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when I was a teenager, the dominant criticism my closest friends had of me was that I was too arrogant, and they were right. I was too caustic, abrasive, eager to nitpick, quick to criticize, and I was way too certain of myself. I spent my entire 20s trying to correct for this
the social niceties stuff were relatively trivial for me to address. learning to be gracious, patient, I could manage all of that. But "too certain of oneself" goes order of magnitudes deeper. It goes into philosophical territory about risk, certainty, the nature of knowledge
I very seriously experimented with beliefs like "almost everything I know is wrong to a degree I do not understand", "my mental models are contaminated beyond repair", "I have been indoctrinated and need to be deradicalized", I subjected myself and my mind to radical rewrites
Over 8+ years I wrote over 800,000 words of introspective journaling, investigating my own mind, investigating the investigator. I read & talked to thousands of people from around the world to seek out different ways of thinking, seeing, being, believing, knowing, understanding
I tried to think of myself as a robot that needed debugging. I actually made substantial progress with that I tried to think of myself as a garden that needed tending. I made substantial progress with that I tried not to think of myself at all, and I transcended progress itself
I experimented with trying really hard, and I experimented with not trying at all I experimented with scheduling and calendaring my life, and I experimented with throwing everything to the wind I questioned everything several times over, and I questioned nothing
And... at the end of it all... in the middle of it all... I attained a level of calm clarity that, ironically, gave me even more of an aura of "certain of himself" than ever before I know how it looks, I know how it sounds but my priority is to live and speak honestly
it's not that I don't make mistakes it's not that I don't get things wrong I do but I am like a musician who's skilled at improvising β I recover from my mistakes gracefully, I work them into my playing what troubles some people is that I am insufficiently self-deprecating
and I am not a "natural" at this β this skill is something I've picked up from a 15+ years of practice and study, the way a skilled musician would and I talk about it openly because when I was a kid I wished someone would tell me this stuff, and nobody did, not quite
I can return now to my friends' original criticism and discern what they were trying to say, that they couldn't quite articulate properly. there are many different latent messages encoded in a statement like "you are too certain of yourself"
1. your frames are too rigid β this is something you can fix by learning to be more flexible with your frames 2. you are too confident β this conflates bluster and bravado (bad) with the casual, sleepy ease of having deep knowledge https://t.co/L3uYqiJzFA
people often think of confidence as bluster and bravado, loud and obnoxious. thatβs often actually insecurity the good stuff is often really quiet and natural: the casual, almost sleepy ease that comes from knowing your stuff really well https://t.co/SJxfUquwaL
I have rebuilt myself from scratch in the absolute wilderness, in total isolation, in the dark night of the soul twice having done it before, I know I can do it again the result is a kind of fearlessness that attracts some people and repels others Β―\_(γ)_/Β―
recent meditation has made me realize that I have been trying to mask this, trying to suppress this, to be polite. to be civil. to not be arrogant. to not intimidate and scare people. but this is dishonest of me, and I want to live an honest life https://t.co/5H9H62Afwl
3. that I was going to make a decent living without going to university (I do) 4. that university professors would want to hang out with me, an autodidact (they do) 5. that I was going to be hired for somebody who respected my idiosyncrasies, without a resume (I was)
6. that I would have a successful business and be invited to speak/lecture at universities (done that) 7. that my band would play at the esplanade powerhouse stage, despite not being great musicians (we did) 8. that I would be the #1 search result for my first name (pretty much?)
9. that I would write and publish books that hundreds of people would want to buy and read (yep) I could go on. Looking back, I think the right frame is: they witnessed me disregard their internalized shared limiting beliefs, and saw this as a status violation on my part
looking back, I'm not sad that they were wrong about me I'm sad that I allowed them being wrong about me to let me be wrong about myself I definitely allowed their thinking to contaminate mine hanging out with unambitious people definitely dimmed my own ambition never again
also, they never admitted to being unambitious β a thing that I might've been angry/mad about a few years ago, but now kinda chuckle about. it's absolutely fine to be unambitious. you can live a good, simple, worthwhile life. the worst thing here is the *pretense* of ambition.
people who *pretend* to be ambitious waste the valuable time and energy of actually-ambitious people, sucking them into their sitcoms and distracting them from the actual adventures they ought to be going on https://t.co/JFXNGWhMez
an additional confounding factor: not only do most people not have any real creative vision or ambition... many people entertain themselves by PRETENDING that they do most people want their lives to be sitcoms that pretend to be adventures https://t.co/vEsESFYja4
but, yknow. people gonna people. there's no sense in getting mad about it. the thing is to focus on finding the people who get you. https://t.co/oKn7C21lVv
but now I realize the only thing that matters is finding True Artists and supporting and challenging them, and the bottleneck there is my own thinking, my own behavior a summary: 2007: fuck everyone 2013: fuck you guys 2015: fuck Visa 2019: there is no fuck π
I am not looking for people to affirm me, tell me I am so great, agree with everything I say, etc. I don't want that. I don't want fanboys or haters (who are fans too). I'm looking for other creative, ambitious, playful people to play with, folks who prioritize doing cool things
I am here to find the others. Part of doing this means volunteering to be hyper-visible, which means being vulnerable to attack. I debated with myself internally, extensively, for years. I didn't feel worthy, and simultaneously, I was afraid https://t.co/NMS7nWz07e
but when I see the friendships that people forge with each other in my mentions, I realize it is the right thing to do. I would honestly kinda prefer it if there were someone else I trusted to take the lead... but nobody sees things quite the way I do. https://t.co/xu7bWUAceY
a cheesy-yet-true answer is "I think of the children". I think of the curious kids who are miserable, stuck in shitty social graphs, who could do wonderful things if someone just showed them how. I was one of them; I am being who I wished I had in my life https://t.co/mKj6ygOWVq
@visakanv speaking from personal experience, some of the kids who are miserable and stuck in shitty social graphs are just at an earlier stage, working on that reinvention process. It does always hurt. https://t.co/YWKrKXjMLj
I have rebuilt myself from scratch in the absolute wilderness, in total isolation, in the dark night of the soul twice having done it before, I know I can do it again the result is a kind of fearlessness that attracts some people and repels others Β―\_(γ)_/Β―
@visakanv Wonderful and empowering thread. I know you're not looking for fanboys but I'm gonna say anyway that you inspire me, and I hope to learn more from your ambition and your honesty. I love the road you're walking. Keep it up, King.
me: I'm tired of discussing politics with you guys. I'd rather meet and talk with the prime minister. my friends: that's so fucking cocky and arrogant of you lmao why the fuck would he want to talk to you me: Β―\_(γ)_/Β― I'll figure it out https://t.co/O4iCNJm5PL
every day people on this birdsite complain about "women are like this" and "men are like that". I got married at 22 so I don't really bother playing this game, but I'll just say you can define a bf or gf that you'd like, and then have them come find you https://t.co/j7OeACNRfn
@visakanv there's a fine line that needs to be explored and re-explored between "unambitious" and "realistic", since ambition is usually at least a tad unrealistic, and "being realistic" is often a dodge to avoid taking on hard things
@visakanv Real friends call out their friend for being arrogant because they want to make sure that they are doing okay in life. It's heartbreaking to see the arrogant entrepreneur who thinks they'll suddenly get lucky and get rich. But also the "be realistic" people are also scared.