The confident man

Just like poker, life is filled with competing perspectives, biases, and the need to navigate uncertainty.

This week's email expresses some of my thoughts on the topic at large, with no relation to poker. While it’s a departure from my usual strategy posts, I hope it resonates with anyone trying to make sense of the complicated world we live in.

I originally wrote and published this piece elsewhere last year, and now feels like the right time to revisit it.

The confident man is shaped over a lifetime, beginning at its very inception.

Year after year, layer after layer, his experiences, along with the opinions and accepted truths of those around him, seep into his consciousness, sculpting the thick lenses through which he views the world.

His fears, insecurities, and the biases inherent to the human condition fog these lenses further.

Yet, in the face of all this confusion, the confident man has a remarkable ability to get to the truth, as he believes it to be.

He is bombarded with inputs…

• A video of unverifiable information.

• The assertive written opinion of an intellectual he respects.

• A conversation with his friends.

• 14th-hand facts — originating from a poorly performed research study, grossly misinterpreted in a magazine article, and contorted through a game of social media telephone.

Presented with a daily buffet of information and influence, the confident man is undeterred.

He fearlessly consumes and digests the vast spread and, with astonishing speed, produces a viewpoint of his very own.

This viewpoint emerges compact, tinged by a subset of facts – the most prevalent and palatable ones he’s encountered.

Of course, the confident man shares his freshly formed opinion, and this is where the true magic happens…

With his opinion on record, he no longer has the luxury of curiosity.

Those who challenge his stance force him to defend himself.

He hunts for evidence in support of his truth — the truth — efficiently discarding anything unhelpful to this mission.

Intelligent people validate him; idiots and evil people debate him with laughably flawed arguments.

The sincere bring forth supporting evidence.

The dishonest or misguided share fake news in a futile attempt to prove him wrong.

Some who he previously deemed smart and honest have their true colors revealed.

Unsurprisingly, this process emboldens the confident man.

His thoughts, still in their intellectual infancy, are swiftly encased in amber, preserving their youthful form in a rigid, unchangeable state.

A hardened cog in the very same marketing machine that shaped his own beliefs, his 15th-hand facts and unshakeable views prejudice anyone they come into contact with.

And so it continues.

The certainty. The polarization. The disgust. The hate.

Though the outcome is undoubtedly negative, the confident man means well.

He believes he’s forming and sharing his views thoughtfully. He’s trying, sometimes desperately, to help.

You and I, the observers, can see the truth.

That he, merely a human being, up against a world of powerful yet nearly invisible influence and trickery, cannot see reality as clearly as he believes he’s able.

This is how he and another confident man, born with the same level of intellect and kindness, each grazed by slightly different surroundings, can become so certain of opposing viewpoints that they fail to even comprehend how the other could be so stupid.

Or worse, so evil.

For the confident man, encountering and disagreeing with another is an inevitability, as, unfortunately, he exists as a member of confident mankind.

Billions of people, all inhabiting one planet.

Each and every one of them, merely a human being, up against a world of powerful yet nearly invisible influence and trickery, duped into actually believing their version of reality is authentic.

An entire species of delusionists.

While some manage it better than others, no amount of knowledge can cure them of the reality-distorting genetic condition with which they’ve each been born.

It is inescapable.

To cease forming opinions and beliefs is not an option for the confident man, nor is seeing the world as it truly exists.

There is only one thing he can do.

Only one hope to curb his delusion and the damage it perpetuates:

Be less confident.