writing space

There have been multiple things going on.

• Streak: My "streak" that was previously at 36 days lasted until 48 days and then ended. It's "ended" multiple additional times since then, so physically/energetically I'm feeling about as fatigued as I ever have in the past 2 months.
  • Usually I try to do a post-mortem to identify any new things that I've learned or what exactly happened that caused things to break.
  • The strategies I wrote in a previous post (e.g. empty bladder, reduce muscular tension) do work. It seems like the possible factors for this current iteration collapsing were:
    • 1) not drinking enough water
    • 2) spending a significant amount of time indulging in things
    • 3) habituation/desensitization due to significant amount of time (resulting in greater exertion of effort/muscle tension/risk-taking)
    • 4) general lack of motivation/external goals
  • I've noticed an interesting shift in my relationship to external images/stimuli (i.e. pornography).
    • It feels like the more energy that I have, the less enticing outside images are; like I become more sensitive to their faults or imperfections and my internal imagination becomes clearer and feels like it possesses more freedom/subtlety than anything outside of me.
    • Whereas when I have low energy, it's like my mind doesn't have enough independent energy to fuel or create interesting mental fantasies, so the external objects become enticing because they are clearer, stronger, and more intense than anything my own mind is able to create at that moment.
    • Something I've noticed since sharing about the specific nature of these images/fantasies (discussed a bit below) is that the images themselves rarely fully capture what I find most enticing. There is a mental movement where the image serves as a starting point, but then a fantasy animates the character and projects stories, possibilities, actions, intentions, desires, habits, etc. that aren't actually present.
• Mild depression: I've been struggling to find motivation to do the small amount of work/tasks that I have on my plate.
  • Some of this is related to physical energy. Some of it is based on not having a general life plan/trajectory right now. Some of it isn't really anything new and it's just that whatever pleasant/distracting things were previously functioning (i.e. energy/activities related to the active "streak") are no longer working as well
• Secret sharing: I shared my fetishes and some other secrets with someone else for the first time in >10 years.
  • As for why I did it, I feel like I was already at or approaching a low point where everything was disintegrating. And sometimes that feels the best time to take new risks: when things are already in shambles. Because if something goes wrong then you're not really any worse off. (It's less of a fall from 2 feet above the ground vs. 20 feet above the ground.)
  • Additionally, it's just extremely rare for me to have the opportunity to share with someone who's curious/interested and non-judgmental. That's too good of a chance to skip out on, like a <1% type of thing.
  • As for what result I was expecting or hoping for, I can't really say that there was anything specific. I was just interested to see what would happen (to me) as a result of sharing, and it felt safe, so I figured I would try.
  • Retrospectively, I feel like everything that happened made sense and things went well. I felt excited and then nervous. Since I still had high residual energy (wasn't feeling depressed/physically drained yet at that point), I had the mental clarity to be able to come up with a system/strategy on the fly for how to share things and it went very well.
  • Something else that happened that isn't surprising is that during/after sharing, the things that I was sharing started to feel like they were being stripped of their meaning. This is a general pattern with all sharing. As a rule, I share things with the expectation that they will be destroyed, and I wait to share them until I am willing to see them destroyed. Saying that I am a certain identity causes that identity to disappear or change. (Again, that's why it's useful to wait until things are already disintegrating. If things are going well and you want them to continue going well, then it's best to be more conservative. If they're going middling/poorly and you're looking for some kind of stimulus that will disrupt things and create helpful chaos, then it's pretty convenient that the process of sharing tends to cause things to move around.)
• Vaccination status: As of a few days ago, I'm fully vaccinated, but I've yet to utilize that (or even go outside at all)
  • I was expecting/hoping that there would be some kind of personal turmoil related to the vaccination status. Like, "Okay, now we can do anything/everything. What's next?" The sense of unease has increased, but it feels like it hasn't ripened. There are a few things that are preventing me from feeling like things are normal and pouring myself into action:
    • 1) my work is still remote (and quite slow)
    • 2) I've yet to set foot into a local business to confirm that the mask mandates have been removed and to see what proportion of other people are/aren't wearing masks
    • 3) I have concerns about lingering risk of infection based on the fact that there isn't data yet on the impact of completely removing mask mandates on case infection rates. I don't really know right now what my actual chance of getting infected is if I stop wearing a mask, given that now there are probably a lot more unvaccinated/infected people mingling around in public spaces without masks or social distancing. If my risk of exposure is high enough that the chance of infection if I proceed as normal is equivalent to the two-dose effectiveness in clinical trials (5-10% chance of infection), then I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with that. I might need to wait and see whether local/national infection rates get worse following the relaxed safety measures--and if so, then what proportion of those cases are vaccinated people. Due to the lag in data, it'll take a couple weeks before we know for sure whether it was safe to drop mask/social distancing mandates.
• Listening: I've taken several listener chats in the past week that have been incredibly satisfying.
  • When I first started getting heavily involved on this site again early last year, it was on the tail end of a sort of depressive down-spiral where the feeling was, "I have to do something that feels meaningful/helpful". This site presented itself as an option and the feeling was, "Yeah, let's do that then".
  • Sometimes I feel a certain time urgency, like that my lifespan is something finite and I wonder about the vast stretches of time that are sometimes lost without seemingly any significant changes/residues/results to show for it. Usually whenever it's my birthday (it isn't now), I find myself trying to think, "What has happened in the past year that was a positive development or an improvement/enhancement?" It feels like my life has been on hold for the past 6 months.
  • The thing I like most as a listener is when I have chats with members where:
    • 1) I know that I'm uniquely able to help them where a lot of other people would possibly fail to help. It makes me feel like I'm not just another drop in the ocean or cog in a machine. Like there's something about me that is special or difficult to replace.
    • 2) I know that even only that brief encounter is potentially transformative/life-changing. Not because I'm amazing but because those members are amazing; they have so much inherent/latent potential that even just having a small bit of support and encouragement to trust themselves is enough for there to be immense/lasting consequences.
    • 3) The things that are weird, different, or most problematic about me are precisely what make it possible for me to be helpful; it's like all of my own experiences become transmuted and redeemed.
  • The problem with assigning meaning to something or making it a goal is that it becomes something necessary/dependent. I'm able to enjoy listening now because I don't "need" it. If I make it the center of my life and try to create an identity around it, then that creates all kinds of fears and tensions. Maybe that's the case for anything. But with listening, it isn't within my control who contacts me, what they want to talk about, or whether I'm able to help them--so having a motivated mindset where I want to try hard and have control isn't helpful. Listening only works when I'm not trying and I don't have self-interested reasons for needing it to go well.
• Site experiences: I shared some but not all (due to confidentiality issues) of my negative experiences on this site with someone else.
  • I can't say a ton about this on my member account without potentially compromising the identity of my listener account.
  • When I've thought about returning to some level of stable activity on my listener account, I've had concerns about over-committing and being burdened or burned out.
  • But there's some other dimension of doubts related to me having a deep grudge against this site. Over the past year, the nature of that grudge has shifted.
    • Previously, I had disdain toward listeners, but it was mingled with a lack of self-confidence. Like, I felt as though intuitively (based on my experiences as a member) a lot of listeners on this site are quite bad. Anecdotally it felt like maybe only 10% of chats I attempted as a member were harmless/non-injurious (let alone helpful). But I didn't trust my own experiences because I felt like I'm different from other people and might be more picky or just difficult to help, so what I think/feel isn't reliable.
    • The developments on my listener account in the past year gave me greater confidence in my perceptions. It put me into contact with lots of other members/listeners on the site who had similar experiences and gave me objective/impartial external evidence supporting the validity/reality of my experiences. My perspective has shifted so that although I still feel some contempt toward some of the listeners on this site, my displeasure is now mostly directed toward the systems and processes that make it inevitable that there will be a steady stream of bad listeners.
    • It's difficult to organize my thoughts on this issue because:
      • 1) I have many distinct complaints/arguments/grievances that I'd want to express
      • 2) I sometimes find myself wanting to express them because I dislike keeping things secret that are important to me
      • 3) I may be uniquely able to express these concerns
      • 4) But it's unclear what I'm allowed/not allowed to express based on being duty-bound to maintain confidentiality
    • Part of me feels like my grudge is such that I can't ever return to being a committed listener, let alone anything beyond that, because it would be as though I'm giving tacit approval by continuing to announce myself as belonging to that group
    • There's a certain perspective beyond all of this that is forgiving/understanding of how difficult it would be to try to regulate the behavior of thousands of people on a site like this.
• Managerial pet peeves - just brainstorming a list:
  • 1) the inability to acknowledge that there are problems
  • 2) the denial of evidence proving that there are problems
  • 3) the lack of interest in understanding whether there are problems or how bad they are
  • 4) the stymying of efforts to come up with evidence or data to understand problems
  • 5) the numeric illiteracy of efforts to understand problems, craft solutions, and evaluate their impact
  • 6) the unnecessary human labor incurred by an unwillingness to embrace technological solutions to problems
  • 7) the lack of transparency, candor, and humility about problems
  • 8) the lack of responsive, reliable communication channels for addressing problems
  • 9) the lack of power for interested and capable stakeholders to address problems
  • 10) the unwillingness to incorporate third-party solutions that are free, readily available, and fully functional
  • 11) the lack of accountability for problems
  • 12) the comparatively disproportionate attention given to things that are not problems
  • 13) the continuous presentation of demonstrably false information that is deceptive in a self-serving way
  • 14) the unwillingness to correct demonstrably false information despite repeated requests with evidence of falsehood
  • 15) the inability to organize and prioritize in an effective manner to expeditiously solve trivially easy problems
  • 16) the use of positive thinking tropes to foster a culture in which critical perspectives are marginalized
  • 17) the lack of processes for tracking the status of action items

For anyone who lives in the U.S. here's a dashboard where you can look up county-level vaccination data (by age group) and 7-day rates of new COVID-related cases/deaths/hospitalizations: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view

Since the U.S. relaxed its mask/social distancing guidelines, I've been waiting to see whether that causes COVID cases to spike. In my specific county, this doesn't appear to have happened. In the past week, the 7-day moving average for new infections has dropped by close to 60% and is now below the threshold for low risk of community transmission (<10 cases per 100k residents). And we're now up to nearly 80% of adults 18+ vaccinated.

