Why do people need validation


Tips to Stop Seeking Validation from Others I Psych Central

A healthy amount of external validation is needed for your mental well-being, but how much is too much?

Internal validation is the ability to honor and acknowledge your positive attributes, strengths, achievements, and emotions. External validation is the acknowledgment of your strengths and emotions from others.

We often rely on friends and loved ones for support and encouragement. A part of that includes external validation.

When we finally get that dream job, go on that perfect date, or get the promotion we’ve been waiting for, we can’t wait to tell those closest to us. We want them to validate our wins and help us celebrate.

Validation is a common need most of us experience.

But like any behavior, validation-seeking exists on a spectrum — from the less harmful habit of impressing someone or occasionally compromising with others to keep the peace to the more harmful one of ignoring our rights and enduring abuse to avoid abandonment.

You might seek too much validation as an adult if you received too little or too much external validation in childhood. This may affect how you manage your emotions, personality, and attachment style.

A 2016 study suggests that emotional validation from mothers, especially in childhood, builds emotional awareness.

When a child grows up not feeling valued or receiving praise or encouragement, they may have trouble regulating their emotions.

This may also contribute to other symptoms such as:

  • difficulty trusting others
  • high levels of anxiety
  • fear of rejection
  • unpredictable or confusing behaviors

A 2018 study found that mental health conditions such as borderline personality disorder may result from having an emotionally invalidating childhood environment.

On the other hand, receiving excessive praise and overvaluation in childhood can also lead to interpersonal difficulties and a sense of entitlement.

A 2015 study suggests that narcissistic traits such as entitlement and requiring validation in adulthood may develop due to too much praise and overvaluation in childhood.

An excessive need for validation may also be a symptom of other mental health conditions, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5).

These can include:

  • histrionic personality disorder
  • body dysmorphic disorder
  • dependent personality disorder

If you think you may be living with one of these conditions, consider reaching out to mental health professional for further evaluation.

Achieving a balance between internal and external validation is crucial to having healthy self-esteem.

You may be searching for too much external validation if you find yourself doing the following:

  • feeling guilty about setting boundaries with others
  • overachieving in an attempt to garner praise from others
  • jumping from relationship to relationship without taking the time to heal because you feel you can’t be alone
  • having difficulty making decisions on your own without someone else’s input
  • saying yes to tasks and plans you’d prefer saying no to so that you can maintain approval from others
  • inability to disagree with or challenge others due to fear of being judged or abandoned
  • comparing yourself constantly to others and feeling a chronic sense of “lack” without acknowledging your unique strengths
  • becoming emotionally distressed when you’re not the center of attention and frantic attempts to recenter yourself
  • punishing yourself for not being “chosen” or acknowledged in contexts such as friendships, school, and at work
  • fabricating or exaggerating life circumstances to gain sympathy from others

If you find yourself regularly seeking too much validation from others to the point where it begins to hurt you and interfere with your daily functioning, there are ways you can manage this behavior.

Consider trying the following strategies.

Examine your childhood experiences

Consider taking an inventory of the experiences of invalidation you may have experienced in your life throughout childhood and adulthood.

Ask yourself this question: Did I feel invisible or like I was deprived of healthy attention and praise as a child? If so, in what ways?

Then consider how you might give yourself the healthy praise and attention you never received.

For example, if you were routinely ignored as a child, are there ways you tend to yourself in a more nurturing way as an adult? This may include regularly telling yourself that you’re proud of yourself and that you believe in yourself.

If you need additional help, consider reaching out to a mental health professional. They can guide you as you examine childhood experiences and provide tools to help.

Use self-care to self-validate

Try replacing your excessive validation-seeking behaviors and thoughts with self-soothing methods that work for you, such as mindfulness meditation and yoga.

A 2011 study found that 8 weeks of mindfulness meditation could physically change the brain, increasing gray matter in areas of the brain related to decision-making, empathy, and emotional regulation.

Practicing meditation may help improve your self-control when setting boundaries and making decisions that align with what you authentically desire.

Using positive affirmations can also be used for self-validation. Try to tailor the affirmations to your specific needs.

For example, if you want to boost your self-confidence, affirmations you might try include: “I am confident” or “I am enough.”

Positive affirmations can help you replace negative self-talk with more mindfulness and empowerment.

Practice saying no

People-pleasing and seeking validation can be a hard habit to break, especially when you have a fear of abandonment.

You can start by practicing saying no to smaller requests before you move on to larger ones that may leave you feeling excessively fearful. This way, you’ll have plenty of practice handling the discomfort of potentially disappointing someone before refusing larger requests.

