Friday, December 01, 2006
a question

An inquiring mind would love to know.

The Question:
Given only these two choices for the rest of your life, would you rather be...



A. Unloved and very lonely, but completely brilliant and competent in everything you do.

-OR-

B. Completely not respected and wholly inadequate in everything you do, but surrounded by people who love you.


Respond in the comments... writing your reasoning is optional.

  |


Comments:
hmmm...bobby fischer or dubya, oh the dilemma. i think i'd take the fischer side, just by default. also b/c i don't think i'd be able to deal w/ my own utter incompetency. too much pride i suppose.
 
Hmm...those are two extremes...the 2nd sounds like my life now. The first was my life before. and my life is not that bad right now. Anyway, both seem to revolve around how others see you and as much as I want to say it doesn't matter how others see you, to an individual, sometimes how others see you is your world. I've seen that here in Japan.

Anyway, I'd probably pick the 2nd, because I feel incompetant in what I do, but loved by people at home.

A librarian once told me that your worth is not seen in what you do. (He meant that as what you do in a job. But he could have meant other things too.) Anyway, your worth is also not seen in how many people love you or don't love you either. I guess it just depends on what's more important to you? Life is not always extreme though.

Anyway, to me both don't matter as much anymore. Before they would have mattered a lot more. But still, I cringe everytime I do a bad job, but when I do something well, I'll forget about it eventually. So to me, people are the things that stick in my mind. Love...Anyway, I think that yeah, it comes down to what you see yourself as, and what others see you as.

If you're wondering why being brilliant doesn't matter as much to me anymore is that I don't have to be to have worth. Maybe I'm a moron, but to me it does feel better to be loved by others instead of disliked.

Hmm...maybe that's your question. Is it better to be respected? Or liked? i've always chosen to be liked. But I've come to see that when people like you yet they totally disrespect you, then that pisses me off. Do they like you because they can make fun of you? That I have a problem with. So maybe in my heart, I'd choose to be respected and competant. Anyway, I don't have a clear answer, because both are extremes to me and I feel like I'm liked more than respected.
 
Oooh, very tough choice. I think that when I used to be a type A personality, I would have picked the first. But now I can't do without my peeps, my support group. So I'd have to go with 2.
 
tough one.

i'd love to say B, but if you feel wholly inadequate, u'll feel undeserving of those people. it isn't enough for others to love u if u have no love for urself. u'll not only hate urself, but may hate them for not hating u too. as sad as choice A is, i think that's what i'd have to go with. ultimately it isn't enough to be surrounded by warmth if the center is forever cold and dank.

for me, it has less to do with how others see you and more to do with how you see urself.

i can't stand other people's incompetence, can't imagine how i could deal with that in myself. in EVERYTHING i do. utterly horrible. don't even want to consider it.

-f
 
please further clarify (a), e.g., why are you (not you but 'you') unloved.

if you are brilliant and competent in everything you do, how does that warrant unloved?
 
heh>
Hmmm, I guess maybe it's the whole "unrecognized genius" kind of thing? That even if you're great at something, nobody sees it or loves you for it?

The questions are from a book I'm reading.
 
Stumbled across your posting. . .

I would choose A.
because "no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself".
 
unrecognized genius reminds me of Mozart of Beethoven. Their characters are shown in some movies, like Amadeus, I forget the Beethoven movie. But yeah, Beethoven wrote a piano sonata? that characterized his life. I think my teacher told me that it was kind of humorous in some way, because his genius wasn't recognized. Anyway, from history, most of the time, people don't realize how great someone is until much much later.

So if you are great then you will be loved much later after your time while being unloved now.

Mozart and Beethoven were geniuses. You can listen to their music and see that. But it wasn't always liked at the time because it was way beyond the times.

How often has music been classified as dirty or immoral by society because it was different? Not saying only about the stuff nowadays, but way back when when ragtime was considered dirty, or jazz considered dirty. What about the rite of spring? That was considered dirty in the 1900s because it had no harmony. It was all dissonant. Crazy huh...that is one of the cooler ones but barbaric in some sense because it was about a human sacrifice. heh. Yeah, that's kind of barbaric, but that's what the music represented and it wasn't accepted. People got angry at this music and one guy even suffered injuries because he just wanted to listen to the music. Anyway, I seem to babble way too much on your blog.
 
Competency or compassion? I pick compassion. Being loved is much more valuable than having skills or savvy, b/c those can go at any moment due to some freak accident. But to have people who love me, even though I'm inadequate and bordering incompetent? That's amazing love indeed!
 
Post a Comment

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33

the facts.
name. Gar AKA "that Chinese guy" "Sleepy.McSleeping"
ethnicity/nationality. Chinese/American, 4th gen.
location. Sea-Town, WA, USA Kawanishi, JAPAN
occupation. less-cynical poor grad student
age. younger than you think, older than you know

 



 

[contact]
UnseenGC @ AIM
(myname) @ gmail.com

 

 

[ARCHIVES]
main listing

[memories]
i - ii - iii - iv - v

  This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours? Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com Creative Commons License