The biggest issue with the need to feel “valid” is it’s a sort of identity arrival point — and it fully depends on those around you. To feel “valid” is effectively the past tense of “having been validated”. Also, like so much of the other self-help, self-actualizing bullshit, it has nothing to do with your neighbors. I wish that in place of “self care”, we started introducing “caring for others” into the pop culture vernacular.
This validity stuff is to me the recognition that adolescents control culture. Its the identity version of "the future never comes" truism that most of us learn in middle age.
I hope the phase passes and the PMC-Algorithm complex fixates on something else.
I came to the comments to declare that I am currently getting a doctorate in a field I despise after being told 100k times to *only* pursue a doctorate in something that I am PASSIONATE about. Here’s the thing though - there is no doctorate in playing PS5 so I just have to compromise. I’m still valid!!!!!!
When you take care of something else--a child, a pet, a garden--you don't feel valid so much as connected to more than yourself. I never worried about my validity while changing a diaper. I never worried about my validity when caring for an old dog. I never worried about my validity when planting flowers. When these thoughts--about my validity-- arise in my brain I try to do a task for someone/something else. That said, I walk my dogs a lot.
The alternative to outsourcing your sense of personal self-worth is to earn your own self-respect. I mostly agree with your cynical take but I also believe it’s possible to feel good about yourself by living up to your self-chosen values and by achieving the goals you set for yourself — that is, by becoming a person you respect. I think that’s true even for people who didn’t win the genetics lottery. I also doubt that the kind of self-hatred you describe is the human condition; it’s dysfunction at a personal and societal level, not ‘just the way it is.’
I turned 60 a few months ago. I realized two things: I could no longer pretend that I was not in some sense "old," but as compensation, I feel more comfortable and confident with my own wisdom.
As it relates to Freddie's post, I contend that there might be a better chance to "love yourself" at my age than at younger ages. I'm basing this on a data set of one:me. But I have read studies about happiness being chronologically U-shaped.
I think the crappiest thing about all of this, is that people that want to feel validated aren't yelling at you, they are yelling at the voice in their heads (as you point out), and at the same time, they desperately want to BE the voice in other people's heads, telling other people why they are awful.
I do think you can love yourself enough that you aren't coping by trying to increase self-loathing in other people.
"Black/trans/disabled/etc. lives are valid quietly accepts that validity can only come from communal decree." It has always seemed to me that the need for communal need is completely undermining and patronizing. And a touch of "dost protest too much," methinks, as well.
Also, the loud cries of "I have imposter syndrome" around every corner seem to come from the most accomplished people I know. A sort of self-worth dysmorphia.
A good thing about the bad old days of coming out as gay was that I knew society would never value me, so I would have to value myself and my community. Which is the only way anyway.
Finding our place in the world is a perennial struggle. Fortunately now I have kids so I don’t have time for this kind of ruminating, and they give meaning and purpose to my life. I know it’s not like that for everyone but it definitely worked for me.
“I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller, I wish I had a girl who looked good, I would call her.”
The biggest issue with the need to feel “valid” is it’s a sort of identity arrival point — and it fully depends on those around you. To feel “valid” is effectively the past tense of “having been validated”. Also, like so much of the other self-help, self-actualizing bullshit, it has nothing to do with your neighbors. I wish that in place of “self care”, we started introducing “caring for others” into the pop culture vernacular.
This validity stuff is to me the recognition that adolescents control culture. Its the identity version of "the future never comes" truism that most of us learn in middle age.
I hope the phase passes and the PMC-Algorithm complex fixates on something else.
I came to the comments to declare that I am currently getting a doctorate in a field I despise after being told 100k times to *only* pursue a doctorate in something that I am PASSIONATE about. Here’s the thing though - there is no doctorate in playing PS5 so I just have to compromise. I’m still valid!!!!!!
Life is good and good enough: sensible and healthy way to view it.
When you take care of something else--a child, a pet, a garden--you don't feel valid so much as connected to more than yourself. I never worried about my validity while changing a diaper. I never worried about my validity when caring for an old dog. I never worried about my validity when planting flowers. When these thoughts--about my validity-- arise in my brain I try to do a task for someone/something else. That said, I walk my dogs a lot.
The alternative to outsourcing your sense of personal self-worth is to earn your own self-respect. I mostly agree with your cynical take but I also believe it’s possible to feel good about yourself by living up to your self-chosen values and by achieving the goals you set for yourself — that is, by becoming a person you respect. I think that’s true even for people who didn’t win the genetics lottery. I also doubt that the kind of self-hatred you describe is the human condition; it’s dysfunction at a personal and societal level, not ‘just the way it is.’
"My mother groaned, my father wept:
Into the dangerous world I leapt,
Helpless, naked, piping loud,
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.
Struggling in my father's hands,
Striving against my swaddling bands,
Bound and weary, I thought best
To sulk upon my mother's breast."
(Blake's 'Infant Sorrow')
I turned 60 a few months ago. I realized two things: I could no longer pretend that I was not in some sense "old," but as compensation, I feel more comfortable and confident with my own wisdom.
As it relates to Freddie's post, I contend that there might be a better chance to "love yourself" at my age than at younger ages. I'm basing this on a data set of one:me. But I have read studies about happiness being chronologically U-shaped.
I think the crappiest thing about all of this, is that people that want to feel validated aren't yelling at you, they are yelling at the voice in their heads (as you point out), and at the same time, they desperately want to BE the voice in other people's heads, telling other people why they are awful.
I do think you can love yourself enough that you aren't coping by trying to increase self-loathing in other people.
"Black/trans/disabled/etc. lives are valid quietly accepts that validity can only come from communal decree." It has always seemed to me that the need for communal need is completely undermining and patronizing. And a touch of "dost protest too much," methinks, as well.
Also, the loud cries of "I have imposter syndrome" around every corner seem to come from the most accomplished people I know. A sort of self-worth dysmorphia.
A good thing about the bad old days of coming out as gay was that I knew society would never value me, so I would have to value myself and my community. Which is the only way anyway.
Finding our place in the world is a perennial struggle. Fortunately now I have kids so I don’t have time for this kind of ruminating, and they give meaning and purpose to my life. I know it’s not like that for everyone but it definitely worked for me.