Surround yourself with nourishing support networks

Consider your current social networks, and ask yourself these questions:

  • Are they encouraging, or are they emotionally depleting?
  • Are there communities or professionals I can connect with that can provide me with emotional validation?

Support groups and mental health professionals specializing in boundary work can help build a supportive network.

Detach from invalidating people

When you find yourself seeking validation from others, ask yourself if the person you’re seeking validation from is a “safe” person who is emotionally nourishing or might exploit you during a vulnerable time.

Consider whether they have violated your personal boundaries in the past. If they have, you can try a friend who is more supportive instead, talk with a therapist, or take time alone for your self-care.

Rather than seeking validation from others, consider slowing down and asking yourself what you need and finding a way to give validation to yourself.

It’s crucial to practice harm reduction by not seeking validation from people who could potentially cause you more emotional distress.

Seeking validation exists on a spectrum. Whether you’re seeking validation as an occasional habit or a chronic way of life, you can adapt more helpful ways to empower yourself.

External validation may be needed for your well-being, but self-validation and instilling more positive and empowering beliefs can be important to cultivating and maintaining healthy self-esteem.

Engaging in self-care and healing modalities that best work for you and your needs can help you achieve this balance.

A mental health professional can also be a great resource to help you along this journey. If you’re looking for support but not sure where to start, you can check out Psych Central’s hub for finding mental health support.


Shahida Arabi, MA, is a summa cum laude graduate of Columbia University and best-selling author of three books, including “Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare and Power.” Her new book, “The Highly Sensitive Person’s Guide to Toxic People,” published by New Harbinger Publications, is available in all major bookstores. Her viral articles have garnered over 18 million views and her work has been featured on Psychology Today, Salon, Bustle, Psych Central, The Huffington Post, Inc., Origin, Thought Catalog, VICE, and The New York Daily News. She’s currently a graduate student at Harvard University conducting research on romantic relationships with individuals with narcissistic and psychopathic traits.

Need for validation and its effects on mental health

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Over the years, the concept of validation has come to the forefront, more so due to the surge in social media. The moment you upload a picture or a story on a photo-sharing or video-sharing platform, the desire to be liked and appreciated takes over. Of course, not in the case of everyone. But this is what such platforms feed on: the insecurities of their users.

So what exactly is validation and how can it hamper your life? And why is it that certain people require it more than others?

Dr Preeti Kocchar, counseling psychologist, IWill, shares her view, “Emotional validation involves understanding and showing acceptance for another person’s feelings. When people receive this type of validation, they feel that their emotions are not only seen and heard by others but that these feelings are also accepted. If a person feels that their thoughts, feelings, and emotions are not heard and understood, they may be left feeling isolated and unsupported. This, over a period of time, may trigger insecurity in some individuals whose sense of self-validation may be lacking and may turn them into validation addicts.

Known as approval addiction, this behavioural health condition is defined as an intense desire to win the approval of those around you and avoid feelings of rejection at all costs.

Why do you need constant validation?

Dr Kocchar explains, “People crave attention for a variety of reasons, including normal emotional development, low self-esteem, and, in some extreme cases, the presence of personality disorders. Emotional, social, and physical reasons typically are behind a child’s attention-seeking behaviours. It’s not inherently bad! In fact, we all begin life in a state of complete reliance on external validation. As children, we rely on it to learn appropriate behaviours; as adults, it’s a necessary part of tribe life.”

You need to be able to take instructions and constructive criticism from others in order to collaborate with peers. The problem occurs when outside approval becomes your be-all and end-all. Neither is it healthy to completely eschew the opinions of others. If your boss asked you to make some changes to a project you may have submitted, or if a professor suggested a different angle for your essay, would you completely ignore the feedback?

Are you bothered by the ‘likes’ you get on social media? Image courtesy: Shutterstock

“It is not about agreeing with someone or accepting their thoughts as your own. It is about being able to accept these thoughts and experiences as being valid. Validation is part of being interdependent and relying on the feedback and encouragement of others around us. It’s all about balance: knowing when to take healthy, constructive feedback from others, while not relying completely on outside approval for your sense of self-worth,” she adds.

But there’s also more to it to seeking validation

Conversely, invalidation is one of the most damaging forms of emotional abuse. What’s scary is that it can be one of the most subtle and unintentional abuses. Invalidating a person’s feelings and emotional experience can make them feel like they’re going crazy.

“Stonewalling involves refusing to communicate with another person. Intentionally shutting down during an argument, also known as silent treatment, can be hurtful, frustrating, and harmful to the relationship. Seeking validation beyond a healthy constructive limit is defined as attention-seeking behaviour. This is commonly seen on social media nowadays. Attention-seeking behaviour can include saying or doing something with the goal of getting the attention of a person or a group of people,” says Dr Kocchar.

