Learning

[neomattlac]

It seems like the more I learn, the more I want to learn. One major example of this is that recently I read quite a bit about shyness. About the only things left to learn about it, apparently, is about how biochemicals in the brain affects people and I've already learned quite a bit of that, but I feel like there must be something I missed. About the only thing I can't give you is the stories of those who got past, and didn't get past, shyness(as well as social anxiety and social phobia). There didn't seem to be a lot to learn about shyness.
Now, what else is there to learn?

[Chu]

Try searching within yourself for a new subject. Or, if you'd rather not be biased through such an approach, extend your studies to other areas of psychology. You can learn about the many causes of shyness: Abuse, neglect, rape, isolation, low self-esteem, etc. You can also study environmental psychology to "broaden" your understanding of the subject, if you will.

[ecco]

if you're specifically meaning learning about yourself, then it's important not to over-read and to get outside perspectives on yourself. ie, i can pretty safely diagnose myself with trichotillomania - i can't stop pulling my hair out, even though there is no logical thought process that makes me want to do it. it just happens. what i CAN'T figure out all by myself is what exactly makes me suffer depression, or what exactly is causing my incredibely screwed up sleeping patterns.

I know some factors, and I can make educated guesses, but sometimes you need someone who knows you to tell you more (ie i only know that i twitch violently in my sleep because Sam has told me that I do) or sometimes, not someone that knows you, but a professional - a doctor. sometimes even a stranger can be more trustworthy than a friend, in that they are more likely to be bluntly honest because they'd be less afraid to hurt your feelings.


course i dunno if this is what you were tryin to get at anyway, but theres my teeny ramble for the moment lol~

[neomattlac]

ecco - I turn in my sleep a lot. And my sheets never stay on the bed longer than one night, again, due to my spinning. Make myself a nice cocoon of blankets and sheets. XD And people have to be blunt with me most of the time. I don't "catch" things as easily as most people do.
And I didn't necessarily mean just psychology or something that is related to me(although I'm intrigued by the idea of studying environmental psychology, but I fear that it cut and dry. I can usually "see" what a person will do in a particular situation, based on their personality and history; most people can).
I'll study Japanese calligraphy if I wanted(did so for a few minutes, extremely boring, in my opinion). I think I might start seeing the school's counselor, not just for my shyness, but for research purposes. I'm kind of scared, though, that the counselor will say something like "Your quest for infinite knowledge is derived from your sense of low confidence and you feel like you need to make up for that in whatever way possible." no matter how true it is.

[sychobunny]

xD I can promise you they won't say that. They may see a psychologist in the making though.

And the desire to find out more is a part of human curiosity that leads to invention. You're doing better than a good portion of the populace because of this desire to seek more. It is a sign of an excellent thinker to recognize how little you know. The more you learn, the more you will find you do not know. (oh how comforting of a notion)

[neomattlac]

Well, I'm somewhat afraid of two things that probably won't happen, but could.
First off, the irrational one, that I learn everything there is to learn and there is nothing else to learn.
And second, that I stay in one subject to the point where I do research, but I find out later that all the results of my research is wrong.
As for the psychologist in the making, I have reasons not to go in that field.
And I've heard that I am ahead of other people quite a bit.

[sychobunny]

Is it because you think you're crazy? a good (and sadly accurate) stereotype of psychologists is that they went into the field to find out what is wrong with them. The answer is that they're human and we all are crazy, its just really, really crazy ones that we do something about.

The first one is irrational. You're not God, you don't have the capacity to learn all. We have some evolving to do yet.
But you learn much from a disproved hypotyesis. Are you afraid that the results would be wrong in that the data is wrong and thus the conclusions made are wrong, or that the conclusion made from the data is wrong?

[neomattlac]

More the fact that my results would end up with things using my conclusions would be off, and possibly hurt people. In fact, I have a pretty bad fear of hurting people. Not emotionally, but physically hurting people. It's not phobia level, but I am kind of afraid of hurting people, and thus, occasionally, my own strength.
And I know ALL about the "everyone's crazy" idea. I did a lot of thinking about it in high school. And we don't need to learn everything, but rather just the base of everything and we can draw our own conclusions from there, after all, isn't that what we do anyways?
And I have actually been realizing that we are going through another evolution right now, an evolution that not many people have heard about and there isn't much that we know about; an cognitive evolution. People are getting smarter and can understand concepts that, even if we could have found, we could not understand and comprehend even 20 years ago. Even people with mental disorders can understand a lot more than "regular" people 200 years ago.