plenty of other people who feel the same. Of course, there are people who are attracted to assholes, but if you're interested in their affection then you might want to take a deep, hard look at why.

"Professional help is an oxymoron. Psychiatrists waste money and time."

There are lots of different types of psychiatrists and psychologists in the US and around the world. The most popular type of therapy in the US right now is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), but there are many, many others. If one therapy (or one therapist) doesn't work for you, that doesn't mean that another won't.

"In my humble opinion, fundamental human problems involve three things, social class, money and sex."

You might want to look at Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs.[1] From most basic to the highest needs, they are:

* Physiological needs

* Safety needs

* Love and belonging

* Esteem

* Self-actualization

* Self-transcendence

Your "social class, money and sex" only really cover the bottom four levels, and completely ignore the need for self-actualization and self-transcendence. While Maslow's heirarchy is controversial, I personally think it's quite myopic to ignore the need many people have for getting beyond the lower levels in to the quest for self-discovery, self-development, and self-transcendence.

"Shrinks will not grant you any of those things. You have to do the dirty work yourself."

Psychologists and psychotherapists can certainly never "grant" you anything except a (hopefully) sympathetic ear. A good therapist can also help you get insight and offer good advice, but you will certainly have to do a lot of hard work in the therapy session and as homework. To think that on your own you can achieve anywhere near the amount of insight, healing, and growth that you could with the help of a good therapist is (usually and for most people) overly optimistic.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

[noname123]

Hi Gnosis,

Thanks for your detailed response with details. I'll address about being a nice person, CBT and Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

a) On Being Nice

My experience of dealing with "nice begets nice" have been situations where, a) both parties are equitable in some context and have something to gain from one another (emotional need met in relationships, being on the same sports or business team etc) or b) where someone who's in a higher position of power and doesn't find the less empowered person threatening. This may sound very clinical but often-times, people confuse themselves unconsciously about their capacity to be a altruistic person vs. their need to feel altruistic. Common example include some people's need to feel like a good person in romantic or social context but in the end lead on the more needy lover/friend, some people's need to feel like a "creative" person but find themselves resorting to "capitalist sins" about their career/promotion in critical times.

For me personally, it's more honest and accurate for myself to say that I enjoy the feeling of giving and being loved and it's important to my well-being; but that feeling is subordinate to my self-interest. I feel this is true love rather than confusing my ultimately selfishness, misrepresenting and leading myself and someone else on.

b) CBT

IMO, most therapy tries to change the way you think or feel about your problems but not how to go about fixing the problems themselves. I don't want to dive into the exact mechanics of CBT/NLP/Psychotherapy/SSRI, but I find them to be more evasive and ultimately ineffective ways to confront emotional issues.

I want to be a professional basketball player in the NBA. Correcting negative emotional triggers throughout the day as to why I'm not 6' 5'' is ultimately not going to be effective. I have to apply domain-specific knowledge in basketball for undersized guards such as floaters and dribble-attack moves to compensate for my shortness. Or if I'm past a specific age, it's pretty unrealistic and I should divert my attention/resources to more realistic goals. The same binary logic applies to relationships, career's and yuppie ambitions. Psychology is too vague to solve my domain specific problems such as how to talk to girls, whether to work for a RoR or Python shop or how to start a vegan bakery-shop that would impress my friends. I don't want to suppress my negative thoughts or "sublime" them into more positive one's, they are there to force me to either do correct my shortcomings or admit that I suck. And I'd rather concede to my realistic conditions and progress realistically than to delude myself with the magic bullet of positive thinking that will never come.

c) Maslow's Pyramid of Needs

I believe that self-actualization and self-transcendence is too abstract for me. Helping to start a school or free clinic in Africa to me is a vanity like owning a yacht because I wouldn't do it unless I have more free time or money. I don't see any of my artistic/creative activities like creative writing, composing music etc. as "higher-lifting" as much as playing World of Warcraft or programming. They are fun things that I like to do to get into the flow of one particular thing and to assign a higher purpose and say I'm a "maker/tinkerer" or "chronicler of human condition" is ludicrous and egoistic. In my humble opinion, Einstein, Shakespeare or Tom Brady whoever don't do necessarily write or think differently than I do. They just do it in orders of magnitude better which doesn't put them in a different "creative class" of "free-thinkers" which somehow one day I hope to associate with, it just means that I suck and will most likely suck for the rest of my life. My problem isn't "finding myself," I did that exercise in kindergarten But it's how to make my life better now.

[thaumaturgy]

Thanks. I have just one little quibble: if you want help, a good counselor, therapist, or psychologist can be invaluable. They can see you in ways very different from how you see yourself, and they can communicate with you in ways that nobody else close to you can. So, if you're still at the stage where you want some help, then do go and talk to a few professionals. You might be pleasantly surprised.

On the other hand, finding a good professional takes money and energy and time, and many people lack one of the three. Commanding them to spend money, energy, or time isn't likely to make them do something they can't do.

If you've reached the stage where you no longer want help, then having random people on the internet tell you to go to a professional doesn't do you any good.

[snowwrestler]

This is bad advice. Being a nice person is almost always the right thing to do. Nice people are pleasant to be around, so others want to help them. And if no one wants to help you, well, at least you were a nice person.

Being a jerk gets you nothing. The jerks who achieve success do so in spite of being a jerk. (There is more to life than your affect.)

People who say things like "nice guys finish last" are not actually being nice, they are being martyrs. There's a difference.