Examples of this behavior include:

• Fishing for compliments by pointing out achievements and seeking validation
• Being controversial to provoke a reaction
• Exaggerating and embellishing stories to gain praise or sympathy
• Pretending to be unable to do something so someone will teach, help, or watch the attempt to do it.

Be comfortable in your skin rather than trying to fetch compliments all the time. Image courtesy: Shutterstock

Attention-seeking behaviour may be driven by:

• Jealousy
• Low self-esteem
• Loneliness

“Self-esteem is a broad term covering a variety of complex mental states involving how you view yourself. When some people believe that they’re being overlooked, bringing back the lost attention may feel like the only way to restore their balance. The attention that they get from this behaviour may help provide them with the feeling of reassurance that they are worthy,” she shares.

Loneliness can result in an urge to seek attention, even in people who don’t normally exhibit attention-seeking behaviour. Feeling insecure in your relationship from time to time is completely normal. However, if you find yourself and your partner exhausted by your constant need for reassurance and your daily life impacted by it, you may have a condition known as relationship OCD (ROCD).

If you regularly seek such validation, it might escalate to become your NEED. It might start affecting your everyday choices. Your sole goal might change into pleasing people around you – even if it conflicts with your internal values and feelings.

How do you break this cycle of seeking validation?

Dr Kocchar says an effective first step in breaking the need for validation from others starts with understanding the type of validation you are seeking: Do you want to be acknowledged through social media? Are you interested in hearing that you are one in the group, the best one at work, the ideal spouse, or perhaps the greatest parent?

“Learning to recognize when you are seeking validation from external sources is the first step. By acknowledging this behaviour, people can choose a more effective option, breaking the cycle and learning to look internally for validation,” she says.

Keep your mind off social media. Image courtesy: Shutterstock

Some good ways to start include:

  1. Take a social media break:

    Getting off social media is a great place to start. This eliminates any comparison with others or the anxiety and stress about how your picture, post, or comment is being seen and received by others.

  2. Be mindful:

    Look carefully at what you are doing. Look for improvements and make a record of these either as a mental note or in a journal. This is self-validation that helps you acknowledge your own abilities, talents, and skills.

  3. Do not ask for validation:

    Instead of seeking validation from others, ask yourself first. If you do receive validation (encouragement or acknowledgment) recognize the praise and acknowledge it, then stop. Do not continue to ask others or seek out others for validation.

    Keep in mind that validation is not a bad thing in your life; it is affirming and positive. It only becomes problematic when it becomes the focus of all you do.

why is it needed, what documents are required, how to check a partner by TIN, PSRN and name

Checking counterparties for reliability helps businesses earn more: not to lose money when working with unreliable partners and to avoid additional taxes due to transactions with fraudsters.

In the article we tell you how to check your counterparty, and what to look for in order not to conclude an agreement with an unscrupulous company or entrepreneur.

Why check counterparties

Verification helps:

  • calculate one-day companies;
  • avoid cooperation with a company or individual entrepreneur who does not fulfill their obligations;
  • avoid contracts with fraudsters;
  • avoid dealing with a bankrupt;
  • do without unnecessary problems with the tax.

Let's take a closer look.

Calculate fly-by-night companies. Such companies are created to deceive potential partners. For example, a potential supplier has specially registered to collect an advance payment from buyers and the abyss. nine0003

Do not work with those who do not fulfill their obligations. In order not to conclude a contract with a contractor who has already been sued by several customers, it is worth checking it. Based on the results of the check, you will be able to make an informed decision - whether to cooperate with this company.

Avoid cooperation with scammers. If the company you work with is cashing out or cheating with taxes, your business may also come to the attention of the tax as a partner of a fraudster. nine0003

Avoid dealing with the bankrupt. The bankrupt company will not be able to pay the promised money for the delivery. And if you buy something from her and transfer money in advance, it will be almost impossible to get it back. The procedure for recovering the debts of a bankrupt company is complicated: debtors enter the register of creditors and wait for the bankruptcy procedure to end. Debts are repaid by priority - it is determined by the arbitration court. And even if the turn comes to you, it is not a fact that the company will have at least something left to repay your debt. nine0003

Have no problems with the tax. The tax office thinks so: if a company cooperates with dubious counterparties, it means that it seeks to save on taxes, and appoints an inspection. The tax authority checks the company's transactions and, if it finds confirmation of its arguments, charges additional tax. It is very difficult to prove that you knew nothing about your partner's fraud.

Although there is no legal obligation to check a counterparty, the tax authorities may oblige a business to pay tax for an unscrupulous counterparty if he did not show due diligence before starting to cooperate. nine0003

Art. 54.1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation

“In order for employees to check potential counterparties before entering into contracts, you can issue an order or regulation on this. I recommend contacting a competent lawyer who will not only help you draw up a document, but also take into account all the nuances of the procedure.”

