Welcome to the age of delusion where so-called authorities will make sure you’re in a state of constant confusion. It isn’t uncommon these days to have people who claim to be an authority while in reality, they know almost nothing about a certain subject. These types of individuals can end up costing you a lot of money, endanger your health and so on. The sad thing is that it’s hard to spot them, you have to get behind a whole ego facade to expose them… and that is the last thing they want. Those people like to live in their world of delusion and will make sure that they don’t have people who question their methods. You’ll quickly notice that the people who follow them are mostly people who’re good at following. Zero questions asked. Luckily there are ways to spot them “fast”. It took me once 2 years to figure such a person out. The fastest didn’t take me longer than 2 weeks since the person in question was avoiding me.
The age of delusion: so-called authorities.
People who say stuff like “trust me, I know what I’m talking about” mostly don’t know what they’re talking about or have very limited knowledge about the matter they’re about to talk about. Those people aren’t beginners but they’re no experts either. Somehow they got stuck in between but assume they’ve reached expertise. They need words to convince you because they don’t have the credentials to be an authority. They’ll claim to have the credentials and try to convince you in one way or another how “great” they are. In reality, you can quickly spot whether or not they know about a certain topic.
One of the things that you’ll notice is that they’ll see their way as the only way to do something. They’re stuck in what worked for them or what they claimed worked for them. They can’t see that you’re a different person. I’ll always take the highway when people say stuff like “it’s my way or the highway”. Their way will mostly not lead to success but they think it will. They fail to understand that multiple ways lead to Rome. To them, only one way leads to Rome.
The master manipulator.
Another thing that you’ll notice is that their authority is based on weak fundamentals that start to shake as soon as you start digging deeper. What I mean by that is that they’ll be able to answer certain questions but won’t be able to answer follow up questions. They’ll either avoid the question or just confuse you with vague answers. The worst thing they can do is ridicule you to make sure you ask fewer questions. In the end, nobody likes to be embarrassed and they know that. That’s why some of them are very good at manipulating you. They’ll say stuff like “are you questioning my knowledge?” or “Do you think you know more about me on this matter?!”. They’ll force you to let the question go by acting like this.
Answering yes will offend them and you don’t want to do that. Answering no means that you trust them so you need to let it go or you’ll offend them as well. It’s walking on thin ice.
In the end, you can only teach people what you know. So a minimum understanding of any topic will lead to the fact that you can’t explain anything that goes beyond that simply because you don’t have the proper knowledge to do so. It’s not that hard to understand but for them it is.
They’re blinded by their pride which is good for the ego but very bad for them.
The age of delusion: backstabbers.
In the age of delusion, there will be haters of course. What you’ll quickly notice is that these authorities are only liked when they’re around the people who follow them. Take the authority away and you’ll see that most people put up a facade and start to backstab or do whatever they want. The authority in question will remain in the constant state of delusion because they never witness it. They assume to know it all and feed their ego when they’re put into that position by the people who follow them. People who ask too many smart questions will have to leave the group as soon as possible to make sure that the image stays intact. The “do what I say and shut up” mentality will be a big part of the age of delusion.
Smart people will figure out what the issue is right here. You’ll never be able to be very successful because your growth is limited.
Bad ego comes before the fall.
A basic understanding of anything in life will make sure that you plateau sooner or later. It might help you to be good but it’ll never make you or the people you guide great. They mostly get away with it a couple of times and then meet someone better than them and get exposed. They’ll then use terms as bad luck, more talented and all that shit. It’s never their fault. My favorite one is: “you should have listened to me”. That’s pretty funny because the advice they give is not as good as they think it is.
Mediocre advice will lead to mediocre results.
The age of delusion: the problem with the term authority.
The issue is that most authorities think they’re perfect in some delusional way. They don’t understand that not knowing things is a part of knowing. There is always something new to learn. I think these people fail to understand that there’s no such thing as stagnation. There’s either progression or regression. You either keep improving or you’ll just get passed by everybody who does. It’s that simple. That’s why they say that adaptation is the key to survival. The age of delusion will soon take place for the age of extinction when it comes to those people.
Teachers, in general, are very prone to fall into this trap. I can count the number of good teachers that I had on one hand and I don’t even need 5 fingers. I haven’t met a lot of teachers who were up for debate about the fact that you could do something different. Almost none of them want to explore the unknown waters because that would show that they don’t know something.
The ones who’re open to doing this are mostly very interesting. It’s like my current grappling teacher said: “People always come up to me and ask me if something works when they discover something new. I then ask them if it worked and explore the concept.”. That has to lead to some interesting conversations, to be honest.
In conclusion, let’s stop living in the age of delusion.
There’s a saying that goes like “a lion doesn’t need to tell you that he’s dangerous. You just know”. The same thing goes for authorities. The results will speak for themselves if they’re that good.
So that begs that question:
If they’re that great, then why has nobody heard of them? Why do they need certain things (belts, money, so-called friends, records,…) to prove how “good” they are?!
If they’re that great then why can’t they answer questions that go to a deeper level of a certain topic?
People should stop living in the delusion they’re perfect. Everybody will benefit from this.
Till next time
Alex
