Thread by @EpistemicHope

@uncatherio @diviacaroline I'm not sure I'm thinking about the right sort of thing.

But I think I would have self-talk which is more like "I'm not going to do that again" as opposed to "don't do that again [you idiot]."

...which adds some weight to @AnnaWSalamon's hypothesis.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon Let me try to think of some specific instances.

...

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon For one reasonably big fuckup, I specifically remember my thoughts being of the flavor,

"Welp, that happened."

and then,

"Maybe my life, for months, is just going to be about fixing this, now."

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon Last week, my computer did slow to a crawl, and I started closing windows with my tab manager, which deleted the twitter thread that I had just spent an hour on (the posting of which was the point of closing all the windows).

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon I was very pissed. I felt the urge to throw my computer, and say "fuck" a lot, and stomp.

Which was notable, because "angry at electronics" is a classic trope, but I had not been that angry in years, and I think never at electronics?

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon And even there, I was angry at my tab manager, not myself. Though part of the anger was how irrevocable it was. Like, I would start looking for "how do I fix this" and bump into "You can't. There's nothing you can do", and the anger would roar up in me again.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon (Really, scenarios in which you accidentally, permanently, delete a whole thing, that you've been working on for hours, are terrible.)

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon Sometime you have a short period of time (like a meeting) where you know a huge amount is hinging on your performance.

But there, I would just "man up" / "show up" and do the thing as best I can.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon (This feels like, I'm not sure how to describe it...opening up my chest?

It might be a posture thing.)

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon It's like (though I wouldn't say these words), "Welp, I'm not prepared, but it's go-time.

Execute."

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon The worse thing is when I can choose the time when I'm going to go for the thing, because then I'm tempted to procrastinate on it indefinitely.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon Ok...I would feel frustration if there's a thing that I just couldn't manage to get myself to do.

Like if I was trying for years to learn to play the piano, and it just. wasn't. working.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon And that would be SOMETHING like anger at myself.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon I got some taste of this last year because I was struggling to move the needle on my typing accuracy, which proved extremely resilient to my best efforts, despite the fact that I type much slower than my peers.

efficacyengineering.wordpress.com/2020/12/17/911/

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon Typically, I take the frustration as a trigger to go meta and get strategic, but if I have been doing that, and nothing is working, it's really frustrating, and eventually, despair-provoking.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon (Although, I eventually hit my typing target, after an obscene and embarrassing amount of time sunk.)

efficacyengineering.wordpress.com/2021/01/12/i-d…

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon Oh!

Something related to to the frustration of not being able to do something:

[CW: My sexuality]

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon When I was a teenager, I got it into my head that I shouldn't masturbate.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon Because it seemed obviously-to-me perverse / not in line with the highest good in me.

(Which is kind of interesting because I was stridently rejecting the Christian-Aristotelian teleological morality of some of my teachers.)

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon And also because I was aiming to become powerful, and if I was going to have power over the world, I needed to first and foremost have power over myself.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon And I also thought that it was "cheating" (or something) to use any of the psychological methods I was at least a little familiar with at the time.

I needed to do it by pure self-discipline.

(Which, in case you haven't heard, is a terrible strategy for behavior change.)

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon So I would go in wave of committing not to masturbate, and go for a few weeks. And then having niggling temptation, I would rationalizing "just a little". And I would play in that rationalization until, I ejaculated, at which point I would feel disgusted with myself.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon I would feel weak and pathetic, and depressed. I would wallow in that for a few days, probably masturbating a few more times, because, fuck it, I wasn't worth any of the things that I was aiming for (and because no one had told me that I could NOT fail with abandon.)

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon mindingourway.com/failing-with-a…

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon But eventually, I would pull myself out of that funk and set my eyes on a higher start again, and recommit to not masturbating, to that not being a thing that I did.

And then I would keep that up for weeks or maybe a month, before the cycle would repeat again.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon That cycle repeated I don't know how many times over the course of several years.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon (Oh. I think part of the rationale for not masturbating was also wrapped up in my relationship to the woman-who-wasn't-yet-my-wife who I was trying to draw into my life with magick / the law of attraction.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon Probably there was some dynamic of my masturbating made me unworthy of her? I don't remember specifically, but probably something like that.)

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon Anyway, the low points related to masturbation, did have the flavor that I attribute to "negative self talk." A judgement of myself was wrapped up in the behavior, not just strategy or course-correction.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon I don't think I've had a similar attitude about anything since I turned 20 though.

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon @uncatherio Does that answer your question?

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon (Also, for posterity, I fucked up a little bit, and there are three places in this thread where I "branched" the thread, and if you're just scrolling through you'll miss those ones.

Branch points: )

https://twitter.com/EpistemicHope/status/1364426791469740033?s=20

https://twitter.com/EpistemicHope/status/1364428436068990980?s=20

https://twitter.com/EpistemicHope/status/1364437817779085312?s=20

@uncatherio @diviacaroline @AnnaWSalamon @threadreaderapp unroll