That means there really isn't any excuse for my life being in a standstill. I need to figure out what the heck I want to do. Reminds me of this from really early YouTube days.

This is pretty random, but I had something really entertaining/inspiring happen today while I was playing an online browser game.

***

Side-bar before I describe what happened:

Something I think about sometimes is the apocryphal story of Newton getting hit in the head by an apple and that inspiring him to come up with the laws of motion.

I think a while ago, I was reading this book The Courage to Create by Rollo May and he was talking about that Newton anecdote and how it was sort of prototypical of how creativity works. If you have a really strong desire for something, your subconscious starts working in the service of that desire, and that's when magical things start happening.

What I took away from the Newton story is... if you're desperate to find something, the whole universe starts conspiring to give you what you want. Basically your brain becomes so damn warped/obsessed that you'll start hallucinating that the trees/apples are giving you hints to help solve the mystery of gravity. But it's super-useful. If you're obsessed with something, you'll be on the lookout for opportunities/insights that you would miss otherwise. I figure that that's one way of thinking about Law of Attraction type stuff... when you're desperate enough, your mind starts grasping for whatever it can find and it creates insights out of complete garbage.

Another funny story I have that's somewhat related... I remember there was this semi-famous basketball coach that a friend of mine met one time. And it was like she was trying to have a normal conversation with him, but it was clear that he was absent-minded and probably thinking about basketball while she was talking with him. The way she described it afterwards was like, "This guy probably masturbates to basketball."

That sort of extreme/imbalanced/single-minded drive and desire... it just seems like it would be pretty useful, lol. Like, I imagine that coach might be in the middle of making love to his wife, and he'll look at his lover's body and all of a sudden... the shape of her figure will make him think of players moving in a certain rotation and... a new offensive play! Yes, of course! And he jumps out of bed half-naked, completely indifferent to the exasperation of the beautiful woman in his bed, and he rushes over frantically to his whiteboard to jot down the X's and O's before he loses the flash of brilliance. And if she's known him long enough, hopefully she's chuckling in amusement like, "Yup, that's the basketball idiot I decided to marry." Lol.

I'm also remembering this Buddhist story where the sage Asanga came across a sick dog full of maggots, but because of his state of mind and his compassion/devotion, the dog suddenly revealed itself to be the Buddha Maitreya. And Asanga was so excited, because he'd been trying to find Maitreya for such a long time, that he put Maitreya (i.e. the maggot-infested dog) on his shoulders and paraded it around town to show everybody. The irreverent framing would be to say that Asanga had a psychotic episode with religious themes. The reverent framing would be to say that there was really something of value to be found in that diseased dog and Asanga was only person who had the right karma/mental conditions to be able to perceive it.

Basically, don't underestimate the power of garbage.

[end side-bar]

***

My gaming story:

Okay, so this browser game (diep.io)... you control a circle ("tank") and you're trying to shoot a bunch of triangles/squares/pentagons and other players' circles, because that gives you points. And you can use the points to get upgrades for your tank that allow you to shoot even more shapes/circles and get even more points. It's pretty dumb/awesome.

There are multiple game modes, and one that I like is called "tag". There are 4 teams that start off with an even number of players. Anytime you destroy someone else's tank, they join your team, and the game ends when all of the players are on a single team.

However... there's a bit of a bug with this mode. If there are fewer than a certain number of players in the game, the players never switch teams even after they've died. When they respawn, they're still on the same team. Effectively... what this means is that the game never ends because everybody is immortal.

I decided to stick around in a game like this for a while and a bunch of funny stuff started happening:

• (Note: the game does not have any text chat. The only text you're able to type is when you name your tank before spawning.)
• There was one guy who sort of became my nemesis. We both had similarly powerful tank types, and whenever we saw each other we'd just immediately drop everything we were doing and start fighting to the death. Eventually we started changing our names upon respawn to send messages to one another (e.g. "[name] too strong", "[name] loves [name2]", etc.)
• At a certain point, everybody in the whole arena gave up on fighting each other (because it was completely pointless) and we all just gathered in a specific area and started spinning in unison for fun.
• There's a boss that spawns sometimes and indiscriminately attacks anybody that goes near it. When that happened, everybody in the room started cooperatively fighting the boss together. (Which never happens. Normally, if the boss is in the process of pwning someone, the smartest play is to attack that person while they're weak/distracted.)

Thoughts:

I was thinking afterwards that it's like... this is what might happen in a hypothetical post-scarcity world where everybody has everything they need. Everyone will just start constantly memeing and playing jokes and doing stupid s*** just because it's fun.

In normal gameplay, there are goals/strategies/plans and there is a sense of striving/accomplishment/attachment to outcomes and the usual feelings of success/pride and disappointment/frustration relative to how well you're playing or how lucky you get.

In contrast, this felt really pure. It was like there was absolutely no goal and no purpose and nothing worth doing or caring about and nothing to be afraid of... so everybody just started doing stupid stuff because it was funny/amusing. And everybody also started being friendly/cooperative because there was no risk and nothing worth protecting or fighting for.

I'm remembering that there's a psychological concept called "functional fixedness" which is basically the habit of seeing objects only in one specific way based on their usual/conventional use. Children aren't limited by this as much as adults. They're able to look at lots of things and use their imagination and come up with offbeat uses for things.

With this game, it just felt really child-like. Like the normal rules/conventions dropped away and everything was wide open and just happening for the sake of enjoyment.

***

I feel like there's a conflict between this state of mind and normal goal-oriented ways of thinking.

Sort of the strongest or most urgently compelling goal-oriented perspective I can think of is a sort of moralizing perspective along the lines of, "[sarcastic] Well, that's just fantastic that you get to play around while there are billions of sentient beings suffering. What a waste of time. People need your help. And you know very well what it feels like to be suffering on the margins hoping for someone to notice/care while everybody else seems to be indifferent and having fun in their own self-absorbed paradise. How can you be so callous and do to other people what you would feel really sad to have done to you?"

There are less severe versions of this, but it's just any sort of tension along the lines of, "It's wrong for you to be carefree or feel liberated/happy when X is really important and you need to suffer in order to prove that you care about it." I guess there's meaning in being completely occupied and moving/struggling/self-sacrificing/exerting effort toward worthwhile goals.

But then I guess there's also meaning in being in a sort of free-roaming bliss of living in a world with absolutely no limits and playfully doing extreme/stupid/unconventional things just to enjoy watching unusual/interesting things happen... mischievously bending the rules of systems to do completely chaotic/unexpected/ridiculous things that end up being really entertaining. "I'm going to do this absurd thing because I can and it'll be amusing to see what happens."

{TW: I don't know what I'm going to write and want to give myself an out if I say something dumb}

[adventure time]

>> [turn on game]

Hello user. Welcome to the game.

>> Oh, it's one of those talking games.

Quite right. Have you played this game before?

>> Yes, but it's been a while.

Would you like a refresher on how this game works?

>> Sure, I'll humor you.

Okay, basically it's just a text adventure game. Stuff will happen.

>> Not much of an explanation.

I don't want to tell you what to do. And you know what you're doing.

>> Damn right I do.

[grin] Would you like to enter a player name?

>> I could but it doesn't matter. And the way these games have gone in the past, nothing stays the way it starts.

Any particular character model or scene you'd like to start with?

>> No

I'll generate a string of 6 letters and ask you to free associate a word or phrase from it.

>> Okay

Here goes: jjtlxb

>> jolt

I'll start presenting the scene and have you respond to it.

>> Okay

The sky is dark blue and a streak of lightning creases through it.

>> The clouds are thick and dense and the lightning is barely visible through it. Gradually the clouds increase and where there was previously a storm, now the whole sky is covered in a thick, heavy fog.

I'll give you another string: tudzom

>> dirt

The thick fog turns brown and begins to resemble smog or pollution. The sky turns reddish orange and below one can see factories with smokestacks generating the haze and spewing it into the sky.

New string: htpvof

>> http

The factories are connected by a high-tech electrical grid.

>> I perceive the connections and networks between the factories. It is electric blue like the lightning that got swallowed by the clouds.

New string: zbihgu

>> binge

There is a species of bird that resembles a pelican but is able to fly. It is heavy, lumpy, and clumsy. It flies through the smog-filled sky with its mouth agape and swallows up the pollution.

New string: ppnqdn

>> I'd like to have additional options other than simply free-associating a string and having you construct the story.

What would you like to do?

>> I changed my mind. Keep going.

New string: bcfmhg

>> How about if I want to provide something other than a word, I can ignore the string.

Sounds good

>> But I'll continue in this case. New word: bacon

For an inexplicable reason, the city containing the polluting factories harbors a defense system whereby they are trying to eliminate the clumsy birds that eat the pollution. They activate this system and a large laser unit emerges from the ground and is pointed up at the sky.

