Toadisms

Here are eleven things of which I seem to need constant reminding. If they sound wrong to you, then they undoubtedly are.  To you.  And if they make sense, you too may one day find yourself posting such thoughts on an unadvertised, philosophical amphibian blog.

1. You are nothing more than a collection of arbitrarily selected points from an infinite space. So is everything else. You simply aren't important. Get over it.
2. If you knew everything there is to know, you wouldn't bother with any of this. Since you don't know everything there is to know, it is reasonable to expect that things will usually not go the way you expected. This is not a reason to whine and complain. It is called the mystery of the infinite, and it is where magic lies. Stop feeling frustrated by it, and start using it.
3. Outcomes are inherently worthless. The value of something lies in the investment of effort. Do not throw away your failures, as they carry just as much value as your successes. Don't dwell on the outcomes of your successes, for they don't have meaning or value beyond being reminders of the investment you made to achieve them. Same thing goes for your failures.
4. Don't do things for other people. You can't do things for other people. Value comes from investment, and solving someone else's problem is just stealing an investment opportunity from them. This is okay, however, when the other person does not want or intend to make the investment themselves. The fact that the other person does not recognize this is not your problem. Neither is it your responsibility to point it out to them. Don't point it out to them unless they ask, as this is called “being an asshole”.
5. Do things the way you want to do them, the way you want to remember yourself as having done them. This is the reason to do things a certain way. Someone else's expectations should not enter into it. Their expectations are inherently tied to their perspective on the world, and that perspective changes constantly. Your guess as to the nature of their expectations is even flimsier. You can use such guesses to guide your actions, but the guesses should only be factors in making a decision about what to do. How you do it is an expression of self, and nothing more. And nothing less.
6. “Thank you” is a drug. If you inhale, you trap yourself into thinking that your actions are for the benefit of others. Your actions are there for only one purpose – to define you. That other people appreciate them fools you into thinking that their opinions of what is right or wrong, good or bad, or valuable or worthless have some bearing on things. Everyone is going through life just as cluelessly as you are. Most people are more clueless. If you are doing something for appreciation, you are going to be disappointed because you are putting your judgment of yourself – an act from your reference frame – into the hands of someone who does not operate in that reference frame.
7. There is no right and wrong beyond what you feel in yourself. Sorry, but that is just the way it is. It is all just blobs in an infinite space, and you are not any more important than anything else – not another person, not a rock, not an emotion, not the number 12. You are also not any less important.
8. The world does not need you to defend it. Truth does not need you to defend it. Your honor cannot be defended – it is formed by your actions, and interpreted differently by everyone. You have no control over how other people view it through their own filters, and what others make of it should not affect you any more than their expressions of appreciation. You don't live in the same world as them, so their conclusions do not necessarily apply to you.
9. The opinions of others belong to others. Do not borrow, steal, or photocopy without prior authorization. You are the one responsible for giving this authorization, and should only do so when you are convinced that it is the right thing to do. This includes – most especially – their opinions about you.
10. Do not expect behaviors, attitudes, or opinions from other people. They don't know you, they don't know what you want, they don't know how to please you even if they want to. The best you can hope for is a lucky shot in the dark. Since you will never know what they were shooting for, you might as well assume that it was to please you, as it leads to a less stressful day. Even when it seems like an absurd assumption to make, it is your invested effort that produces value and meaning, so you might as well invest it wisely.
11. Absurdity can be found everywhere. It is the basis of humor and learning. Do not dismiss it as irrelevant. Embrace it for what it has to offer, which is every bit as meaningful as the predictable and the expected. Generally more so. Just because something is absurd does not mean it is wrong.
12. Each day is a new game, but do not strive to win. There is no winning, because there is no scoring