Thought Log
just a running stream of loose, random thoughts I have throughout the day, possible fodder for tweet threads or substack posts
Looking at a pair of parents screaming at their daughter in front of a school in beijing and I had the weird thought that maybe the most feminist thing my ppl have ever done is to have the same high expectations for their daughters as their sons 😂 there is a ton messed-up about tiger parenting but I think the implicit message of high expectations is that they believe you CAN achieve it. vs no message at all ('ya you can do videogames') or saying you need extra help... even if absolutely true and out of a good place, sometimes that can implicitly message that you're *not* gonna be good enough. High expectations - if *actually* paired with high support - can make someone feel like they have to rise to a challenge. Than they *can* slay the dragon. That's empowering to kids.
A lot of ppl in the Bay are actually super compulsive, they're just addicted to things we value like exercise, disciplined diet, meditation etc. Since those look like health and relaxation we think they're healthful and relaxing but actually they're super neurotic. The tell is that ppl get very stressed when they can't do them - because they're not actually anxiety-relieving in themselves, it's the act of doing them that relieves a different, self-imposed anxiety.
The reason we feel so disconnected from the ppl around us is because we are no longer put in the position to really help them in a meaningful way. For example at Burning Man, giving someone a piece of costume or a drink of water or a bite of watermelon really gives them SUCH joy, and therefore you too; but in the real world ppl can just doordash or amazon for themselves, it's hard to give these really small but meaningful things when most of the ppl we know live in relative surplus. We are less dependent on each other for survival.
One take-away is that maybe gift-giving is a more important piece of culture than I thought...Burning Man is all about radical self-reliance, yet it actually runs on this system of interdependencies! Shared food, gifted clothes, gifted showers, shared concerts and events. The actual ethos is all about giving away, even if you're still expected to be able to survive on your own. I think this is just to keep away moochers, but what makes BM special is that it acknowledges life is more magical when we get to create it together - it's not divided between providers and consumers, but everyone bringing something to the table and sharing the bounty together, free of titles and boundaries and tit-for-tats.
A coordination problem I don't hear ppl talk about - I think we underestimate the value of social synchronicity. Think about housemates in the mood to party but you're neck deep in work. How do you align social energies?
TIL dialects are really geolects. Sociolects are things like gay voice, ethnolects are ethnic groups (AAVE), idiolects are individual styles of speaking. In that case what do you call the little secret languages that develop between couples or close friends? Or between someone and their cat?
A scrub move on one level of abstraction might not be a scrub move on another. Don't be afraid to be a scrub :)
The saddest sentence: they were my best friend, but I wasn't theirs.
A few things override incentives: character on the individual scale, culture on the social scale, and ideology on the national scale. It's easy to do things that are good for yourself, less easy to do things that have no reward to yourself but is the 'right' thing to do anyways. Like taking out the trash, doing the dishes for the house etc - that's a habit of character not incentive. Or in Japan, that's a habit of culture because kids are taught to sweep the floors at school. Or in Cultural Revolution China, that's a habit of ideology because it's imperialist fascism to shy from hard labor.
That's not to say that these things can't actually be considered incentives - facing criticism from other ppl for not following your culture's social norms is a pretty strong incentive! But I think we usually talk about incentives in economics terms, like what's in it for the 'actors', how do we bribe or punish ppl to behave the way we want and that makes what were red-blooded relationships feel transactional: moving from the bond between friends, brothers, strangers to a contract between strangers. Homo economicus incentives are limited because ppl think differently on the stranger-level.
Modern society causes anxiety, the feeling of flakiness, the fear the ppl you love don't feel as deeply as you because we don't have as many opportunities to show proof of love. The paradox of modern technology is that it's about convenience and ease, but it's *friction* that shows your level of care. When you can just buy a meal instead of cooking one from scratch, when you can hire a taskrabbiter to fix your partner's washer instead of taking the time to fix it yourself, when you make it easy to problem-solve instead of a challenge, it's harder to prove how much you care. Effort is proof of stake; and we're doing everything we can to remove effort.
What gives something meaning is its finiteness, the knowledge that this may be it, that you can't reach for this again and again so you better appreciate it now. Our boredom is the boredom of infinity.