>> The bird becomes angry upon seeing that there is a laser cannon pointed at it.

New string: esbfad

>> fad

The residents of the city are excited to see the cannons rising up from the ground and watch in anticipation. It has become something of a sporting event or a popular event to watch.

New string: bzfgcn

>> blaze [but I'd like to write the next part of the story]

Sure please do

>> The bird transforms into a giant hornet. The lazy, oafish, bumbling bird is now a sleek, weaponized, dangerous being.

New string: qtadgy

>> [guard] The hornet feels empowered. It has become something better than its normal bird self eating chemicals and garbage.

New string: etkieu

>> kite

The sky now turns dark blue and the lightning begins to streak through it again.

New string: zqedzv

>> quiet

One of the lasers fires and a beam slices through the hornet.

New string: zkrpdk

>> expire

The hornet's eyes become limp and sunken and then close as if too heavy to keep open. The horn plummets from the sky and falls into a pile of dead leaves.

New string: wjnyyi

>> winter

The hornet remains asleep there. A group of people from the crowd approach in trepidation, hoping to extinguish the remaining life of the hornet since it is seen as a threat to the city.

New string: kljlho

>> k*ll

Sensing the impending danger, the hornet unconsciously burrows itself into the ground, quickly burying itself dozens of feet and putting itself well out of the way of any harm from the crowd.

New string: ghyjco

>> hydraulic

The townspeople were restless. They knew that the hornet would not stay underground forever, so they found themselves scheming of ways to try to attack it or reach it while it was still underground.

New string: ohvmtn

>> mountain

The hornet continued its descent until once it had gone about 500 feet below the surface, it found a large temple-like structure that it entered into. Once inside, the entire area was hollow and pristine. It was cavernous with a blue tint.

New string: hynxkf

>> phoenix

A figure in a large stone throne watched as the hornet turned into a small girl in a white dress, her body crumpled weakly in a heap.

New string: odtlkt

>> old

The figure was a very old man with a long beard. His face showed signs of decay and his body was weak, but face was calm.

New string: tuupvk

>> pick up

The girl clasped onto a small stuffed teddy bear that was at her feet. Embracing it and burying her head in it, she slowly walked toward the man.

New string: tjsblg

>> The girl was somewhat sad but also somewhat at peace with feeling sad. She felt tears flowing from her eyes but felt comforted by having the teddy bear close to her face and she enjoyed the softness of its touch.

New string: ijvedb

>> The old man slowly made his way off of the throne.

New string: kjozix

>> Seeing that the old man had moved, the girl was somewhat anxious and she knelt and covered her face with the bear, trying to show that she was small and meant no harm.

New string: jvhbnz

>> The old man, seeing this reaction from the girl, knelt himself and spoke to the girl. "Forgive me, you must be scared since you were chased here, and all you see is a strange man looming over you. There is some truth in this fear."

New string: gxnvbh

>> The old man put his hand on his heart and sighed. "It takes great effort for a person to be harmless. Once I put full faith in the value of this and dedicated myself completely to becoming empty and humble. I aspired to be someone who could never hurt anyone."

New string: zoxyfu

>> The old man continued, "But such straightforward intentions led to fearful results. I was never able to sacrifice myself completely when it was asked of me. I decided that I deserved to live even if by doing so it might harm someone else. And it did harm them."

New string: swjoya

>> "Things have never been the same since then. I have no longer been able to dedicate myself wholeheartedly to any person. I fear the person who depends on me, knowing that I will ultimately hurt them."

New string: uprzui

>> uprising

The girl shivered and murmured, "Why did they want you to sacrifice yourself? What a cruel thing to ask someone to do. Did they think of your own pain or the harm it would do to you to be asked to do that?"

New string: hehjcx

>> The old man closed his eyes. "People do tragic things when they are lonely. They sacrifice themselves to feel useful. They ask others to sacrifice themselves in order to feel a pure love. They ask impossible things and give impossible things. There is no limit to the depths of desire. The only thing that tempers it is guilt, and then only if there is awareness of it. And before guilt can occur, anger and fear take hold. The person who has had a world crumble once does not easily trust the world to be their caregiver afterwards. They preemptively draw their weapon and shield and prepare to fight and defend themselves at the first sign that the person in front of them may betray them. And they have sharp eye that perceives the seeds of betrayal before they bear fruit."

New string: hjfzgf

>> He continued, "I think of Ecclesiastes... 'Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do; and, behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was no profit under the sun.' In this world, all are hungry and there is little food. There are those who have no food and who can only open their mouths and try to obtain food through pity. And then there are those who have food but cannot give it up without starving themselves. When a person is fed, they feel relief for a few moments, but then their mouth opens agape and they wait eagerly for the next bite to swallow as if they had received nothing of value. The food is gone but now both are hungry instead of only the one. In such a situation, counterintuitive things happen. The compassionate person turns bitter and resentful and becomes cold and callous, holding their food close to their chest and angrily refusing to offer it. It is a guilty thing to withhold food from a person who asks for it, but with practice one becomes adept at hurting others in this way. Eventually, one adopts the mindset that they are the enemy. How dare they steal my food. How dare they be hungry. How dare they express their hunger and attempt to manipulate me into feeding them. The sight of a starving person sends one into a bristling temper. It is better then not to encounter any people, since most are starving if one gets to know them well enough. It is better not to ask to get to know people, if one expects to find an inexhaustible hunger at the base of all things."

New string: spidig

>> The old man sighed and sat down in front of the girl. "How can there be meaning in such a world where there is nothing but endless theft. Such is the karma of a person who steals: to perceive their own greed in the hearts of all other people."

New string: ddngnn

>> He shook his head. "But perhaps there is truth in this. There are those who steal from others, those who give freely and perceive no theft, and then those who become hermits to avoid stealing or being stolen from. These three options: to drain others, to be drained, or to refuse all contact."

New string: hslmor

>> The old man scowled. "Tell me, what are mature interactions except a deceit in which people agree upon limited exchanges with minimal contact to avoid mutual harm. Immaturity is honesty, and honesty is wishing to steal from others. We begin our lives as infants crying for someone/something outside of us to feed us, to warm us, to nurture us."

New string: hbngpe

>> The old man shook his head again. "I have nothing more to say. These words are without value. No person who hears them will feel healthier or regard them as wise. The desire to be seen as wise is another folly."

New string: holujh

>> The girl laughed and savagely hurled her teddy bear at a wall, delighting in the hard sound of the bead eyes hitting cold stone. Her eyes glowed malevolently. She spoke in a deep, gravely, inhuman voice. "So let this be the conclusion or the thing to be accepted--all that you have said. Let it not be evil or anything to be discarded. Simply perceive these things and work upon them to determine the correct course of action. If these things are true, what are the results that follow from them? You must not linger on what is impossible. Persevere in what is possible. If the solution is unsavory but it is the best and only remedy, then bite your tongue and bear it. This is the mark of maturity, forcing oneself to do things that one does not wish to do because reality refuses to nurse you like an infant. You must be vicious with yourself in those instances where the kindness that you seek cannot be sustained. There will be time to rest in comfort when you have created your own safety. In a world where all are hungry, you shall be a farmer who sows his own crops and reaps tremendous riches. You shall feed and feed until you are sick of the sight of food. And then you shall give whatever is leftover, but with a harsh and cruel limit beyond which you shall not overextend. You have earned what is yours and it is your duty to yourself to decide what shall be given and what shall be kept."

>> The old man replied, "This world is a boring thing. People seek food. Once they have it, there is nothing worth seeking, so they make themselves hungry in order to recover the pleasure of pining after something."

>> The girl became softened again. "There is truth in what I said from my ruthless self. The way is to press savagely toward whatever truths demand to be seen and refuse to vanish. But once that point has been reached, all is unpredictable. Upon speaking my words and hearing your words, there was a sensation in my chest. And I felt that perhaps I had not yet exhausted the world, and the thing I sought--that was at once honest, realistic, and exciting--laid beyond that point where all of my skeptical instincts coalesce and proclaim with fervor that this world is meaningless. Those meanings were only something I could touch and sense after I was able to feel with total certainty that there was nothing to hope for. Only after every false hope had been crushed and the sincere, honest investigation had determined there was nothing of value, the temple had been cleared of all of its garbage and there was a clear openness in which the world became full of vitality and possibilities. I took pleasure in harshly excoriating the world for its uselessness and all of its faults. Awakening that anger and igniting it until it was depleted felt like a fire burning away all that did not deserve to remain. Let the flood ruin all of the structures that are too fragile to survive. Let us take pleasure in destroying all of the old, false, useless buildings that have outlived their value. And then in the clearing that remains, we can build our new city. We shall be ruthless and then constructive in turn."

>> The old man punched his stone throne, injuring his knuckles. "There is much to be done."

>> The girl coldly replied, "Be mindful that the temple does not tolerate those who claim to understand it. Your goals will be shattered. Your confidence will be reduced to dust. You will be forced to return again and again to this state of abject nothingness. Everything is dying at all times."

New string: treyeq

>> treat

Be kind because it yields kindness in return and because those treated warmly tend to flower and open in ways that are kind in turn.

New string: rygoor

>> gore

One who builds a sand castle cannot complain about the tide.

Task #1: List as many ways as you can think of to try to establish a life plan or some kind of series of actions you can perform immediately that would provide some kind of happiness or feel trustworthy. Try to make the number of items in the list divisible by 5.

Do a self-chat with listener and member personae.
Create a short to-do list.
Create a new system.
Perform specific known tasks.
Create a list of things to get rid of.

