ppw

I read that as our faculty of perception inherently distorts the data we receive through our senses and the knowledge (idols) we produce are necessarily subjective not only because of the distorted data we receive, but also because the process of cognition is also inherently subjective/distorted.

I don't find any value in making small talk. Is there any? Should I focus on learning how to make small talk to enhance work relationships?

It's not really a discrete situation, but more of an ongoing thing. In essence, it's about constantly reassuring others that you acted morally (properly) in certain situations for fear of them thinking poorly of you.

Keep explaining myself to them, to insane detail, and with the sole purpose of saving face. So it's not to impress, but to "prevent" the opposite.

I'd like to add that I often find myself on the defensive, i.e. I am pressured to defend my own actions, though there seems to be no specific reason to do so nor is there any specific party that I feel I have to explain myself to. The best term I could come up with that sums up how I feel about this is that I feel forced to 'correct the collective consciousness'. You know how you don't want people to start thinking poorly of you, so you disseminate positive (and true) information about yourself? Facebook and Twitter are great tools for this; perhaps I should start using those ...

Yeah, but they don't make the distinction - even I can barely sense it - so it's difficult for me to carry my own in spite of them. Maybe I just need to learn to ignore that. With that policy, however, it gets hard to seriously consider anything else they say. Why does it have to be this hard?

How would I know? I can't read their minds. I don't know what they're impressed by. I don't know if they're rational people. All I can do is what they ask me to and that's it.

It's just that they want me to appeal to people's consciousnesses instead of focusing on my work. They seem to take it really hard when and if I make mistakes in my work, and not because it would hinder my work, but because of what my superiors will think about my mistakes, what they will think about me, what will be my standing among them. It's annoying.

Oh, they're just scared that my superiors will make my life a living hell because making a good impression on them is not my top priority. But I've had this policy before, in high school, with my teachers - that they had a good impression of me was my top priority, because it got me good grades - and it had such a corrupting influence on me that I feel the consequences of it to this day.

Hi everyone Have you ever felt pressured to leave a good impression on others, either by yourself or by other people? By others, I mean more specifically those who are higher up the chain; your parents, employers, superiors, teachers .. i.e. the people who have the power to make your life a living hell, or so they say. Leaving a good impression on others has been a top priority for most of my life until Rand. I (hopefully correctly) identified that element in me as a Keating-element and proceeded to try and 'disable' it. So I don't feel pressured by myself to do that anymore (at least not on that level). But because of that, other people (specifically family and friends) are pressuring me to do that. I don't know how to deal with that. My policy up until now has been just to turn off that part of me in my mind. Hopefully, it's the right thing to do - to have existence and not other people as the primary orientation to reality. I just mean that worrying about what other people think of you will get you nowhere and that acting according to your best knowledge and practicing a policy of honesty is much better. But I don't like it when people are trying to intimidate me into becoming the guy who just wants his bosses to think well of him. I'd appreciate any input on this - there are not many people I can talk to in my life who see this as an issue. Thanks