#normal advice

(Epistemic status: Endorsed – basically a reframing of more traditional advice) In certain communities, I often notice a tendency to frame tasks, thoughts, and ideas as objects. It seems working memory is frequently related to in this way, to explain how being able to hold more of these mental objects can lead to exponential increases in intellectual output, productivity, and ability to do…

(Epistemic Status: Endorsed; easy to say, harder to do; specialized tool for a specific problem) As some of you know, I have an unfortunate tendency to get into pretty fierce moods at times; frequently in these moods, I will end up in a very emotionally stormy place and be unintentionally hurtful through my pain. This is not exactly a great thing to do, so I’ve had to develop tools to mitigate…

On Non-Zero Sum Interaction

On Non-Zero Sum Interaction (Epistemic Status: Endorsed af, what I actually aspire to do) (Meta-note:  I apologize for the short post this week, I hope to have a fairly substantial one on a related concept next week) What do business people, pick up artists, and con artists have in common? A deep desire to win at traditional success markers – money, sex, power – through social manipulation. Most…

On the Tangent Stack

(Epistemic Status: Perfectly normal advice, practical, I literally use it, not even dangerous.) Talking with me in person, one on one, is a bit of an experience, to put it mildly. When both myself and my conversation partner are comfortable, a strange thing happens; we go way over our intended time frame. There’s a sensation that the conversation will never end and this is ok. In fact, this is…

(Epistemic Status:  Almost certainly written on by smarter and/or more articulate people than myself; helpful insight, pragmatic.)

A few weeks ago, I had an interesting experience where I noticed that I had a strong desire to do something but lacked sufficient resources to execute it.  I thought a little harder and I noticed I did have sufficient resources but I had already mentally earmarked them.  Once I realized this, I examined my priorities and desires, realized I wanted to keep the resources earmarked to the things they were allocated to and felt the desire to accelerate the project fade.  I also felt a sort of peace at having resolved the internal tension.

The concept of prioritization is far from new or original.  Generally, people have things they want to do more than other things and in situations of limited resources, will allocate resources to the things they want to do more.  The concept of revealing your preferences with how you actually use your resources, as opposed to your words, is also not new.  What felt new to me is the sensation of peace and ability to defuse the pain of desire by going through this process.  Statements like “I want” and “I wish” cause a simulation of the experience of loss, at least for me.  I notice I am missing something and that I would rather not be missing that something.  Sometimes this drive is very helpful and directs my cognition towards  gaining the desire.  Other times, it leads to a feeling of powerlessness or worse, to bad decisions because the want/wish is too powerful.   The concept of noticing the desire and interrogating my priorities feels like an antidote to that helpless feeling.

Overall, I think this is a good tool in the vein of figuring out what you really want and also discarding bad attachment feelings that you cannot act on.

On Alternative Conversational Paths

(Epistemic Status: Kind of untested – I had this insight a few hours ago. Intuitively feels correct in the sense that “if you increase your emotional labor you get better outcomes”) Have you ever found yourself in a situation where someone is talking to you and you don’t really actually care about what they’re saying? You might be smiling, nodding, saying “uh-huh,” but you clearly aren’t engaged.…

On How To Give a Compliment

(Epistemic status: Trivially true – there’s academic literature on feedback about this – might kind of be creating a tragedy of the commons situation, not sure I care.) A couple days ago I ran into an unfortunate situation. I was fairly depressed and generally feeling unable to break out of the frame of my depression. I felt bad and to some degree kind of wanted to keep feeling bad. Still, often…

(Epistemic status: Really not my usual fare, more a reflection on a thing) The date is December 30, 2017. I’m frantically writing a pretentious essay about hypnosis to impress admissions officers. I’m poking everybody who’s even slightly good at writing desperately hoping they have 15 minutes to spare to read my bullshit. I finally consider it acceptably reviewed and upload it – I click submit on…