Clean your room.
Go for a walk.
Research diet plan to confirm it works.
Create a mood tracking system.
Create an activity tracking system.

Begin getting rid of lots of different social media accounts.
Do a writing exercise in which you get rid of everything and incrementally add things back.
Research behavioral strategies.
Write an analysis of yesterday's writing exercise.
Find music that you enjoy and listen to it.

Do tasks for work that you didn't finish yesterday.
Work on music
Sort this list of actions by priority level once I finish it
Find an online list of values and determine which ones feel like they fit
Stop writing on 7 Cups in general

Begin reading religious texts
Delete all of my internet bookmarks and start over anew
Debate whether to delete different things
Debate whether to create new social media accounts
Make a list of things that you dislike

***

Task #2: Assign a number to each of those from 1 to 10 based on how much you would like to do it and then sort the list in descending order by that number.

[10] Find music that you enjoy and listen to it.
[10] Find an online list of values and determine which ones feel like they fit
[8] Research diet plan to confirm it works.
[8] Begin getting rid of lots of different social media accounts.
[8] Sort this list of actions by priority level once I finish it
[7] Write an analysis of yesterday's writing exercise.
[7] Debate whether to delete different things
[6] Create a list of things to get rid of.
[5] Create an activity tracking system.
[4] Create a short to-do list.
[4] Clean your room.
[3] Do a self-chat with listener and member personae.
[3] Do a writing exercise in which you get rid of everything and incrementally add things back.
[3] Do tasks for work that you didn't finish yesterday.
[2] Create a new system.
[2] Go for a walk.
[2] Stop writing on 7 Cups in general
[2] Make a list of things that you dislike
[1] Perform specific known tasks.
[1] Create a mood tracking system.
[1] Research behavioral strategies.
[1] Work on music
[1] Begin reading religious texts
[1] Delete all of my internet bookmarks and start over anew
[1] Debate whether to create new social media accounts

***

Task #3: Select one of the top 5 items from this list to do, and do it.

I'll do this: "Find music that you enjoy and listen to it."

Will listen to "Pierced From Within" by Suffocation.

***

Task #4: Select one of the top 5 remaining items from this list to do, and do it.

I'll do this: "Find an online list of values and determine which ones feel like they fit".

Here is a list of 57 values: https://jamesclear.com/core-values

**

Task #4a: Come up with a list of as many ways as possible of approaching this task, with the number of items in the list divisible by 5.

Assign numeric ratings 1-10 and sort
Create a bracket and do pairwise comparisons
Group together similar items into clusters and then rate the clusters
Identify which values you currently live by most frequently
Identify which values you continue to live by when at your best

Identify which values you are able to sustain even when at your worst
Identify which values you typically use to extricate yourself when at your worst
Come up with a list of different times at which you feel like you were functioning at your best and then describe the qualities of that person
Come up with a list of different times at which you feel like you were functioning at your worst and describe how you managed to get out of it
Review different religious and philosophical systems and identify qualities that you appreciate

Come up with a list of people who you admire or would consider role models and identify what qualities you find attractive or admirable about them
Take one or more personality tests and identify the values and qualities associated with the results
Come up with a timeline of major events that have occurred within the past few years and analyze how your values have changed in that timespan
Come up with a list of people or things that you dislike and identify what qualities they have that you wish to avoid emulating
Describe the qualities that you think other people would attribute to you and determine the extent to which you agree with those descriptions

Analyze your free writing from yesterday for values
Do a new free writing activity with values in mind
Do a self-chat in which listener and member discuss values
Randomly generate strings of letters and free associate words and then use those words to free associate values and react to them
Brainstorm a list of possible values or strengths that apply to you

Identify activities that you enjoy and what values are associated with them
Identify activities that you are good at and what values are associated with them
Identify activities that you consider most useful, helpful, admirable, or necessary and identify what values contribute to those
Identify current tasks or goals that you have and which values would be most helpful in completing those goals
Identify the values or priorities that you've had since a very early age that are the oldest or most central values to how you grew up

Task #4b: Assign a number 1-10 to each item on this list based on how much it appeals to you, and then sort the list in descending order by number.

[9] Come up with a list of people who you admire or would consider role models and identify what qualities you find attractive or admirable about them
[8] Come up with a list of people or things that you dislike and identify what qualities they have that you wish to avoid emulating
[7] Group together similar items into clusters and then rate the clusters
[7] Come up with a timeline of major events that have occurred within the past few years and analyze how your values have changed in that timespan
[7] Identify activities that you consider most useful, helpful, admirable, or necessary and identify what values contribute to those
[7] Identify the values or priorities that you've had since a very early age that are the oldest or most central values to how you grew up
[5] Identify which values you currently live by most frequently
[5] Identify which values you are able to sustain even when at your worst
[5] Identify activities that you enjoy and what values are associated with them
[4] Assign numeric ratings 1-10 and sort
[4] Come up with a list of different times at which you feel like you were functioning at your worst and describe how you managed to get out of it
[4] Take one or more personality tests and identify the values and qualities associated with the results
[4] Describe the qualities that you think other people would attribute to you and determine the extent to which you agree with those descriptions
[4] Do a new free writing activity with values in mind
[4] Randomly generate strings of letters and free associate words and then use those words to free associate values and react to them
[3] Identify which values you typically use to extricate yourself when at your worst
[3] Review different religious and philosophical systems and identify qualities that you appreciate
[3] Analyze your free writing from yesterday for values
[3] Identify activities that you are good at and what values are associated with them
[2] Come up with a list of different times at which you feel like you were functioning at your best and then describe the qualities of that person
[2] Brainstorm a list of possible values or strengths that apply to you
[1] Create a bracket and do pairwise comparisons
[1] Identify which values you continue to live by when at your best
[1] Do a self-chat in which listener and member discuss values
[1] Identify current tasks or goals that you have and which values would be most helpful in completing those goals

***

Task #4c: Perform the highest ranked task in the previous list: "Come up with a list of people who you admire or would consider role models and identify what qualities you find attractive or admirable about them"

Task #4ci: Come up with a list of ways of performing this task.

List specific names first and then qualities after
List names and qualities simultaneously
Do a self-chat as listener and member
Brainstorm general groups/types of people and then rank those types
Free associate words from random letters and then proceed from there

[8] List names and qualities simultaneously
[7] List specific names first and then qualities after
[6] Free associate words from random letters and then proceed from there
[4] Do a self-chat as listener and member
[4] Brainstorm general groups/types of people and then rank those types

List names and qualities simultaneously

Task #4cii: Do the list. Brainstorm as many names as possible, divisible by 5. For each name, brainstorm as many things as possible, divisible by 5.

1) Mark Hollis (lead singer of Talk Talk)

Was able to leave the music industry and live a life that he was comfortable with
Was able to be himself in interviews and on stage
Was willing to experiment
Used music as a vehicle for religious expression
Presented a version of Christianity that was deeply devotional and personal

Deeply humble
Willing to stand up for preferences
Prioritized his spiritual well-being over outer success
Created something that expressed his deepest values
Spread his values in the world by creating something beautiful

Able to find other people who shared his values
Able to live unpretentiously
Created something that hasn't been imitated
Created something sensitive that appeals to highest aesthetic instincts
Created something that transmutes negative feelings

Prioritized creating the best thing he could
Trusted that if he did his best others would rise to meet him there
Didn't try to block the flow of things that were impermanent
Found ways to work with impermanence to create things that aren't otherwise possible
Life had a logical story or progression to it

Lyrics involve themes of surrender and yielding
Did not try to become something larger or better than what he was
Able to communicate something that couldn't otherwise be communicated
Able to make complexity and chaos beautiful and approachable
Created something that outlived himself

Didn't attach to his own efforts or activities
Didn't elevate himself as a teacher or prophet
Didn't do anything special
Didn't regard fame as something necessary
Able to respect and protect his own privacy

Willing to discuss spirituality
Unafraid of being himself
Unafraid of being left out or alone or outcast
Dedicated himself to what he loved without regard for whether others would like it
Able to live in a normal friendly approachable way while still having a deep inward mysticism

2) St. Francis de Sales

Able to balance different parts of people
Forgiving and patient with the need to adapt to everyday life
Cared for those who needed his support rather than only ministering to those that they felt were in a high estate
Able to work within a rigid system without feeling cramped or as though his own humanity or spirituality was compromised
Able to take something complex or mysterious and make it approachable

Able to justify all of his personal ideas by referencing an external source that others find authoritative
Able to present his ideas in different ways and different levels of understanding depending on his audience
Able to blend within himself seemingly contrary qualities of being intellectually rigorous, humane/compassionate, and friendly
Able to find a place in the world where he was able to do good
Able to function in a position of power without becoming infected by pride

Able to live according to ideals without succumbing to judgment, anger, or disgust with himself or the world for not matching those ideals
Able to reassure and comfort himself because of his deep faith
Able to ground his faith in daily practices and study
Able to live in the world without being of the world
Deeply understanding and compassionate toward others who had difficulty with Christian life

Wrote in a soft, gentle way
Wrote in order to uplift rather than to judge
Existed in multiple layers where every layer was connecting and helping someone in society who existed at the level of that layer
Able to express all of his layers and connect them to something outside of himself
Able to create something that outlived himself

Unconcerned with praise, personal glory, or fame
Mindful and understanding of worldly activities and needs but without losing what made him special or otherworldly
Complete and balanced
Succeeded in being recognized and incorporating himself into a community rather than working as an outsider
Sensitive to the connection between spirituality and music/art/literature