Ekaterina Novikova

Tax lawyer, director of MAPLEX law firm

Unscrupulous companies can make a good impression, so we recommend trusting only documents and checking information about counterparties in official sources. nine0003

How to check a counterparty yourself

There are a lot of ways to check a counterparty. We offer a check of eight steps, this will be enough to understand whether a partner is reliable or not:

  1. Ask a potential partner for a package of documents.
  2. Check the status of a partner on the tax website and download an extract from the register of legal entities or individual entrepreneurs.
  3. Check OKVED codes.
  4. Check company address.
  5. Check the director of the company. nine0012
  6. Check if your partner is bankrupt.
  7. Check court cases involving a partner.
  8. Check the partner in the database of bailiffs.

Consider what needs to be done at each stage of the check.

Stage 1. Ask for a package of documents

A package of documents for a company or individual entrepreneur is like a passport for a person. Before starting work, request copies of documents. A business that has nothing to hide will provide them to you.

What to request from IP What to request from LLC
- OGRNIP

- Accounting reports if it is conducted by

- data on the average employees, if the IP has personnel

- license or tolerance for a certain type of activity, if the individual entrepreneur is engaged in such activity

- Notification of the submission of a tax return for the last quarter

- Documents confirming the availability of the necessary resources for the execution of the contract, for example, equipment, production premises, etc.

- PSRN

- TIN

- Copy of the charter

- Copy of the decision or protocol on the appointment of the director

- Power of attorney for the right to sign the contract if the contract is signed not by the director, but by another employee of the company

- Accounting statements - Data on the average number of employees

- License or admission for a certain type of activity, if the company is engaged in such activities

- Notification of the submission of tax returns for the last quarter

- Documents confirming the availability of the necessary resources for the execution of the contract, for example, equipment, production facilities and others whether a potential partner has an existing business or not: it reflects the current status of individual entrepreneurs and companies. If your potential partner is in liquidation or has closed the company altogether, you will know about it. nine0003

How to check the status of a counterparty by TIN and other data on the tax website

In the extract you can find out details about the company or individual entrepreneur, registration address, name of the director and other important information.

How to check the status of a counterparty and download an extract:

1. Go to the tax website in the "Services and public services" section.

2. In the "Information from registers" section, click on the link "Provision of information from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities / EGRIP in electronic form".

3. In the service window, enter the company name, full name of the entrepreneur, TIN, PSRN or PSRNIP in the search field. We recommend searching by TIN, because there are many entrepreneurs with the same full name and many companies with the same names. nine0003

4. In the list, find the required counterparty, check the TIN so as not to be mistaken. If the business ceased to operate, the date of termination of activities will be indicated. If there is no such mark, the status of the company or individual entrepreneur is in order - they work.

IP stopped working back in January 2020

5. To get a detailed statement, click on the button next to the name of the counterparty

The PDF document with the statement will be downloaded to your computer

Stage 3.

Check the OKVED codes

In the statement, look at the OKVED codes the partner has chosen for their work: you can check if the codes correspond to what the company actually does. nine0003

By law, it is not forbidden to engage in activities that are not listed in OKVED codes. But usually a business indicates the correct codes so as not to raise questions from the tax.

Letter of the Federal Tax Service of Russia dated August 22, 2019 No. SA-17-2/229@

For example, if you want to buy a batch of bricks, and according to OKVED codes, the supplier is engaged in consulting services and advertising, this is a reason to be wary. We recommend asking a potential partner why he offers these services and make sure that he can make a delivery, for example, go to a warehouse and make sure that the bricks are there and everything is in order with the documents. nine0003 If an individual entrepreneur with such OKVED codes offers you the organization of a corporate holiday, this is suspicious.

  • Availability of working and commercial premises, if they are needed for the activity that the potential partner is engaged in.
  • The mass nature of the legal address.
  • Address validity. To register a company, you need a legal address, scammers often provide incorrect data so that they cannot be found. nine0003

    The authenticity of the address is checked in the extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. If there is a note that the address information is invalid, this means that the company is not at the address that it indicates. Most often, this is clarified by the tax office during an audit, but it happens that the owner of the premises writes a letter to the tax office that there are no companies at his address.

    During the audit, the tax office did not find the company at the specified address, and a note about this appeared in the register

    Availability of premises. If a company does not indicate the address of its office or showroom anywhere, hides the addresses of warehouses and trading floors, and refuses a request to meet on their territory, this is alarming. Perhaps the company exists only on paper. nine0003

    Bulk address. It happens that when registering a company, it does not indicate its actual address, but buys an address for registration on the Internet. As a rule, many companies are registered at such addresses, but no one is actually located there. Such an address is called a mass address.

