I’m a little paradoxical with respect to confidence. There’s the inside Daloon, who is quite confident about who he is and what he thinks. Then there’s the outside Daloon who doesn’t believe that anyone else would agree with him or believe him or find him to be interesting, although they might find him overbearing, and so they all must secretly be whispering about him after he goes past.
The inside confidence comes from having studied a lot and thought a lot about many different things. I’ve build an internal model of how the world and people work, and it seems to do very well. I believe in my model. I don’t believe anyone else would understand it. They would think it is too weird, and just plain immoral or wrong in many places.
Even though I’m very confident about my model, I am completely unconfident that anyone else would think it is useful. Hell, I don’t even know if anyone will have any idea what I mean.
Funny, isn’t it? Knowing who I am, and wanting to be who I am, and being just as certain that no one would approve—even as I know that’s not true. I wish I could do what a lot of people say they do. I want to be able to say, “what the fuck do I care what you think!” In one way, I do say that. I’m not changing. Not for anyone. I’m not going to do something that doesn’t work, even if it is socially acceptable, or conventional wisdom.