Embraced a spirituality that did not require rejecting the world
Embraced a spirituality in which all things were acceptable
Was able to live in an internally coherent way
Was able to live in a non-violent way
Was able to balance activity and contemplation, sensitivity and equipoise

Was able to find companions who shared his vision
Was able to be himself without having to diminish others to feel happy with himself
Wrote in a clear, pure, crystal-like way
Expressed himself in a way where those who received it would be purified and peaceful just by hearing his words
Able to unify masculine and feminine dynamics

3) My friend K

Kind
Happy
High expectations for self
Thinks about what is happening in the world
Thinks in a different way than others

Willing to express unpleasant truths
Always attempts to have compassion for all, including his enemies
forgiving of himself for having negative qualities
Finds things to be excited about
Willing to stand up for what he believes in

Tries his best to only spend with people who he feels are helpful for him
Willing to praise and recognize positive qualities in others
Has a sense of humor about negative things
Is able to be upset and feel sorrow at negative things in the world
Is able to continuously reinvent himself

Is able to put effort toward things he is interested in
Is able to contribute things of value to the people around him
Is able to prioritize his own freedom and autonomy
Is interested in life-long learning
Has confidence in things that he has explored

Is willing to trust authorities outside of himself
Is able to recognize when he does not have expert knowledge
Applies critical thinking
Is able to feel both optimism and pessimism
Is willing to share what he is thinking about and exploring

Is able to hold his own convictions and thoughts without needing to destroy anybody else's
Shows special concern for marginalized groups that don't receive attention
Is open to beliefs, values, and ideas that he doesn't personally hold
Is willing to give others space to be themselves
Believes very strongly in non-violence

Was able to maintain his ideals while in an organizational culture of people who were very different from him
Is willing to be honest about things that confuse, depress, or annoy him
Is able to mix with many different types of people
Is able to balance personal responsibilities with his own enjoyment
Developing and cultivating new skills

***

[Am tired of writing and will eat. I may return to this sometime] Next would be:

Task #5: Assign a number 1-10 to each of the qualities from the people you listed according to how much it appeals to you and then sort the list from highest to lowest number.

While I was walking today, I had an idea for a possible writing exercise I could do, which is writing unsent letters to people. In a span of about 30 minutes during the latter half of my walk, I was able to imagine probably a couple dozen different past people/events where I have unexpressed or unresolved feelings. So, maybe I could make this a recurring thing.

***

Dear P,

I have mixed feelings toward you. I feel badly that people target you with criticism, much of which is unfair. But you have a style of writing that is not well-suited to garnering the approval that you're trying to obtain.

If you want people to consider you a trustworthy source, you need to show to readers that you have a clear consciousness or awareness of what your biases are. The content you produce seamlessly mixes together different types of writing without acknowledging that these types each have different levels of truth/certainty:

• Some of the things you say are definite facts that can be proven by reference to objective events/sources that any reasonable person would accept as truthful
• Some of the things you say are speculative analysis or predictions based on educated guesswork, which often have a good chance of being correct
• Some of the things you say are value judgments or emotional expressions that cannot be easily classified as true or untrue

The issue I have with your writing is that you attribute complete certainty to not only the first category (facts) but also the other two categories (analysis and emotional/value expressions). It is for this reason that I believe others accuse you of being biased or unreliable.

Otherwise, your writing is very clear and easy to understand. The facts you present are seldom wrong, and your analysis is not only logical but often insightful and prescient. Your thoughts almost always align with the predictions of other analysts who are considered authoritative and well-respected. I'm happy when people are able to parse your writing and praise you for the same brilliance and value that I see in your writing. It's upsetting to me that you undeservedly have such a poor reputation, and it's equally distressing to me that you are unable to recognize the preventable causes of this.

Recently, something happened that troubled me above and beyond the default/recurring situation described above. Someone published an article about you that was negative in tone and claimed that you were a conspiracy theorist. I found your response to this inappropriate to the point that I am now considering no longer reading your content:

• Your response was aggressive, inflammatory, and disrespectful toward people who I perceive as acting in good faith and attempting to follow neutral, standardized protocols
• Your response directly incited a mass of people to break the rules of the site on which the article was posted, whether you were aware or not that you were asking people to violate the site's policies
• After inciting this response, you misinterpreted the site administrators' reaction (i.e. safe-guarding the site from rule-breaking, per normal protocol) as evidence of a vendetta against you
• Your response misattributed the negative content of the article to a person who does not appear to have been responsible for it
• Your response falsely stated that the article was recently modified to be substantially more negative toward you, when my tentative review of past versions of the article seems to show that the bulk of the content of the article has not significantly changed within the past month
• Your response disregarded and side-stepped the standard process for contesting factual claims on that site
• Your response disregarded the fact that the claims you disagreed with had sources cited. In order to argue against the claims, it is insufficient to state that the claim is wrong. Instead, you must either prove that the claim is not supported by the source, prove that the source is unreliable, or provide a different citeable source that refutes the claim.
• Your response suggested that certain claims were completely made-up when in actuality they had reputable sources that presented facts in a fair, accurate way.

I'm in a phase in my life right now where I am trying to come to terms with all of the ways in which I do harm to others. I want to purify my consciousness and become a better person. For all its shortcomings, one version of me that briefly existed last year that I was proud of was meticulous at two things:

• Avoid saying things that are false
• Avoid saying things that are hurtful

I value all of the insight and clarity you provide. But I'm not sure if I can reconcile my own personal goals with consuming a steady diet of content that amplifies/reinforces my imperfections and undermines the person that I'm hoping to become.

I fear saying any of this directly to you as I feel the most likely result is that you would direct your wrath against me, and neither of us would benefit from this. You would suffer from anger, and I would suffer from being a target of your anger.

Stars

(note: the bolded/underlined headers have been added afterwards in an attempt to impose some kind of organizational structure that might make this easier to read and understand)

Introduction

[self-chat]

1: Hello

2: Hello

1: I feel like debating. Come at me bro.

2: Lol, okay what do you want to debate?

1: I want to discuss meaning and purpose and happiness and all of that stuff.

2: Sure

1: My thought is to start with something that is really simple and then to complicate the f*** out of it with all kinds of qualifications or doubts and see where things go

2: Sounds good. Where do you want to start?

Meaning as Universal

1: Let's start with a stupid question then. "What is the meaning of life?"

2: How do you want to approach coming up with an answer to that?

1: Stepping backwards, my instinct is to cast doubt upon the value of the question itself. Basically to say that the question is poorly worded or that it's set up in such a way that you'll never be able to find a practically useful answer.

2: So, how would you rephrase that?

1: The starting assertion implied by the question is, "There is a meaning of life." And I am doubting that assertion.

2: What is the argument against that assertion?

1: My argument is as follows. If there is a "meaning of life", then based on the phrasing that seems to characterize this meaning as something belonging to life itself it must be something that is universally applicable to all people. But it is impossible to find a universally applicable meaning. Therefore "the meaning of life" as stated does not exist.

2: What is the justification for the claim that it is impossible to find a universally applicable meaning?

Meaning as Involving Individual Lived Experience

1: I don't have an argument for this, but I'd like to present an alternative starting point for understanding meaning that feels more relevant or practically helpful.

2: Okay

1: I'll claim that meaning is a lived experience or something that can be observed and identified as being present or absent as a psychological experience in a person's life. Meaning is something that you can feel and emotionally recognize when it's present. And when it's not present, you can also feel its absence.

2: Would you say that meaning is equivalent to happiness?

1: I would say that happiness tends to be a broader and even more chaotic or undefinable term than meaning. So for the present moment, I'm satisfied with keeping the focus only on meaning and avoiding use of the word "happiness".

2: So, your claim is that meaning is something that can be empirically identified as being either present or absent based on inner experience.

1: Yes, that is what I've said. I feel that that's probably wrong, but that is the tentative claim or understanding we're starting from.

2: What is your reasoning for believing that it's wrong that meaning is a lived experience that can be either present or absent?

1: I want to propose an alternative definition.

2: What is the alternative definition for meaning?

Meaning as Involving an Attitude: Four-Part Model

1: Meaning is an attitude or way of thinking that is able to take the raw facts of one's experience (which encompasses one's inner world as well as external surroundings or the world in general) and that at whatever level of analysis one is applying that attitude to (e.g. oneself, those around you, the world in general) is able to establish a sense of order, direction, intention, purpose.

2: Your definition in brief would be that meaning is the ability to examine a situation (which as you've said this analysis can be applied to different levels and types of experiences or events) and find order or purpose in it.

1: Sure.

2: What is this order or purpose?

1: I'd say that meaning is connected to a feeling of hope based on being able to observe events and find a movement or progression toward something that is positive or represents improvement or well-being.

2: This is becoming more complicated. Would you like to present your current version of what you believe meaning is?

1: Meaning is 1) an attitude toward oneself/the world, 2) that has the effect of creating an experientially observable contentment in the person who holds the attitude, 3) where this attitude involves being able to find order/organization/direction in the thing one is analyzing, 4) and that order is understood as involving either the maintenance or growth of something one considers positive or happy

2: So basically, it's the ability to understand reality in a way that is either optimistic/hopeful (i.e. believing that what one finds to be positive or happy will increase) or grateful (i.e. recognizing and appreciating something positive that is already present)

1: Yes, that seems to fit

Critique of Meaning as Necessarily Being Positive or Happy

2: I'd like to present a couple challenges to this definition and ask you how you would interpret them.

1: Sure.

