Are you a naïve realist?
I had this belief for years where I was the smart one in the room until I finally lost it by actually listening to folks that were wiser or just experts in fields I barely had an inkling in. It was amazing to just give in to my curiosity and give up my foolish need to feel powerful or knowledgeable. Now, I still do feel competent in things like programming in C# for .Net apps and some general programming problems that I&#x27;ve kept up with but if say someone asks me about rendering graphics I&#x27;m gonna point them to someone else. What I fear is that loss of certainty is something that keeps some people into the naïve realist position or so I&#x27;ve noticed in my own social circles. For example, I&#x27;ve had someone on Second Life (virtual world platform) keep insisting that being transgender itself is a mental illness rather than some transgender people can have gender dysphoria (which I am trans and have gender dysphoria) which is a mental illness onto itself. Not everyone with gender dysphoria act on it. Not everyone transitions, some do suppress it all their lives or only express their gender identity in the margins. The point being this person in question keeps asking like why are transgender people proud of being transgender if it&#x27;s a mental illness which I&#x27;ve tried and failed to explain the situation. It&#x27;s like talking to a brick wall. And honestly, I&#x27;ve given up. It&#x27;s just one tiny example in a sea of ignorance that I think we all find ourselves contributing to or trying to banish but I just wanted to share it in this context.