🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (113 tweets)
The courage to be disliked, Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. Heard good things, let’s dig in https://t.co/yriXyV6LMn
Youth tells philosopher, life is hard and complicated and full of struggle. Philosopher says life is simple. Debate ensues They discuss the subjectivity of water temperature - 18deg is cool when weather is hot, warm when weather is cold. No escape from your own subjectivity
P: Instead of lamenting about the world’s darkness, you could just remove the dark glasses. Y: people cannot change. I am suffering because of my inability to change Narrator: why is Y like this, so determined to refute P? Feelings of inferiority, self-pity, self-consciousness
Y: people want to change precisely because they can’t P: why are you so adamant about this Y: I have an incel friend P: why do you think he can’t go out? Y: background? P: so cause and effect? determinism? Y: ya P: if determinism were true, wouldn’t everyone be incel 🤔
Y: so u saying past doesn’t matter P: aye Y: so there’s no explanation why my friend can’t go out? P: your friend is insecure so he can’t go out. Flip it: he doesn’t want to go out, so he’s creating the anxiety. Y: ridiculous. You’re saying he’s pretending to be sick P: no
P: the anxiety is real. But we need to focus on purpose, not cause Y: what’s the diff P: when you’re sick, it doesn’t matter why you’re sick Y: are you denying the existence of trauma?? P: yup. we are not determined by our experiences, but by the meaning we give them
Y: Yesterday someone spilled coffee on my nice jacket. I yelled in anger. I’m usually a quiet person. How do you explain this P: you got angry so that you could shout. Y: wtf P: if you had a knife on you, would you have stabbed him? Y: of course not P: you wanted to shout.
P: a mom and daughter are quarrelling loudly. The phone rings, the mom answers politely. Then she’s angry again. Anger is a tool she uses to overpower her daughter and thereby assert her opinions Y: jfc you fucking distrustful nihilist
P: lol what Y: u deny human emotion P: no. Everyone has emotions. But emotions can be controlled. It’s determinism that’s nihilistic. So u the nihilist, lol Y: I don’t want to be but the past is so powerful P: because you want it to be Y: god fucking damnit
Y: ok so you’re saying I can become a joyous sunbeam P: do you want to be? Y: I think I’d be happy if I were P: so you are currently unhappy. Because you hate yourself? Y: yeah duh P: don’t feel bad, few people like themselves Y: do you? P: eh, I accept myself Y: ...
@tnorthcutt https://t.co/ikrY9DxehT
Thread of books I'm reading in 2018. Deciding that I'm going to focus on optimizing for "books started" (which is fun and interesting) rather than "books finished" (which for me has a sort of masochistic, completionist connotation I'd like to be free of).
P: u chose your personality too, when you were about 10 Y: ?? Ok but suppose it’s true. So what now? I can choose it all over? P: yup. But you make the decision not to Y: ?? P: you describe yourself as unhappy. You say you want to change. So why not change? Y: HOW
P: shitty + familiar lifestyle is more comforting than maybe-better but unfamiliar lifestyle. You are scared. You’re not incompetent, you’re just a coward. You lack the courage to be happy. Y: so what do I do P: make a decision to stop your current lifestyle. No more “if only”
P: in fact, saying “if only I could be like X” is an excuse to not change. Like my wannabe-novelist friend, who wants to be a wannabe-novelist full of excuses, not a novelist who struggles and faces rejection Y: wow, big mood
Y: so trauma and environment don’t matter, everything is my choice and my fault? Fucken harsh, man P: not criticising u. All that matters is what you do now Y: now now? P: the only now there is. The past doesn’t exist Y: this is some heavy shit. Brb next week P: lol k see u
P: *story about student with fear of blushing* Y: so she fabricated that fear of blushing as an excuse for her own inability to confess her feelings. Or as a kind of insurance for when he rejected her P: yea. I told her “it’s easy to cure your fear. But I won’t help you”
P: “it’s thanks to your fear of blushing that you can accept your dissatisfaction with yourself and the world around you, and with a life that isn’t going well. If I cured it, you’d probably ask for it back, and I can’t do that” Y: 🤔
P: similarly, you dislike yourself preemptively because you are afraid of being disliked by other people. Your goal is not to get hurt in your relationships with others. You imprison yourself for safety purposes Y: sigh I hate you but you’re probably right P: life is pain
P: furthermore, all problems are interpersonal problems (Visa: true) Y: that’s a lie! Academic sophistry! What about individual agony? P: we cannot do without interpersonal relationships. But so-called internal worry does not exist. The shadows of other people are everpresent
Y: don’t humans have loftier, greater problems? Happiness, freedom, the meaning of life? And you’re saying interpersonal relationships are everything? P: are you familiar with the term “feeling of inferiority?” Y: yeah, duh. me_irl P: what are those feelings, specifically?