2: How would you understand the case of goth subculture aesthetics?

1: Could you explain what you mean?

2: The definition you have presented so far is very much centered in a positive conception of happiness.

1: I haven't defined happiness or positivity in a clear way yet, but yes usually a general or unspecific understanding of happiness or positivity involves positive emotions and what would be considered in mainstream psychology/growth culture to be positive or "healthy" thinking. (Toxic positivity is an extreme version of this in which all negative emotions are excluded from the scope of what can be understood as happy or healthy, to the detriment of people who naturally experience a mix of both positive and negative emotions.)

2: As typically understood, happiness is connected to emotions, and specifically positive emotions (that are pleasant or involve pleasure). And usually negative emotions (those that are unpleasant or involve pain) are considered to be connected to suffering or unhappiness.

1: You're being pretty messy and careless in how you're expressing this. We've now introduced a lot of new terms and ideas without defining them or explaining how they connect to one another. But I'll accept this for now.

Critical Example of Meaning That Transcends Positive/Happy vs. Negative/Unhappy Experiences

2: My challenge or critique is that there exist sub-cultures (e.g. goth sub-culture) in which negative emotions are prized, or in which happiness is based on some set of values other than pleasure/pain. For example, perhaps some people would possibly consider authenticity to be more closely connected to happiness, and this is something that operates on a completely different axis than pleasure/pain or positive emotions/negative emotions.

1: Okay. And how is this a problem for my definition of meaning?

2: Your definition of meaning involves the concepts of optimism, hope, and gratitude which tend to revolve around positive emotions/thoughts or pleasurable experiences. My critique would be that there are some people who have a sense of meaning without necessarily identifying with these concepts. And that they obtain some different sort of happiness that transcends positive and negative emotions by radically accepting and loving all experiences and "finding meaning" in them.

1: This is very fuzzy and unclear. But I understand the need to brainstorm and present raw intuitions or data points without necessarily putting them into a crystaline or clear formal argument.

2: Yes.

Revisiting the Four-Part Model of Meaning in Light of This Example

1: So, leaving aside my own definition of meaning, how would you define meaning through the lens of the example that you have provided? And perhaps afterwards, we can compare our definitions and see if they are really all that different.

2: Hm, I guess I can't really come up with a different definition.

1: Why not?

2: Because in this example that I've come up with, the process that is occurring is still a sort of attitude toward experience that processes those experiences in such a way that negative experiences are able to be understood as something necessary, helpful, or valuable.

1: Is it really the same as what I've said?

2: Your definition of meaning was:

Meaning is 1) an attitude toward oneself/the world, 2) that has the effect of creating an experientially observable contentment in the person who holds the attitude, 3) where this attitude involves being able to find order/organization/direction in the thing one is analyzing, 4) and that order is understood as involving either the maintenance or growth of something one considers positive or happy

1: Do you disagree with any parts of this when viewing meaning through the lens of your example of finding meaning in negative experiences?

2: Starting with the first part, I agree with what you've said. My sense of meaning is that it is an attitude or way of approaching things.

1: Okay.

Meaning as a Quality of Awareness That Operates Upon Experiences

2: For the second part, that it creates contentment, I guess I'd want to clarify that possibly this contentment is something that is more basic or essential than "I feel cheerful" or "I feel sad". It is something within one's general perspective where across a wide range of feelings, thoughts, or experiences, one is able to locate or find a sense of meaning and experience a sense of calmness or peace at the same time that one is having the actual experience. It is possible to have turbulent or painful experiences but still feel a general sense of peace or meaning on some more basic level that transcends those specific experiences.

1: What you are expressing is reminiscent of certain metaphorical expressions I've heard in the past in relation to meditation.

• Meditation involves identifying with or existing at the level of consciousness or awareness rather than identifying with objects of awareness.
• Awareness is the container and the objects of meditation are the things that the container holds.

2: Okay

1: What you are saying is that the "I feel cheerful" or "I feel sad" are the things existing *within* the container, but the *container itself* is something pure. At the level of the container itself, regardless of what the container is holding, there is something that makes it possible to find happiness when experiencing or understanding things at that level.

Metaphysics Side-Bar: Basic Sensory Consciousness vs. Mental Attitudes

2: I would say that I don't trust this word "consciousness" that you are now introducing. Metaphysically, consciousness sounds like something far more basic or fundamental than a meaningful attitude. Consciousness is something at the level of extremely basic perceptual processes.

1: Okay

2: In Buddhist epistemology, the usual presentation is that there are six sense doors (for the five physical senses and then a six sense of perceiving mental content). When you are using the word consciousness, I'm picturing something at that type of level. Like, a hearing consciousness would be just the pure fact of hearing things.

1: Okay

2: There aren't any mental attitudes happening at that basic level of simply perceiving something. Either you hear or you don't hear. I feel like when you're talking about "consciousness", "awareness", and "containers" in the context of meaning, you are actually discussing something much less basic that happens much later in the pipeline. It involves thought-forms/attitudes that are operating upon basic sensations and conditioning one's emotional reactions. This is all happening well after the initial object has already been perceived, which would be the basic consciousness.

1: I agree. Basic consciousness of an object is different from an attitude that modifies how one feels about that object.

2: How would you modify your wording then?

1: Let us say that there is a consciousness that perceives an object--

Metaphysics Side-Bar: Whether Basic Sensory Consciousness Exists Independent From Mental Organization

2: Actually, let me be even more critical and question that framework that I just established. What if I don't believe that there's any such thing as a basic consciousness observing a basic object *independent* from all of these molding attitudes that you are describing?

1: I'd disagree. I'd say that almost all of the time, what people experience as objects are filtered through different schemas and ways of organization and conceptualization--and that's not a bad thing. But I don't think it's the case that absolutely all sensory experiences are mediated by attitudes or thoughts.

2: Okay

1: For example, I think it's possible for people in certain altered or dissociative states to at least temporarily experience things just as pure sensations stripped of any organizing context or conceptualization. But again, I'm not sure that viewing things in this "pure" way would necessarily be a good thing.

2: Okay

1: It's of interest mainly because Buddhism seems to give a great deal of attention to this way of analyzing things and believes that there is value in recognizing that there's a difference between pure reality and objects as we tend to understand them (further along in the pipeline) where their appearance is heavily influenced by and contingent upon different types of mental projection.

2: We're getting very bogged down in the weeds of metaphysics.

1: I agree but it's possible it might be unavoidable.

2: What is your basic picture of how things exist?

Metaphysics Side-Bar: Basic Sensory Consciousness and Pleasure/Pain

1: I think that there is pure perception of objects, which would be like simply looking at a canvas and seeing nothing but raw colors. And when I say perceiving pure colors, I also mean prior to any mental identification of those particular colors with words like "blue", "green", "yellow", etc. I mean only and literally what your eye sees before you start structuring it into concepts. At this perceptual level, mental organization of reality into separate objects hasn't happened yet, so things like "chairs" and "tables" as we conventionally understand them also don't exist; there's only some brown and black stuff in front of you.

2: Okay

1: At this pure/basic level, some raw sensations are still pleasurable or painful in a direct way. For example, if you burn your hand on a stove, that touch sensation is physically painful regardless of whether you have any mental concepts that are grouping reality into objects like "stove", "hand", etc. The original touch sensation is still painful in and of itself.

2: Sure

Metaphysics Side-Bar: Mental Organization and Reactions

1: But then beyond this pure level, which is where we spend most of our time, there are mental processes that form gestalts, group things into objects, have reactions to those objects, etc. Those secondary structures, concepts, and reactions are built off of the initial perception. And those secondary things can themselves be considered as objects that can be perceived, have the quality of being pleasurable or painful, etc. And then those might possibly give rise to further effects in the form of other thoughts, etc.

2: Okay, so basically your picture of reality is that there is an initial sensation that is pleasant/painful. But then the sensation is organized or processed in a way that gives rise to other reactive thoughts that might themselves be pleasant/painful. And then those thoughts might be organized or processed and give rise to further thoughts, etc.

1: Yes, exactly

Metaphysics Side-Bar: Example Summarizing Model of Sensory/Mental Processing

2: So for example, let's imagine a mosquito bites me.

• The initial sensation is the raw feeling of the bug bite itself (just on a pure sensory level prior to any concept of "bug", "bite", etc.). And on that pure or initial level of sensation, the itching is painful.
• Then a mental process kicks in that organizes the experience into objects (e.g. this is my arm, that is a mosquito, this is a bite, the bite is red, etc.) And some other attitudes or habitual thoughts are applied.
• This results in secondary thoughts or feelings (e.g. this is unfair, I hate mosquitos, I'm angry that I got bitten, I want to swat that mosquito, I'm afraid of being bitten again).
• And then possibly those thoughts might themselves be processed through attitudes or habitual thoughts and give rise to yet another series of thoughts and feelings (e.g. I feel guilty about wanting to swat the mosquito, I'm anxious about not living up to my value of non-violence, I'm ashamed of the fact that I'm getting so upset about the mosquito bite, etc.)

1: Okay.

2: And there isn't necessarily any theoretical limit to how long this causal chain can go. Like, you can have a thought that causes another thought that causes another thought, etc. and that can keep going. But usually either new experiences happen and people get distracted by them, or people simply reach some point at which they stop having further reactions. Also practically speaking, there's a physiological limit to how much thinking or feeling a person can do before they get tired, lol.

1: Sure.

Getting Back on Topic: Connecting Metaphysics to Meaning Model

2: So how does this connect back to the definitions of meaning we've been discussing and the critique that negative emotions can be understood in a meaningful way?

