Vulnerability
Trivial problems
How do I waste my time? I get worked up over trivial things. First-world problems. I become incapable of doing any work and just do stuff to numb myself (eat tasty food, watch videos on Youtube).
Act in spite of the pain. Ignore what seems important right now. See through to what really matters. Win.
Getting offended
As long as you have this habit of getting offended by other people’s behaviour, it will remain your biggest weakness. It will be the greatest source of unhappiness in your life. You get offended in hopes of fixing the situation, but getting offended is the situation. You will be much happier without it and might actually even get what you want.
Prerequisites for Worthiness
“My life will begin after I get X, Y, and Z done.”
Two words: frequent releases. You have to start releasing the product (here, your worthiness or happiness) immediately so that you can iterate on it. Otherwise, you may never get started on it.
Worthiness comes now. Happiness comes now. Life is now.
Freedom!
I’m free now of one more thing that I was using as a prerequisite for worthiness. Yes, it was a silly thing. Pretty much all our prerequisites for worthiness are silly. We’re humans, the silliest species on the planet. All I had to do was feel the vulnerability and realize that it didn’t have to make me unworthy of love and belonging.
Poker chips: Take risks with confidence
We need to have a measurement for worthiness. Otherwise, we will find it hard to make tradeoffs.
Currently, I’m thinking in black and white when it comes to worthiness. If someone makes fun of my appearance, it’s the end of the world. I’m completely unworthy of love and belonging. Instead, even if I do feel unworthy because of my appearance, it should only decrease my overall worthiness by a small amount.
In fact, if your worthiness is decided by the number of places where you refuse to bear vulnerability, then you should measure only that. Say I can’t bear looking bad or having an untidy room or whatever. Then, if I look bad, my worthiness should go down a bit. Inversely, if I grin and bear it, then my worthiness should go up.
Mainly, if we can think of a certain number of worthiness units in our hands, like chips in a poker game, we can decide where to risk them in a bet or where not to. For example, if I know that I have, say, 20 chips of worthiness in my hand, then I can take a risk - be vulnerable - worth around 3 chips in some area like writing an imperfect email or something. If that fails and I don’t accept the emotional pain and instead try to avoid it (which can happen if I feel too much pressure - like when others insult me), I will lose those 3 chips. If I succeed, then I would retain those 3 chips and get some more, because I overcame a prerequisite for worthiness.
In other words, having a good measure for worthiness will let me start embracing vulnerability with confidence. I will not fear losing my entire stock of worthiness because I know I have the remaining chips in my hand. Right now, I behave as though having one bad experience will be absolutely unbearable. Having chips in my hand will remind that this isn’t such a big deal; this too shall pass.
Fantasy: What is it good for? Absolutely Nothing?!
Fantasizing is a form of numbing. I’m distracting myself from the realities of my life. Realism implies no fantasizing, no dreaming. Face reality head on.
Mr. Potter thinks purely of killing the enemy, he will grasp at any means to do so, he does not flinch, his censors are off.
– Professor Quirrell, Chapter 16, HPMOR
Realism means turning your censors and dreamers off. Look at your life without flinching. Study the cold, hard facts.
Should I have an injunction against fantasizing? Should I forbid myself from doing it, given how deceptively dangerous it is and how easily I get sucked into it? What is the cost-benefit analysis here?
Perhaps there is no benefit at all from fantasizing about a better future, especially a kind of future I almost certainly cannot have at all. In fact, most of my fantasies are about the kind of future I don’t even really want. They just feel good to dream about. Reality and my true goals beckon one way, and my fantasies draw me another way.
Here’s the key: you only care about optimizing the real world. Remember that, always. You want to improve the actual world you’re living, the actual life you have, not some fantasy. Your utility function is over the elements of the world, so do whatever it takes to win for real, not just in your head.
How to get rid of fantasies, then? Fill your mind with something else. Remember, your mind doesn’t run by magic. It works by certain laws. And one of those laws is that it can only think about one thing at a time (roughly speaking). So, make something else the top idea in your mind!