    The criteria are as follows:

    • if the company was registered before 08/01/2016, the address is considered mass when more than 50 companies use it;
    • if the company was registered after 08/01/2016 - more than 10 companies. nine0012

    If you check the office of a company, and there are 50 companies registered there and everyone is doing different things, in combination with other signs of dishonesty, this is a reason to be wary.

    You can check which companies are registered at the address on the tax website.

    Check the address for mass character

    Stage 5. Check the director of the company

    Often, fraudulent companies write in the constituent documents of a fake director who cannot sign documents. nine0003

    We recommend checking three criteria:

    1. Reliability of information about the director in the extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.
    2. Is the director a nominee.
    3. Is the director included in the register of disqualified persons.

    Reliability of information about the director. An extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities may contain a note that information about the director is unreliable. This means that the person whom the company names as a director no longer works for the company. Perhaps he was nominal from the very beginning, but in fact the company is managed by another person. If you enter into a deal with such a company, it can later be challenged in court and declared invalid. nine0003 The person did not confirm that he was in charge of this company, and a note about this appeared in the register

    Director's rating. Sometimes a person manages several companies, and this is normal, for example, when a company is an association of legal entities. But if a director manages several unrelated companies, this may mean that he is a nominee. That is, in fact, he does nothing, he is only listed as a leader.

    Check participation in several legal entities

    The person who was checked is a member of four companies. In such a situation, you should be alert and check which companies it belongs to and whether they are related to each other

    Check for disqualification. Some people are barred from running companies and being directors by court order and are placed on the list of disqualified persons.

    Check the director in the register of disqualified persons

    Such people sometimes still work as directors, although they are prohibited from doing so. Judicial practice in such cases is contradictory: sometimes transactions signed by a disqualified person are still recognized as valid, and sometimes not. We recommend not to take risks and refuse to cooperate. nine0003 The register of disqualified persons indicates the period when a person is prohibited from working as a director. A potential partner may be at the stage of bankruptcy proceedings or is just about to go bankrupt.

    Check the possible bankruptcy of a partner

    If he himself filed for bankruptcy, it is better not to cooperate with him: the business is trying to avoid obligations to its current partners, which means that you can also be deceived. nine0003

    Bankruptcy Law

    If bankruptcy proceedings are underway, it means that the counterparty can no longer conclude transactions and it is impossible to work with him according to the law.

    On bankruptcy proceedings - art. 126 of the bankruptcy law

    Stage 7. Check court cases involving a partner

    You can search for information about court cases involving a counterparty in the general database of judicial and regulatory acts, but we recommend stopping at the file of arbitration cases: economic disputes are heard in arbitration. nine0003

    Website of judicial and regulatory acts of the Russian Federation

    It is easy to check the counterparty in the file of arbitration cases: you can search by TIN, legal entity name or full name of individual entrepreneur. You can also choose who the counterparty was in court cases - the defendant, the plaintiff, or a third party.

    Arbitration case file

    Pay attention not only to the number of court cases involving a potential partner, but also to his role - plaintiff or defendant.

    If a company or individual is a defendant in a lawsuit, this may be a wake-up call: it may be standard practice for your potential partner to sue instead of paying contracts. nine0003 The company is a defendant in many cases. It is better not to cooperate with her

    Stage 8. Check the partner in the database of bailiffs

    If your potential partner lost the case in court and still does not pay the debt, information about this goes to the bailiffs. They start enforcement proceedings to collect debts.

    All cases handled by bailiffs can be viewed on the website of the Federal Bailiff Service.

    Enforcement Proceedings Database

    This company has a lot of debt that it does not want to pay. It is better not to cooperate with such a person

    How to check a counterparty using services

    You can use special resources that collect data from various sources and show detailed information about a partner in general help. Usually, for verification, it is enough to know only the TIN of a potential partner, the name of the company or the full name of the entrepreneur.

    For example, in the Tinkoff counterparty verification service, you can check the business with which you are going to cooperate for free.

    Check counterparty in Tinkoff without registration

    A brief information about a company or individual entrepreneur can be obtained without a Tinkoff current account and registration in the system, and for those who have a current account, more detailed information about counterparties is available. You can check a partner in the "Counterparties" section of your Tinkoff Business personal account or in the mobile app → Services → Counterparties → Verification.

