This is the kind of writing that might ought to be reserved for private journaling, but I feel its public presence could help others so here I go.
A thought I have been developing. If one believes a particular action or activity is wrong, even in a potentially trivial way, and one engages in it, their mind on some conscious or subconscious level will find a way to diffuse this cognitive dissonance.
I won’t rule out that I may be particularly hard on myself, but I feel this way whenever I engage in some of my unhealthier habits. There’s no need to get into the specifics here: the whole point is that whatever I personally label to be unhealthy.
It’s like I cannot un-ring the bell. It makes me empathize with individual’s who may have dangerous habitual disorders, such as those around eating. The work that must be done has to be an act of re-evaluating and reconsidering values. De-stigmatizing is what must be done.
I suppose this could be considered brainwashing in the most positive sense.
Which makes me think of something I’d like to flesh out more at some time - the notion that tools that we develop for good might always be usurp-able for evil. Like if we can learn how to change peoples minds for the better, does that offer a method for those with less-than-ideal intentions to co-opt these practices?
We always must safeguard ourselves from huxterism - the human trait to want to exploit others good will for an easy buck through the use of confidence scams. I sometimes think about the origins of cons and conmen coming from the notion of confidence, but how the term is now more or less detatched from its origins and stands on its own. It’s almost as if the originators of the term were trying to tell us something but the true meaning got buried along the way - a type of con if you ask me!
I did go for a 5+ mile walk this morning at the Sandy Creek nature center to clear my head and commune with the flora and fauna.