(og tweet) idk if i’ve framed it like this before when talking about trust and freedom etc: a person who bullies themselves, while kinda grotesque and tragic, is in some sense more ‘trustworthy’ in the eyes of ‘society’ than a person who does not. they can be expected to behave predictably

and being trustworthy is a valuable trait for interfacing purposes so to some degree some people bully themselves as proof-of-work so that other people will interface with them, along predictable dimensions. less dynamic/ongoing negotiation required. less scary variance

iterate this across every dimension of social existence and we get very elaborate, byzantine social norms that don’t make much sense (most ppl will kinda admit this at a comedy show for eg) – but we mostly go along with it bc deviating from the norm introduces unknown costs

navigating this is tricky. if the way out were as simple as “just deviate from norms haha its so easy lol just act differently lol” then loads of people would’ve done it already. but most who try get burned by their lack of finesse

one approach is to study the norms, figure out what the point of the norms are, understand the underlying mechanisms, and then find more elegant/effective solutions. ppl understand this in creative domains like cooking

what’s not so immediately obvious is that simply existing as a human being in a society is an ongoing creative act

circling back – one of the reasons i dont have to self-flagellate or participate in ritual self-cruelty etc is, ok part of it is that I just fundamentally refuse to, but the reason i’m happy and well-adjusted etc despite it is that i’ve found other ways to be trustworthy

all of the above is slightly squinty/blurry; most people inhabit a squinty-blurry reality. but if you get precise about it you’ll find that, ok, nobody needs to be 100% trustworthy to everybody everywhere all the time in order to survive. you can deconstruct things

cooking eg: a person who has a vague idea of what ‘doneness’ means might always overcook their steaks on purpose because of fear of undercooking. a lot of things are like this. most of the interesting moves in most domains (maybe all?) require precise ideas of what X means

you could say that civilization itself, by optimizing for the reduction of negative variance, is a sort of systematic overcooking, which simultaneously reduces positive variance. for the most part we are collectively ok with this, and that’s mostly ok too

but if you’re thoughtful, perceptive, nimble, optimize for survival, take baby steps, fail fast/small, etc then you can live a life that is delicious rather than overcooked

some people think it’s dangerous or obscene NOT to overcook your life some people can’t really tell the difference because they’ve never cultivated taste and they are numb to their own feelings, burnt their tongues a long time ago etc etc, pretty cool generative metaphor here

circling back a little bit – I’m generally not a fan of springing dramatic sweeping shocking change onto people, like forcing someone who’s used to eating overcooked food to suddenly eat raw meat. sometimes it will blow their minds in the right way, but often its just mean/cruel

tho sometimes (inevitably?) life will force such change on you without your consent. still i dont think that means one should be an agent of cruelty in anticipation of future cruelty. mayyybe you can sorta microdose it, edge up to it slowly, etc

metaphor here i usually use is like, a training dojo vs a street fight where anything goes. i choose dojo every time

just because life will punch the kid in the face (and we are all the kid) doesn’t mean his mentors should punch him in the face (and we are all the mentors)

^ wrote this whole thread bc I was revisiting this old meme I made – if I were to make it again Id probably replace ‘narcissist’ with ‘bully’ or ‘tyrant’. the really interesting thing to me is how I thought to include ‘rest of society’ in it. hits the spot

this is where I oughta plug @introspectVV – if you like the above thread, my ebook has the same vibe, and it basically tries to answer the question of “ok so how do I stop the ritual self-cruelty”. my answer involves “quite a lot of preparation is required actually”

if you think of ritual self-cruelty as the equivalent of… feeding innocent villagers to the minotaur in the labyrinth, you can’t just go in and face the minotaur without any training. you’ll get smashed! the minotaur is more powerful than u, that’s why its in the labyrinth

which i think is one of the slightly funny things to come to terms with at the end of a cycle of the journey. like, it almost always turns out that there were pretty good reasons for everything all along, apart from the original absurdity of existence which we have no clue about

there’s a reason you have the issues that you do, there’s a reason you’re afraid of what you’re afraid of, there’s a reason you’re not doing the thing that you know you’re supposed to be doing. probs p good reasons, too. facing the truth of them can be both hilarious n shocking

and to operate dynamically and with freedom, you need to know the truth of things. in a lot of cases the truth is often that we don’t really know. this is vastly preferable to having a false sense of certainty about things we don’t know

goddamnit lol i just got killshotted by my own old tweet so in case any of you are feeling attacked by these know that i am my own primary target

re: ‘existing as a human being is an ongoing creative act’: if you ever think someone isn’t creative you should look at their excuses