I spent much of the day digging out another couple of floors in the hill of my base in Minecraft while having various Hololive VODs running in the background to keep my company. I also watched a few ESA Summer VODs as well, and discovered Lion Speedrunners Assembly, a SIN city speedrunning crew.
It's the eve of Christmas; there isn't much to talk about since I'm holed up in my apartment with only my thoughts to myself. I satisfied my craving of hash browns in the morning with a big meal from McDonald's, and compensated with a light dinner of only two small Char Siew Paus and a Hong Kong styled Chee Cheong Fun washed down with a herbal tea.
That last meal was about seven hours ago. It's fine.
Tomorrow I am getting baptised. Am I excited? Well... barely. I hope it isn't because of some blunted affect thing that I have going on---I also have the same level of excitement when it came to actually starting work on Jan 03, i.e. barely.
More realistically though, logistics is on my mind, but it isn't something that I am not ready to handle.
I swear it is possible to simultaneously belong to a group of people and also feel like one is an outsider---it is, after all, my default state of being anyway. And unlike most people, I have more than thirty years of experience doing that, so I ought to be fine.
Mayhaps.
But as they say, if one wants/needs something and doesn't say it out loud, it is unrealistic to expect others to realise that one is having a need/want. So the real question to ask is, to what extent am I willing to lose myself into a group so that I am inexorably intertwined with the group's identity.
The short answer is probably slim to none. I believe in thinking for myself and making my own damn decisions about things. Groupthink is the one big thing that I always try to avoid as much as I can.
``But MT, didn't you just say that you are getting baptised? Isn't the church like the biggest groupthink organisation in the world?''
Yes, sort of. I don't follow a personality or a denomination of church---I aim to follow Christ Himself. That is why I am at this particular [independent] church, whose doctrine can be distilled to ``please read the Bible carefully and apply it accordingly''. Personalities can be corrupted by the relative power that a congregation can bring, while denominations of churches can introduce other elements that are more likely to be substantiated by a cultural tradition than what is based on Biblical truths. To me, the Bible is an inerrant source of truth for living---one should not take away or add things to it and claim that it is still a part of the Bible itself. If the Bible doesn't say about something, it's because that something is irrelevant to the moral living code that the Bible seeks to explain, together with the great plan of salvation since fallible humans can never be righteous on their own merits.
``But MT, you still didn't refute the `groupthink' aspect I raised!''
I think I did. ``Groupthink'' is the mindless following of a paradigm; there is no attempt to even consider alternatives or explanations as to why a particular decision/course of action is made. One is in groupthink when one seemingly loses their ability to exercise their own mental faculties and free will; one is not in groupthink just because they agree with someone's words alone. In many ways, while both outcomes are the same, the path taken by someone in groupthink is devoid of critical thinking, while the path taken by someone not in groupthink has at least some semblence of internal debate for understanding before a free-willed decision is made.
So, following a body of people blindly is groupthink, while following a body of people after thinking long and hard about their positions and comparing against one's personal positions isn't.
Anyway, groupthink is just a diversion. The point here is that while I am in a group, I just don't believe that the joining of the group involves the sacrificing of one's self to lose free will. If we fall into that type of behaviour, then we are no better than a machine as opposed to a thinking, feeling, living person. That ``outsider'' feeling is probably just a visceral reaction towards this sense of self that I am unwilling to lose completely while in a group.
Does that make me hypocritical in the sense that I use a ``manufactured'' persona in groups then? No, I don't think so. There's nothing ``manufactured'' about the way I behave---I am the same pendejo within and without the group, to misquote a comedian.
Anyway, it's still more trite observations and drivel. I'm sorry that you have to read the 600+ words of uninteresting brain-dump that is ultimately meaningless.
Till the next update, I suppose.
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