A dark fog and my widwid

Now that the excitement of the elections are over, and most of the political arguments have ceased for now, I'm left with my own thoughts.

I am by nature a cynic, I think. I work hard to have a positive outlook on things, and I work even harder to make those around me have a positive outlook. Maybe subconciously I hope that by fostering positivity in others I may in turn be positively ionized (a bad chemistry joke) as well.

Perhaps it's mental exhaustion that has me in a negative mood. It is exhausting to have to defend your philosophy and worldview to family and to friends. Perhaps most exhausting, however, is defending them to yourself. I've never been able to answer the question about what I fear the most very well, but one thing I do fear is contradicting myself.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so afraid of it, since I do it every day. My actions constantly contradict my words and beliefs, and I'll be the first to admit it. Of course, everyone deals with this, and so that dimension is easier to swallow. What I fear more is that my words will somehow contradict my beliefs or worldview...or more to the point, that my worldview contradicts my worldview. It's an internal conflict concerning the foundation of my rationalization for doing the things I do. This, to me, is terrifying, and is the equivalent of being lost at sea without a compass, without a sail, without even a paddle.

Another possibility for my mood today could be frustration with others' worldviews. Not a condescending frustration, that seeks to pick someone's worldview to pieces; rather, a more general frustration with my/our inability to reconcile the opposing worldviews to each other, even when our backgrounds may be quite similar. Still, the temptation to belittle or dismiss another's worldview is always there, since I obviously believe in my own...kind of by definition.

[Let me just say that I'm sick of using the word worldview, and if you're still reading this, I'm guessing you're sick of reading it. So let's now call it the Why I Do What I Do (WIDWID). Mostly because "widwid" is going to be a lot of fun to write and read, I suspect.]

While the temptation to dismiss another's widwid is there, I fight it tooth and nail, and here is why: I can't put 100% faith in my own widwid. I'm not sure I'd want to, anyways, since it strikes me as somewhat arrogant. But I guess the point is that I need others' widwids. It is by rubbing our widwids together that we improve them, smooth them out. As iron can sharpen iron, widwid can sharpen widwid. Of course, if done incorrectly, iron can dull iron, and widwid can dull widwid.

Therefore, to properly sharpen widwids, those rubbing widwids together must know what they are doing. And, of course, it must be consensual.

Well I can see that what started as dark philosophical meandering has digressed to lighthearted inuendos with playwords. I'm ok with it, though, because I feel better. Hope you do too.