To comment on all this a little too, there is a famous BJJ coach who said - Don’t listen to what they say, watch what they do (in this case what they are ‘being’), this was in reference to studying high level grappling, what actually happens in competitive matches vs fanciful theories being sold on what should happen.
Sure if I was just to look at the words written by Syd in a vacuum I could perhaps say it fits the bill. But to take a bird’s eye view and look at the whole thing, the entire behaviour, then it’s so clear that this is deception, a pretty skilled/refined deception at that.
The fact remains that no amount of sophistication or refinement will land one at naiveté. It’s not like one of my games either where if I grind away at some monsters for a few hours I will earn that next weapon set and then breeze through the rest of the game - which this is the kind of MO I have observed here, as if naiveté could be located that way.
I have done all this myself as one of the “other people on this forum already, who were under the (temporary) illusion/ delusion that they were something they were not”. This trap is particularly alluring it seems for personas pre-disposed to intellectualising their way through life. This kind of persona will sweep all the “uncomfortable emotional stuff” under the rug and then use the powers of their intellect to apparently solve it all away, as if breezing through a checklist. But proceeding in this manner, the ‘naivete located’ is concocted, it is a fake.
I think I might be at risk of being placed into a diagram here, but I will say that all the “uncomfortable emotional stuff” cannot be conveniently walked around, and for the kind of persona pre-disposed to intellectualising I would say that the remedy is to dare to aim for intimacy, not with objects but with fellow human beings. I have found this in myself (as that kind of persona) that this challenge to aim for intimacy was initially like trying to mix oil with water, but eventually it made one thing clear, that this “uncomfortable emotional stuff” would have to be resolved head on.
Although I will put a qualifier on this, that it was aiming for intimacy with the person I live with (rather than a passing exchange at a coffee shop etc) which was where the tyre met the road, to borrow a phrase. And the intimacy I am referring to here is not some high level near actual intimacy, I am talking of - can ‘I’ as a feeling being, find a way to get consistently close to another, which means that the mine-field of the “uncomfortable emotional stuff” will have to be patiently and sincerely addressed.