    In the Tinkoff counterparty verification service, you can find out the most important things about a company - its status, registration information, OKVED codes. To get a certificate, just enter the TIN or company name or IPPoffer Tinkoff

    Checking counterparties from Tinkoff

    • Free and without registration for any users
    • It is enough to know the TIN or the name of the potential partner
    • Up-to-date information from official sources
    Read more

    A person needs a person / Sudo Null IT News

    And don't try to slip something else

    Friends, my previous "futuristic" publication caused a mixed reaction. Readers took it very personally and literally, while I only suggested thinking about some possible scenario. nine0002 We should be free to think. I can imagine restrictions on freedom of speech, but not freedom of thought. Therefore, I continue the topic I started. It is not detailed - it does not tell "how". Only - "in what direction." And a little about “what will happen to us if we don’t go.”

    Please treat everything written below with slight irony or even sarcasm, but do not let your feelings be offended, no matter how much they would like to.

    A person needs a person

    Man - woman. The child is the parents. Seller - buyers. Chief - subordinates.

    But why all this?

    Why?

    Someone will say: "People are pack creatures, and they do not survive alone" .

    There is some truth in this. One person, according to the established opinion, cannot fulfill all his needs. It is impossible to combine in one person both a hunter and a farmer, and also a shoemaker, and if God forbid it is required, also a doctor. nine0003

    But let's imagine that all this is somehow implemented without human participation. There is a person and some abstract service that, at his request, fulfills one or another of his needs - delivers food on order online, and with the help of a drone. And in the warehouse, his order is collected in a container by other drones. In the process of traveling, a person is moved around a conditional city by an autopilot taxi, and then by an autopilot aircraft. Any of his information request is instantly realized by Internet search engines. If a gadget is broken, or an item of household appliances, a smart home component is out of order, it will be tracked, diagnosed online, and, if necessary, dismantled, replaced with a new component - as in other cases - by automatic delivery robots and installer robots. In the event of an injury or illness, a complete diagnosis of the human body will be carried out and an extremely precise treatment procedure will be activated - up to a robotic operation - exclusively without the participation of any other person ...

    Will a person need another person in such a fictional utopia?

    “What about talking?” - you ask.

    What to talk about?

    What are we talking about?

    Well, let's remember what we usually talk about with other people?

    Most often - about our unresolved problems, about sorrows and sorrows, it happens that we brag about something, but only because there is someone, there is in front of someone, and also - because this was not there before. nine0003

    And now look - there are no problems, there is nothing to be sad about, there is no point in boasting either - because everything seems to be always good. It didn't get better or worse...

    ... though, who knows, maybe it's not very good... but not very bad, at least.

    But it is absolutely clear that in this situation there is no need to talk about anything. Therefore, it is normal that there is no one to talk to.

    The described situation is utopian.

    But there is also a real situation, which, although far from the one described, is not too far off. nine0003

    We have long preferred minimal, unnecessarily contact with other people. What can be settled by phone, email, instant messenger, we try to settle without personal contact. Live queues, in which people had time to discuss everything that happened during the year, have been successfully replaced by electronic numbers - everyone sits in their corners and looks at the scoreboard - everyone is happy with this, and especially the fact that no one will get through without a queue. And no one talks about anything.

    Live guides in museums have been successfully replaced by electronic headsets that speak all languages. In stores, it is easier and more efficient to use the service of an electronic consultant for any type of product. And customers increasingly prefer to pay for their purchases at self-service checkouts: here you will certainly not be shortchanged, and points will be credited to your loyalty card - they will not be forgotten. nine0003

    Now only representatives of the outgoing generations turn to the services of a living person - it is difficult for them to use all these touch screens - they expect a tactile response from them, while the younger generation has not needed anything like this for a long time.

    And in the last couple of years, we have been successfully weaned from handshakes and facial expressions hidden under the mask. And when we have to communicate with robots of a humanoid type - devoid of facial expressions, we will already be ready for this - the mimic feedback that was so necessary before is no longer a paramount necessity. nine0003

    Let's put aside the idea that all this is a conspiracy, that it was arranged by the reptilians from Alpha Centauri or the secret government of the Masons. It doesn't matter now.

    Let's try to remember in what cases we really needed another person, and what were these problems that we could not solve alone?

    In principle, even today there are hunters who are able to go out alone on a bear or a lion. Of course, it once took a lot of people to lure a mammoth into a pit, although mammoths have since become extinct, and hunting technology has advanced in favor of minimizing a squad down to one member, whatever the beast. nine0003

    What one person really can't handle is an organized group of other people encroaching on his resources.

    Nothing has ever united us more than wars and an external enemy.