Vulnerability shall liberate you
It’s when I don’t show myself that I start becoming neurotic about my unworthiness. Once I take the plunge of vulnerability, I start feeling that I’m not so different from other human beings, that others are just as broken or crazy as I am, that I’m not such a loser after all.
What people say
Why can’t you do whatever you want with your life without feeling like a loser? Especially if you’re not imposing any costs on others - you’re just minding your own business, doing your own thing, just that it’s different from what others are doing.
Basically, what causes you to feel like a loser or a success? Can you do what you want to do in life without triggering these causes?
Pervasive Pessimism
Pervasive pessimism neglects the locality of causality. You start making long-distance connections instead of looking at immediate causes.
Judgment based on Reputation vs Utility
I struggled to write a recent post but forced myself to sit through it. But I didn’t do it because I was getting ideas like I usually do. I did it because I didn’t want to send out a bad or even mediocre post.
Why not?
Well, I think we humans judge each other based on our reputation. We expect performance in line with our reputation, all the time. So, if you’re supposed to be good at something, you have to produce good results at it all the time. You’re not allowed to suck, not even once.
That’s the difference between a system where you’re judged on the total utility you provide vs one where you have to defend your honour. In the former, you can have 6 days of epic work and one day of utter crap and still come out on top. In the latter, if your graph dips even once, you’ve had it.
This is not good. I may not be able to change how others judge me, but I need to start judging myself based on the total utility I create, not the quality of every single performance. Specifically, I must not take one poor day to mean that I totally suck. Yes, in an ideal world, if I were a good writer I would always produce good posts. But this world is far from ideal, and you are almost sure to have stinkers. Go easy on yourself. Keep your eye solely on the total value you create. Nothing else matters.
Note: One positive effect of the reputation system is that it makes you hold yourself to a higher standard on days when you feel like throwing in the towel. Maybe that’s why we humans evolved it. It is now our nature that we don’t want to look bad in front of others, not even once. However, I suspect that the price we pay for this is too much. It might be better to have a feedback system that let’s you see your total score instead of just your daily contribution.
Trust, Cooperation, and Marble Jars
What if trust is built by cooperating in the Prisoner’s Dilemmas of everyday life? What if vulnerability is a necessary component of trust-building simply because it involves cooperating “when there is no guarantee”? These are what Brene Brown calls Marble Jar moments.
In other words, you have these moments where you have no guarantees. Maybe you decide to move towards a more intimate relationship with someone you like or send a movie invite to a person you’d like to hang out with more or share an uncomfortable secret. These seem like instances where you cooperate in advance. You transform it into an Ultimatum game (?). Anyway, if the other person accepts, you’re both better off; but if they reject your invite or otherwise betray your trust, you are left far worse off. Your reputation might be tarnished among your friends or your secret might be revealed to the very people you want to hide it from.
I don’t know if these really are Prisoner’s Dilemmas. You don’t always act simultaneously, which is the core of the original problem. But it seems similar: you cooperate in advance, and if they cooperate too, it’s all roses; but if they defect, you are doomed.
example: If you both committed to meet up a particular time, and the other person didn’t show up. He just wasted an hour of your time that you could have used elsewhere.
On the Desire for Fame
Fame is deeply attractive because it seems to offer very significant benefits. The fantasies go like this: when you are famous, wherever you go, your good reputation will precede you. … When you are famous, you will be safe from rejection. … Furthermore, no one will be able to afford to upset you. When you’re not pleased with something, it will become a big problem for others. … Your complaints will be taken very seriously. Your happiness will become the focus of everyone’s efforts. You will make or break other people’s reputations. You’ll be boss.
Who doesn’t want that! This is why fame feels so enviable.
The desire for fame has its roots in the experience of neglect, in injury. No one would want to be famous who hadn’t also, somewhere in the past, been made to feel extremely insignificant. We sense the need for a great deal of admiring attention when we have been painfully exposed to earlier deprivation. Perhaps one’s parents were hard to impress.
What is common to all dreams of fame is that being known to strangers emerges as a solution to a hurt. It presents itself as the answer to a deep need to be appreciated, and treated decently by other people.