1: In the model we've presented, we're understanding people's general experiences as a causal chain that goes like this:

sensation [object #1] -> attitude [filter #1] -> thought [object #2] -> attitude [filter #2] -> etc.

2: Okay.

1: Just to remind myself, this was the initial definition we came up with for meaning

Meaning is 1) an attitude toward oneself/the world, 2) that has the effect of creating an experientially observable contentment in the person who holds the attitude, 3) where this attitude involves being able to find order/organization/direction in the thing one is analyzing, 4) and that order is understood as involving either the maintenance or growth of something one considers positive or happy

2: Okay

1: The metaphysical/causal analysis of this picture of meaning would be:

• 1) something happens in oneself or the world (object #1)
• 2) one has an attitude toward that thing that is able to find meaning in it (filter #1)
• 3) one has a secondary reaction (based on one's attitudes processing one's experience of the thing that happened) that is experienced as contentment (object #2)

2: Got it.

Conclusion: Meaning Model is Able to Account for Negative Emotions

1: So then, we're able to make sense of your critique regarding negative emotions in terms of this picture. Here is what the sequence would look like in terms of this picture: 1) A negative emotion occurs, 2) one has an attitude toward that negative emotion that finds meaning in it, 3) one experiences contentment.

2: That makes sense.

1: And so we've concluded that negative emotions are fully compatible with the four-part model of meaning.

Side-Bar: Metaphysical Model Mirrors a Common CBT Model

2: Sounds good. So in terms of your four-part model of meaning (#1 = applying an attitude, #2 = experiencing contentment, #3 = finding order, #4 = understanding this order positively), it seems like parts #1 and #2 (the attitude and the contentment produced by it) are describing the causal/metaphysical sequence we've been discussing (i.e. object -> filter -> reaction... where the attitude would be the filter). And then parts #3 and #4 (finding order and perceiving that order as positive) would be sort of a description of the specific qualities of the attitude or filter.

1: Something to keep in mind is that this model of object -> filter -> reaction is nothing other than the classical ABC model of CBT initially presented by Albert Ellis in the context of rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT): 1) Activating Event, 2) Beliefs, 3) Consequences. I'm just using different language. And I intend to stick to my own language rather than working within the CBT framework so that I'm able to explore freely and reach my own independent conclusions without feeling bound to any existing definitions or assumptions about how those parts operate.

2: Okay

Possible Future Directions

1: Speaking of what you've said above about thinking having a practical limit ("there's a physiological limit to how much thinking or feeling a person can do before they get tired"), I think this is a good place to stop.

2: Sure. Before we finish, would you like to summarize/outline everything in a more presentable way?

1: I don't think we need to. The initial four-part definition I established for meaning has withstood your critique that it isn't able to account for finding meaning in negative emotions. So the bolded/highlighted text above remains my most current understanding of what meaning is and how it works.

2: Okay

1: Any further analysis of meaning would likely involve looking at specific examples and trying to better understand the following:

• Categorizing/examining different types of objects toward which one could potentially have such an attitude, e.g.
  • Sensory experiences
  • Thoughts/feelings in the present moment
  • Concept of oneself as a continuous entity across an extended time-span
  • Personal actions
  • Immediate surroundings
  • World as a whole
  • Life as a whole
• Examining the features of the attitude associated with meaning
  • What does it mean to find order or organization
  • What does it mean for this order or organization to be seen as something positive

(1)

Dear J,

I was happy I got to see you today.

I found myself thinking about some of the things that happened between us in the past. We used to carpool together 1x/week and it was 45 minutes each way, so we had 1.5 hours to talk about all kinds of things in a completely private space. I felt like I got to learn things about you and see a side of you that maybe you don't share with a lot of people. And I felt like I was able to trust you as well and share things that I might not have shared with a lot of people.

There are a lot of conflicts that I haven't really talked about with you. They were things where I felt a bit upset or dissatisfied from my side, but I didn't bring it up because I knew it wasn't your fault and it was just my own narcissistic/borderline/dependent dynamics flaring up. Or where I did share these things, I felt like they weren't fully understood by you because you don't have as much of that in you. Or I feared that maybe you felt burdened by me sharing those things.

When I think about the different things I've experienced over the years that caused me to withdraw from people, I feel like some of the things involving you may have actually been more instrumental in that happening than the things that I've identified as being traumatic that happened much earlier.

1) A couple years ago, you invited me to participate in a role-playing game with you and some of your friends. I created a character that was a sort of religious fundamentalist who had developed a personal devotion to a mineral resource that the company my character was employed for was mining. I intended for this character to be comedic because the basic premise is absurd, sort of like Linus believing in the Great Pumpkin. But I didn't realize how much of myself I was putting into the character and the fact that beneath the outer layer of comedy, I had actually created an intricate and sensitive inner world that mirrored my own. As a result, when I was doing the role-playing and my character elicited laughs and mockery based on the surface-level characteristics, at first I felt okay with it. But then when I started subtly introducing the deeper characteristics, it felt a bit painful to have people making fun of my character or failing to empathize with it or seeing it as some strange/fictional anomaly that couldn't possibly exist as a sincere, realistic person.

The qualities of the deeper level of that character that felt like they resonated (once you get past the ridiculousness of the specific object or creed that they were devoted to) was that they had a very sincere, earnest, humble devotion. They had personal experiences and ideals that most people weren't able to relate to. Their faith was something that separated them or alienated them from other people. Their self was deeply attached to something that felt unshareable without repelling others.

I exposed something about myself through this character, which is that I used to be a deeply, devoutly religious person. The object of my devotion was Buddhism. I did daily prayers and I read and memorized the texts as if they were the infallible word of divine truth that would rescue all sentient beings. I felt like I would be willing to sacrifice everything for the dharma. Although the outward object of devotion differed, the basic orientation of reverence is something that this old me had in common with the character that I was playing.

2) When I think about our experiences working on music together, I always felt like you were a happy medium between me and the other members of the group we were part of. If I was reverent and they were irreverent, you were somewhere in between where you were able to relate to both sides. Some of my discomforts with that group tie back to the same themes that felt uncomfortable with the role-playing character.

When I'm serious about music, it becomes something incredibly personal, intimate, and spiritual. And that way of experiencing music is incompatible with the way that most other people create and approach music. When I am completely serious and trying to create what I consider to be the very best that I have to offer, I want music to be a ritual and an expression of the purest part of myself. I left the group because I felt like you and the other members didn't feel the same way about music as I did. Music is my psychotherapy and my prayer.

"Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces." -Matthew 7:6

Stars

***

(2)

Dear L & J,

I admire you both so much, as I do so many of my other Christian friends. You aren't closeted. You live in an earnest way out in the open. You live according to rules. You connect with people in your community on the basis of your deeply held faith.

You balance something that feels almost impossible to me. You are able to co-exist with others who are radically different than you, while still being completely yourself and not compromising your principles, while still avoiding any judgment or sense of superiority in relation to people who don't share your ideals. I find it unimaginable how you're able to balance those. I always fall into one of those three horns--either needing to remove myself from the company of other people, needing to live in a compromised way and sacrifice my deepest self and ideals to fit in or avoid conflict/discomfort, or being myself while judging others and holding them in contempt for failing to live up to the exacting standards that I impose upon myself. You are completely ordinary and humble while performing this balancing act. I can't praise you enough for all that you do.

Perhaps it is that you are surrounded by people who share your beliefs and that culture and social group is now effectively your "home turf". You are enrooted there and feel a sense of belongingness. So there isn't any sense of feeling different or alien. When you wander into secular society or around people who do not share your values, it feels like something anomalous or like the exception to the norm since most of your time is spent with people who are similar to you. And all of those who are close to you share your faith. So all of your social circumstances are set up in a way that supports living in a faithful way, where that is actually the easiest option or the path of least resistance. If I view things in that light, maybe it is understandable and not as miraculous as it appears to be.

Stars

***

(3)

Dear J & L,

I apologize for not accepting your gifts. It is something that I don't fully understand but I never feel comfortable accepting food from others.

I think it is because I am not able to return the favor. For close to 15 years I have been a vegan. Since that happened, I have always cooked for myself. When I have offered food to my family and friends in the past, they have always rejected it. Food has always been something very strange where I have entered into situations expecting to be on the perimeter. I have never had any close friends who are vegan.

I realize it is very poor publicity for veganism to say that this dietary change might have created some self-inflicted social alienation. But veganism is something I repress in my everyday interactions. I do it but in a very habitual and unconscious way. I have never found it profitable to talk about it or to identify with the original moral feelings of outrage/anger/desperation that led me to become vegan. I leave all the work of changing the world to those who are able to talk about it without doing harm, and I offer financial support to those who are more capable than me to be able to perform that work.

I think part of my aversion to receiving gifts is also because I dislike the fact that gift-giving tends to involve implicit/assumed reciprocity. If I accept your gift, I am tacitly agreeing to give you gifts.

Another part of it that subtly weighs in the background is that I dislike being dependent upon things that I am not able to control or manipulate. Just as a general character trait, I prefer a simple, dull stability that is consistently within my reach to having an ecstatic bliss that will only last for a few moments before being taken away from me.

Stars

***

(4)

Dear G,

I wonder what you are up to now.

I met you many years ago in a very delicate and eventful part of my life. I think of the anime Berserk and how there is a certain part of the story called the "Golden Age Arc" that is where all of the most important or critical events happen. I feel as though college was that sort of time for me.