    If you look at history, my dear readers, you will find out that for many millennia the most worthy “profession” or “vocation” for a man (and only they were considered full-fledged people for many thousands of years, and women and children were not considered as such ) was a military affair. And although warriors were formally considered lower than kings and priests, being kings turned out to be completely inaccessible to most people, and what priests do and their interaction with higher spheres was simply incomprehensible to everyone except themselves. Therefore, being a warrior was the highest honor for a person in the vast majority of cases. nine0003

    A lone farmer, a wealthy merchant, a talented poet and singer, a traveler who has seen the whole world - all of them could not be compared with a brave warrior around whom his entire detachment rallied, his entire army, his entire country, for which he went into battle - to protect or take away, save or kill - it no longer mattered. A person who could unite other people around him was already great. The country needed him for great achievements, which were beyond the power of each of its inhabitants individually. nine0003

    So far, military victories are sparkling icebergs of our national idea. And we prefer not to look below its waterline, where lies the true and monstrous cost of all this. First of all, it is valuable for us that we are united in this greatness.

    Fortunately, in addition to the military vector, there are other less noticeable ones, in honor of which parades worth millions and billions are not held, but also large-scale achievements in which a large number of people directly or indirectly feel their involvement. nine0003

    The space victories of the USSR - the launch of the first Sputnik, the first manned space flight, the first landings on the Moon and Mars - these achievements are significant for every inhabitant of our country. People can evaluate them with different rulers - for some it is “lost their nose to America”, for others “the victory of Soviet science”, for others “The beginning of the space age of all mankind”, but for all this is the greatest unifying factor - the second after the war. Or maybe the first one.

    Every person, no matter where he worked, felt his involvement. He could be an engineer in one of the enterprises of the space industry, or he could be a teacher at a school that raised future astronauts . .. and even if he was just sweeping the streets, he felt that he was sweeping stardust along the space avenues that people who launch ships walk on to space. It is impossible to be indifferent to the great, living in a great country! nine0003

    When the USSR slowed down its space speeds, and people began to work each for themselves, disunity led to combination locks, double steel doors on stairwells, barbed wire fences around residential buildings, traumatic guns and stun guns in pockets - inside their own country. And even the country has become smaller.

    The disappearance of a great idea canceled the need to communicate, and the person you met in the twilight began to seem like a potential enemy. We once launched stations to Venus together, but now we do not have this common cause. nine0003

    We have nothing to talk about.

    We don't need each other.

    Each of us does a good job alone.

    But it's not too good to be proud of something. .. however, "proud" is not the right word... to justify one's existence - now, this is closer to the meaning - the meaning of human existence.

    What is its meaning?

    There is no answer to this question. However, when our life becomes meaningless, we perceive it very clearly and painfully. Each of us individually slides into a near-depressive state, and then the country, having lost its national idea, falls apart ... then the whole globe is infected with some strange virus, which is simultaneously asymptomatic, and kills everyone, from which the best remedy is “vacation” and a vaccine that guarantees against nothing...

    This state is called “useless”. For some reason we were needed, no matter how monstrous we were in our cruelty and wars. No matter how harsh we are when laying the BAM and launching rockets, we are more needed evil than soft and powerless, unprincipled. We ourselves do not need anyone in this state.

    Someone thinks that humanity is a virus of the Universe. Planets are infected with it, and then it devours the planet, its resources, its flora and fauna, but it softens and becomes incapable of anything - its individual representatives lose contact with each other, and then it ceases to be a single whole. And the planet absorbs the remnants of this infection, gaining immunity from possible future similar infections. Look at Venus - it's no longer habitable. And this, perhaps, is its superiority over the Earth and Mars ...

    However, this is only one of the versions.

    I'm leaning towards the other.

    We really don't mean much on our own. Each of us is capable of much, but the potential of one person can be revealed only in cooperation and close creative contact with other people.

    We have some effective near-comfortable range in which we can activate our abilities - this is when we lack something. And life keeps us a little “in a black body” for a reason – we don’t relax there. Need, far-fetched goals - like, to prove something to the Americans, the Chinese, the reptilians - also, albeit with low efficiency, make us stir. In the future, we will abandon evidence. We are now at a crossroads, but for sure we are waiting for really significant goals, due to both the desire for survival and the understanding that without these goals we do not need either each other or the Universe. nine0003

    A person needs a person not to “talk”, not to procreate, which in itself cannot be an end in itself, but only to shift onto the shoulders of the offspring those ideas and goals that today's generation could neither realize nor embody.

    A person needs a person in order to reach those milestones and levels that one by one - well, not at all. When we disconnect, we are deactivated. But when we rally, we are given both the resource and the necessary information - it comes into the minds of some of us. Perhaps they themselves are not aware of their role - they are simply drawn to Mars. Don't Ask Them - "Why?" , or — “Why you?” - they don't know. And it is not their choice.

    Being ahead is not a person's choice at all, but a duty. If he chooses to leave his seat, you know what happens. In fact, there is no choice but the choice to "go along with it."