– On the Desire for Fame * * * * *
It is an addictive outlook. It picks up accurately on what, at moments of high excitement, feels like the truth. It lashes out at anything that causes resentment, boredom or disappointment.
It’s hugely successful. But it’s also a disaster. The trouble is that it only works for short manic bursts. Life can’t be properly lived this way.
– On Failure and Success in the Game of Fame, The Book of Life
I sometimes go on Youtube binges, clicking through video after video of favourite celebrities. Whoever coined the term “clickbait” was bang on. I just can’t stop. Why am I (and a million others, judging by the views) so fascinated by fame?
Alain de Botton above seems to have the answer: in the rush of excitement that fame creates, it really does feel like the truth. You should aspire to be that way too, it whispers in your ear. Life would be great if you could be like that. Your problems would go away, you would no longer feel like a failure, you would have money and respect and everybody will love you.
It creates envy, in other words, and that is how memes propagate. They make you think about it and spend time on it so much that other parts of your life suffer.
Protect your goals from the distractions that threaten to lay siege on them. Your time is meant for the important things in your life, not this other crap designed by marketers to hijack your money and time and mind.
Rejection
Reframe it. Don’t look at it as “they rejected me”. Look at it as “they said no”. You asked and they said no. There’s nothing more to it. You were within your right to ask, and they were within their right to say no. But they don’t have the right to determine your worthiness. Only you have that. And this frame of “just asking” makes it easier for you to control your thoughts, which will otherwise keep revolving around how you’re not good enough for that job or relationship. You get to keep your self-respect.
Trust, Legal Contracts, and The Unbreakable Vow
Remember how the Unbreakable Vow works in HPMOR?
The one who receives the Unbreakable Vow must be one who could have come to trust the Vower, but chooses instead to demand the Vow from them, and they sacrifice that possibility of trust. The one who makes the Vow must be someone who could have chosen to do what the Vow demands of them, and they sacrifice that capacity for choice.
That’s what a legal contract is! Yes, you can choose to break the contract and pay the penalty, but the general idea is the same: you sacrifice that possibility of trust, and the other party sacrifices their capacity for choice.
Perhaps this reduces your trust in the other party - you don’t trust them as much on things where they haven’t given you legal assurances, whereas if they had kept their word without a legal contract, you would be inclined to trust them more even without a contract.
Perfectionism and Cues
Look at the cues that trigger your habits of perfectionism, like wanting to have a perfect movie to go with a perfect tasty dinner. Why was I struggling to pick a movie for tonight’s dinner? Because I wanted it to be perfect!
Prediction: If I get rid of my perfectionism (at least in these cases), I will not struggle with the movie selection.
What Happens If You Don’t Follow The Rules?
I suspect that a big part of my fear of breaking (trivial) rules comes from my ignorance of what happens if you break them. I fear that people will treat me badly if I do so.
However, I know some who have made a career out of breaking rules, flouted all sorts of norms (like failing courses or being caught stealing minor stuff), and lived to tell the tale. I suspect that, having seen what it is like even if they transgress some rules, they feel more comfortable opening up to people. They don’t fear what will happen if they don’t toe the line.
By the same token, I’ve broken quite a few of the high-level societal rules that seem to bind people. And I’ve lived to tell the tale too. Now, I hardly feel the pushback on those particular rules. So, I’m (more) comfortable doing what I want, whether or not others approve. I know I don’t have to follow all the rules to be happy. I can live just as well on the other side.
So, realize that life is bearable even when shit supposedly hits the fan, and thus do what you want with full confidence.
Aim: Remove Vulnerability from the Equation
Do what you estimate to be the best action. Apart from that, don’t cave in to your fear of what other people will think. (I have no real idea of how to do this.)
But this is the ideal. I want to do that which will maximize my expected utility. What people say should not affect my actions (after I’ve taken into account the effects on my reputation, etc.).
How, though?
Feel the vulnerability and do it anyway. Walk through the fear. Don’t let yourself numb your pain with videos, food, or fantasies.
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