Y: someone my age is more successful. What am I doing with myself? A friend is happy. Why am I miserable? Why don’t I make more money? Why aren’t I more accomplished? P: All of these are value judgements of yourself. You feel worth less Y: I know that feels
P: look at me. What was your impression of me, physically? Y: ur short P: 155cm. When I was your age, this bothered me. I imagined a more enjoyable life was waiting for me 10-20cm higher. I told a friend this. He dismissed it as a bunch of nonsense Y: wow rude
P: he said, what would you do if you got taller? You know, you’ve a gift for getting people to relax. tall men intimidate people (true) P: so it made me realize that being smol was desirable. It transformed my values. I let go of my feeling of inferiority
@visakanv https://t.co/z5gkq3rNBc
@visakanv This is where I find fault in P's philisophical stance. He argumes "if determinism were true..." and then later on uses envirionmental determinism as part of his argument: https://t.co/exTNqlYj9P
P: shitty + familiar lifestyle is more comforting than maybe-better but unfamiliar lifestyle. You are scared. You’re not incompetent, you’re just a coward. You lack the courage to be happy. Y: so what do I do P: make a decision to stop your current lifestyle. No more “if only”
@visakanv Y picks up on this contradiction, but P just redirects to be about Y's mental stance.https://t.co/SKzzMrE3mJ
Y: so trauma and environment don’t matter, everything is my choice and my fault? Fucken harsh, man P: not criticising u. All that matters is what you do now Y: now now? P: the only now there is. The past doesn’t exist Y: this is some heavy shit. Brb next week P: lol k see u
@visakanv I think P is just projecting his own failures on Y, and they are talking past each other.https://t.co/ClghsBZKMR
@visakanv P proceeds to do the exact thing he critiqued the mom doing earlier... just instead of using emotions, he uses an arugment. P redirects Y into adopting P's perspective. https://t.co/yeIM4lxaRo
P: similarly, you dislike yourself preemptively because you are afraid of being disliked by other people. Your goal is not to get hurt in your relationships with others. You imprison yourself for safety purposes Y: sigh I hate you but you’re probably right P: life is pain
@visakanv To me it feels like a drawn out jedi-mind-trick that P is doing on Y."These are not the goals you are looking for"https://t.co/KXPLeDcXEu
Y: I want to do A, to do A I must do B, I can't figure out how to do B, have any ideas?P: Why are you afraid to do A*? You can't do B* because you don't want to do B*.Y: A*? I don't want todo A*, I don't want to do A*?! Wtf?P: You are just projecting your anxiety over doing B*
@visakanv I read it as P teaching Y to adopt habits that lead to learned helplessness effects.P's life has been full of shit he can't control, so like the dog who ignores the shocks, just lays there and say "why are you afraid of being shocked".
@visakanv P's argument about the incel is one that assumes incel has adopted learned helplessness as well. It is as if he's framing all struggles under that lens and spreads that way of thinking to others. P is framed as wise, but I think he is just as foolish as Y.
@visakanv I'm not saying learned helpessness that the incel has adopted doesn't exist. Or that Y doesnt' also have it. Just that P's perspective and argument makes it easy to assume that anyone and everyone has this problem. I think the augment is a philosopher's mind trap. https://t.co/3dMtwtwKCh
@visakanv On a literary analysis angle, I'd suggest that the book using a particular stance on the mind-body problem (https://t.co/9oqy0XEqDY) as a parable to help certain people overcome mental hangups. I think this is generally helpful, except when it is taken as a universal.
@visakanv I agree with the rest - on coming to terms with one's feelings and the notions from Adlerian psych regarding negotiating relationships. I just find so many people who are bitten by the 'you're just afraid' idea, using it to shut down that negotiation process.
@visakanv Now my inner monologue has changed! I notice I’m feeling anxious and my inner monologue says “you want to be anxious”. This happens every time I notice a feeling haha. Was very useful to reflect at first. Now I’m like “shut up monologue”
@visakanv https://t.co/z5gkq3rNBc
@visakanv Talking about how to apply the book: https://t.co/Oh5bAnvIAd