    We can truly be needed for each other only for something great, significant, beyond all our previous experience. This manifests itself at all levels - from a family in which feelings and communication fade away, when everything is fine, but devoid of excitement, novelty, adventurous ideas, including the atmosphere in the work team, where a stable high salary, but a hopeless routine in business is not for long, and covering humanity at the most global level - on the scale of countries, their communities and the whole blue ball covered with a light haze of clouds - everything there becomes disheartened - from the economy to culture, and people have nothing to talk about if there is no great goal that justifies them Existence. nine0003

    We lived well from the 80s of the last century until the end of the 2000s. Along with the increase in our economic well-being, goals were lost, and now we are in a crisis. We are not the country of Russia. The whole world is in crisis. And the pandemic that has engulfed him is the best confirmation of this. The world shakes us off our old stumps and motivates us to do something that would justify the absorption of resources for the sake of comfort alone.

    In the end, if today we do not direct the resources of our planet to achieve new goals, expand the habitat and new resource territories, tomorrow there will simply be no resources for this step. Or we won't be. Because those who do not need each other, neither the Earth nor the Universe needs them. nine0003

    That is why space programs are being activated with renewed vigor, and first of all, manned ones, the purpose of which is to deliver humanity to the surface of other celestial bodies, to give them the opportunity to gain a foothold, to spread a network of cities and research bases, to learn how to get everything they need, to build spaceports for the next jumps …

    Sometimes I come across sentences: “Before flying into space, wouldn't it be better to put things in order on Earth?!”.

    No, not better. nine0283

    To begin with, imagine if your mother had not dared to feed you, change you when you peed before cleaning up the house? There are things more important than such a conditional order.

    Because you are her future, her perspective. And order is the past, these are the principles and rules that were established some time ago, even before your birth, and in a good way - should be constantly changing.

    Personally, it seems to me that people are not about order at all. Even in ancient times - among the Greeks, for example - the word "order" sounded like "Cosmos". The striving for it cannot be connected with activity within the limits of the Earth. nine0003

    To put things in order on Earth, a person does not need a person. He is not needed on Earth at all. As soon as he disappears from its surface, order will be restored by itself - our planet will cope with this. And who has ever seen order in a creative workshop? - there is chaos. The birth of a new one is always a mess. Order is death. The order does not accept changes - this is a frozen phase.

    Life = mess.

    Have you ever seen life under a microscope? - all this boiling of microorganisms, cells devouring each other - all this knows neither order nor balance, and it is thanks to this that it develops, becomes more complex, mutates, displaces the less competitive one, takes its place, occupies the whole place - first in its own puddle, then in the ocean, goes to land, covers the entire planet, and even tries to jump over to the next one. nine0003

    Life is the most promising state of matter, to which matter has come over billions of years of its evolution from the Big Bang, through the burning out of massive stars, through supernova explosions and organic synthesis in nebulae under the influence of hard radiation and stellar wind.

    Life will change the Universe beyond recognition. The world that we see now through the largest telescopes will become different in billions of years - there will be no inanimate matter left in it. Life will cover with its influence the entire material resource of the Universe. Even black holes will be used - life will find a way to extract absorbed matter from them, because all this is a resource necessary for life - each subparticle will be returned or its potential will be used for something important - diving into other space-times , where there are also resource potentials of interest to the living matter of the Universe. nine0003

    This endless transformation of the world is unlikely to seem to any of my readers as an order, or something systemic, organized. If you have read fantastic stories about how scientists invented a substance that dissolves all others in itself, turning the World into chaos, then this is a story about the transformation of inanimate matter into living matter.

    This is a monstrous and mind-numbing process that looks more like a metagalactic catastrophe than evolution, and it will sweep us away if we don't participate in it. However, if we do, too, because in any case it will change us beyond recognition. nine0003

    What kind of order can we talk about?!

    If there is any order in this boiling, it is incomprehensible to us.

    And of course, the Universe has an uncountable number of backups besides us to support the boiling process. We are valuable to the Universe while we are in business. The universe needs us only as long as we can be needed by each other.

    When a person needs a person to achieve something fantastic and unreal, humanity is infinitely valuable to the Universe and will be protected by it. But as soon as we wallow in our own well-being and comfort, the comfort zone becomes our grave. And here the universe has a full arsenal of possibilities - from an asteroid (hello dinosaurs), including a series of new viruses, to nuclear mushrooms and ashes so beloved by politicians. nine0003

    As long as man needs man, humanity is needed by the Universe. And it is safe.

    Music supplement

    Most of all, the flow of this article corresponds to the joint musical work recorded with Igor Kolesnikov, my colleague in the K-Kvadrat project - the ninth and at the moment the final album.


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