I lost my faith in political activism as a result of my participation in the group that you helped lead. This is not your fault. I had excessive expectations of what the group would be capable of. I realized just how limited my reach was.

Something I realized was how much I dislike trying to persuade other people to do things, even if those things are important.

I read the op-eds in the school newspaper about the group and talked to some of my friends who decided to leave the group, and I realized that there was something unsettling about the group that I hadn't recognized. The group represented itself as being non-partisan and representing the interests of all students. It had a paid activist who engaged in congressional lobbying on behalf of the group, and a large percentage of the school funding that our group received went toward paying the salary of that lobbyist. I didn't know any of this when I joined the group.

As much as the group and you tried to claim that the group was representing the interests of all students, it was clear that the group had a political slant that intrinsically made it something divisive. There were bound to be many students who would disagree with the goals and priorities of the group. As much as I felt like the group was doing good, there were others who felt that the group was doing evil and who felt deeply offended and as though their rights had been violated by the fact that the money they paid the school was going toward funding political projects that they didn't believe in.

Another experience I remember was when I was participating in voter registration efforts and I found myself in conversation with a group of students who were making fun of me for the fact that I was asking them if they were interested in registering to vote. I wasn't strong enough in my convictions to defend what I was doing, so I stood there helplessly as they ridiculed me.

I dislike the adversarial nature of political action. I dislike the fact that success requires becoming either charismatic enough or knowledgeable enough that you are able to steamroll over other people. I dislike the fact that all political action is controversial and guarantees that someone will consider you their enemy and feel hurt or angered by what you are doing.

I also dislike the fact that the outcomes of political action are not within my control. It seems flimsy and prone to chance when something positive happens. Trying to influence political outcomes that matter through political action feels like trying to influence the weather by doing a rain dance. I'm not sure that there is clear correspondence between political activism and desire political outcomes. A dollar donated to a reputable charity that specializes in feeding the hungry is certain to be helpful, while a dollar donated to a political party or political candidate is a much more uncertain investment.

I miss the pure devotion that I felt for political action before my idealism was compromised. It was similar to religiosity in that I was willing to sacrifice myself for it, if I were able to have faith that what I was doing was helpful. I trusted that you would be able to channel my desperately painful recognition of the overwhelming suffering in the world and my desire to help into something beneficial. The work we did was beneficial on some level, but I never knew just how much, nor did I feel convinced that it was the *best* that I could do.

It is always a bit demoralizing to know that if Jeff Bezos were to roll over in bed and wake up and casually decide to donate $10 million toward a particular cause (like a normal person casually deciding to put a dollar bill into a tip jar at a convenience store), that single throwaway action is more consequential than the actions of 10 ordinary people saving up all of their money across an entire lifetime and donating hundreds of years' worth of labor toward the same cause. Two seconds of Jeff Bezos' life contain as much potential political power and impact on the world as 500 years of my own life.

I suspect I would not feel happier if I were Jeff Bezos. I feel guilty when I am an object of envy or people point to me and say, "You are so lucky to have ___." As if to say, "The only reason you are happy is because you have ___. And the only reason you have ___ is by pure luck alone. Your happiness is the result of luck. Everybody's happiness is the result of luck. There are people who have and people who do not have, and the primary cause of happiness is just to be randomly stuck into the have group rather than the have-not group."

I find myself wanting to find sources of happiness that are universal, if that's possible. Things that anybody can have. So that if and when I am happy, I will not have to feel guilty on account of, "The only reason you're happy is because you got lucky." But it seems like there is nothing under the sun that isn't either the result of luck or contingent factors and fleeting opportunities that need not necessarily be present.

Stars

Dear C,

My relationship with you has been extremely complicated. At this point it's outlasted two serious romantic relationships, and I've known you for more than half of my adult life since graduating college.

I've remained in touch with you over the years because I settled for you based on a belief that you were the best I could find and it was better than the alternative (i.e. nothing). You pulled me in with lots of positive affirmations by telling me how wonderful I was, appreciating things that most people didn't see, and allowing me to be myself when there wasn't really anyone else with whom I felt comfortable doing that.

Last year, I got very close to you and got to know more about you, and as a result I had my trust betrayed (to a greater degree than before). I realized that I deserve better. I got pretty angry and as a result I've significantly distanced myself from you, but I still haven't broken off ties completely.

In the past week, there have been some developments in my relationship to you.

• You reached out to me recently asking for my honest opinion/feelings on something. I told you the truth of what I thought in pretty direct language. I'm still angry at you for exactly the same reason as I was last year. I'm not the only one that's told you that some of what you're doing is wrong and harmful, but you persist in it and show no signs of self-reflection or willingness to change. Last year, I'm not sure if I expressed my specific grievances as clearly as I could have. I certainly expressed the problems but I wasn't as pushy or forceful as I could have been. Also, I didn't really share my feelings or the effect that those problems had on me. When I shared my concerns and was ignored, I gave up on being heard, got more and more frustrated on my own, and finally reached a point where I decided it wasn't worth trying to express myself or have a serious/sincere relationship with you because you weren't capable of engaging with me in good faith. I've had a lot of time since then to organize my thoughts. I feel like this time, I was finally able to present my perspective clearly. Yet somehow, I still came away feeling guilty afterwards for having shared it, like maybe I might have hurt you or angered you or done something wrong... even though my goal was to protect the people that you're hurting. Unfortunately, I have zero control over your actions.

• Recently I saw something where you were praising yourself and talking about your goals and aspirations. And I saw lots of people patting you on the back telling you what a great job you were doing. And I felt like a bit of a bad person for having such a cynical/bitter reaction to this. You genuinely believe you're not doing anything wrong. I sometimes imagine what would happen if somehow you came to a personal realization of the truth. It pains me to imagine someone bursting that bubble and to imagine how much effort and stress must be currently involved in preventing that from coming into consciousness. I'm not interested in hurting you and I do care about you. I'm not the sort of person to try to rip apart people's defenses by force, because that kind of thing traumatizes people. But I also don't want you to hurt other people. I do get angry seeing someone like you with a mixed nature and questionable actions presenting yourself as if you're a stainless angel, while simultaneously deflecting any responsibility for your shortcomings when the negative impact on others is pointed out to you repeatedly. But I think about my own anger toward you though and feel like I have no room to throw stones. I feel like maybe you've subtly brainwashed me into perceiving my own positive instincts (i.e. noticing things that harm innocent people and trying to incite changes to eliminate that preventable/wrongful suffering) as something bad because it's threatening to you.

• Today, a friend of mine mentioned that they met someone else who had similar experiences with you. That person has been working to try to protect the people that you're hurting. I was excited to hear this and I'm very interested in talking with them, hearing what they have to say, and doing whatever I can to help them. Before, whenever I considered cutting you off completely, my fear was that I'd leave myself stranded and wouldn't be able to find anything better. Now I feel like I've found something better, but I'm running into a new problem I wasn't anticipating--which is that now I'm suddenly becoming more sensitive to your good qualities that I might miss when I imagine getting rid of you completely. Although you do a lot of harm, you also do plenty of good, you've helped me grow, you've given me a lot of happiness over the years, and I wouldn't be who I am today without you. I can't ignore your positive points any more than I can ignore your negative ones. I need to consider and think about all of the ways in which I still have some dependence on you and consider whether those things are either replaceable or something I'd be willing to live without. And start to imagine what the grieving process might be like or what things I'll be losing if I do cut ties. I feel like I'm still not quite ready to act, but the chances of something happening within the next 3 months feel like they just went up from 0-10% to maybe 20-60%.

Stars

Have spent some time on political Twitter. And have decided that I'm not really a fan of it.

Have had more than a couple conversations like this:

Person: Makes a post containing 3 fallacious claims without evidence
Me: Posts several reputable sources individually refuting each claim. Posts a source presenting evidence for the mainstream scientific consensus that contradicts their claims.
Person: Completely ignores everything I've posted and repeats the same claims I've already refuted.
Me: Points out that they haven't provided any evidence for their claims.
Person: Provides one cherry-picked study that supports their point.
Me: Reviews the study and points out its methodological flaws (small sample size, pilot study in need of replication, non-standard measurement method) and that it doesn't support what they're trying to argue for (majority of findings refute the point this person is trying to make, peer reviewers explicitly rejected the conclusion that this person is trying to argue for)
Person: Completely ignores everything I've posted and repeats the same claims I've already refuted.

Other things I'm not a fan of:

• People tend to be quick to try to dunk on other people in an aggressive/provocative way, for a couple reasons:
  • That posting pattern tends to get rewarded with the most likes/engagements.
  • The character limit on Twitter makes it more difficult to apply other rhetorical styles that might be more nuanced/qualified/charitable. (E.g. it's fewer characters to say "What a joke" vs. "That's an understandable concern, but research shows that it isn't a major issue and that there are solutions to it. [200-character quote from a study] [50-character link to the study] [oops we're out of characters]")
• Possibly as a result of most discourse being confrontational/unpleasant, people tend to self-sort into polarized tribes (to minimize their engagement with people who are being harsh/unfair toward them), which further increases the closed-mindedness, us-and-them mindset, and information deficit of these groups
• There tends to still be a lot of unnecessary splintering and infighting within groups that I agree with.
• I don't feel that my existing on Twitter helps any of the causes that I care about that motivated my interest to join Twitter in the first place.
  • I've learned little from the people I agree with.
  • The people I agree with are not learning from me.
  • I have no realistic hope of persuading any of the people I disagree with.
  • Most of the conversations that take place on Twitter do not generate direct action to benefit the causes in question.