The overwhelmed by dms and emails, go into anti-social introvert mode and hide and think, write publicly to clarify thoughts which causes more dms and emails feedback loop
Writing only locally would fix this but I can’t think as clearly knowing it’s only for my eyes, and almost all feedback I get is actually helpful and good
FIFO has been too stressful so I’ve been doing LIFO, responding to people who messaged me like nine years ago asking me random questions as if it’s been only a few minutes. Much chiller and always beat their expectations because their expectations expired years ago
responding two weeks late isn’t cool but responding a decade later is at least sometimes cool
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It’s undertalked about how being very happy is a learning disorder. Everything is wonderful and you’re too optimistic. Great for most creation, bad for daytrading
Flip side for depression
I’m not at all convinced being too optimistic is maladaptive though. Most people I know who are too optimistic end up trying lots of things (projects, asking people out, new hobbies etc), not really updating when things fail, and eventually something works out and it’s great
It’s actually kind of ridiculous the extent to which acceptance / letting go is the solution to most problems. You can be an agentic force of nature while still accepting everything. There’s not really a tradeoff, they’re just two really good things and you can have both
My favorite part of both psychedelics and Buddhist cultures is they deeply understand this, usually through going through really hard experiences and finding out experientially that acceptance makes them like 95% less bad
I like to work on this explicitly. It feels just like weight training, where you can see your max limit go up every week very tangibly
I like to practice when I’m in a great state so I’m protected when accidents inevitably happen in the future and I’m not
I like viewing human agency like Einstein’s relativity
In a Newtonian view of agency you push things around in the world and apply effortful force. In a relativistic view all things continue as they were on their path of least resistance, but you can bend space and time
Partially it feels less coercive to me. You can’t force someone to do anything, at the end of the day they control their own decision (eg hiring you, dating you etc). You can however change the world to make certain decisions easier for them than they would have been otherwise
I also think it reflects the kind of creativity and agency I’d like to have. I don’t want to force anyone do anything, I just want to sometimes point out potential paths on their own journey they might not have seen or explain why they may be richer than they appear
Rockets are dangerous but good technical safety work can reduce the risk substantially, and risk doesn’t mean humanity should avoid rockets altogether
Humanity owes much of its biggest breakthroughs to that special state. The large majority of cases in history were safe, but the fraction that weren’t gave the qualia a bad reputation
But the future can look very different from the past. We can be both ambitious and safe
The flip side is we should take seriously that we can make a vaccine for depression. I think it’s possible if we use the tools that work best eg directly activating reward system, psychedelics + technical work to improve their safety. We shouldn’t put up with less
✅ these may revolutionize therapy
❌ the spirit goddess told me a secret
✅ the world is weirder than I thought
❌ everyone needs to do this right now
✅ I should reevaluate this “I” thing
❌ chill dude that car isn’t real
I like a science/woo barbell strategy. Studying mechanisms of action and safety work is totally great, high level “maybe the story of the universe is very different than I thought and I don’t really know what’s going on” also good. The middle is danger ground
Generally I think the appropriate response to psychedelics is to be more confused, curious, and loving. If you get dramatically less confused there’s some chance your new theories are novel and right, but a much higher chance you’re in the danger zone