Does that mean all our striving for longevity actually lessens the meaning of our lives?
Realization as a new pet owner: ppl talk a lot about their usefulness as companions, how bonding with their cat alleviates loneliness etc, but not as much about the way they bond *people* together. Pets are the ultimate conversational sink - an endless source of stuff to point to and talk about when you have nothing to say. Otherwise the all-too-easy default is back to our phones and that is very disconnecting/bid-rejecting
'When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace' - supposedly by Jimi Hendrix, but I'm kinda bothered by this quote. Power isn't a bad thing - power is in fact a *vital* thing, because you need power to accomplish things. It's what you do with that power that matters.
Backhanded compliments, what about backhanded insults? things that sound like an insult but are actually an expression of care (aka asian parents)
Interesting things happen when you think of yourself as a plant more than an animal. As an animal the words that come to mind are hunger, instinct, prowling, hunting, the dynamics of predator and prey. As a plant the needs are water, sunlight, fresh air, good soil to sink roots in, enough space to stretch up and out. Sometimes some bees. It strikes me as more accurate.
It's so interesting what happens when you really dig into something in detail - for example, how do you design a restaurant from scratch? why do they use candles? why do they use tablecloths?
How can people ever be bored?
Communities are the collections of people whose languages, codes, practices and tastes you feel comfortable moving between.
Friends are the people you never feel the need to codeswitch with
The Bilbo Principle: We talk about being sheltered in life, but not about being sheltered in thought. The kind of people I tend to vibe with are curious and secure enough to venture far in ideas without reflexive judgment, even if their conclusion at the end of their travels is a simply a love for their little Shire.
wordcels and shape rotators are two sides of the same coin, locked in symbiosis
shapes must be packaged into words to spread memetically
words only acquire power when they rotate, conceive, transform shapes in the brain. what is 'the spark' but the reconfiguration of an idea
I know people who hate people on a theoretical level, but love them on a human level. Most people I meet here like people on a theoretical level, but don't love them on a human level. Given the choice I think it's worth looking for the former.
system 1 vs system 2 attractions are why online dating fails for so many ppl
depression has an evolutionary sense in protecting a person's energy, the way a sick animal will hide from their herd
the same mechanism is why a society undergoing collapse will cause ppl to turn inward - to meditation, silent retreats, going off-grid, the safety of some online tribe. during the black death it was the individuals who isolated in the hills and monasteries who stayed safe
One of the paradoxes of life is that the highest alpha comes from giving your gifts freely, without expectation of reward. And yet we also know we must prioritize where to invest our energies or else burn out quick.
No is a magic word. And so is yes.
being hyper-social is actually a form of loner-ness
connection-maxxing to avoid true connection with any one person, people, or place. never lingering long enough in any one space to show your true face
all the best things in life are side effects
success is the side effect of dedicating yourself to something you actually love
love is the side effect of spending time with the people you actually enjoy
joy is the side effect of effortless laughter, awe, the moment that sweeps through you. the happiness you realize after-the-fact.
all these things don't work as targets. it's like trying to pin down the breeze with your arrow. the goal makes you think you know what it looks like; the pursuit narrows your gaze in front such that you never realize the moment when it comes; the expectation makes you unhappy with it anyways, so what was ever the point of the chase
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the implication is that meaning can't be pursued. (this is why meaning-making sucks as a concept.) meaning is a side effect of pursuing other things. meaning happens to you after you forget you were ever looking for it
The map is not the territory. That's exactly why it's useful - if it were to the granularity and scale of the territory, it'd be mostly noise, sound and fury. Maps distill, compress, filter down to the features that are important. Different maps will focus on different things - different perspectives on the territory will create new understanding.
Even the territory is not the territory. We are always interpreting through our senses, and then the layer of sense-making, our "common sense", the priors and intuitions we have about the world.
everyone wants to build community but few ever want to BE community
like everyone wants to make a supper club with interesting people, but no one wants to BE the interesting people
meaning-making? how about creative co-destruction
most social circles can benefit from at least one messy person. otherwise the group dynamics become too rigid, sclerotic; you need a bit of chaos to break and rejig the covalent bonds every once in a while, the way that psychedelics help through neural annealing