Welcome! I like the article as it is, but I think it could be further improved by adding specific examples, for example of the last 4 points. It seems like you had some examples in your mind when you wrote this, that are not obvious to people who don’t do IFS. (If you could add some examples to the article or in the comments, that would be nice, otherwise just maybe please remember this the next time.)
Oh sure! It is fairly abstract, and that could make it more concrete.
I will stick with the video gaming example. I am currently on a schedule that allows me to game 3 days a week, because I tend to get addicted to online card games if unregulated. However that is a rule that reads (If it is not Monday/Thursday/Sunday, you can’t ever game). That functions, per se, you gain slack by not being compelled to game on these days, but lose it by not being able to game, even if it would be a good idea.
I was super stressed recently, to the point of some latent genetic mental health problems butting up, and I realised the easiest way to hammer down my stress beneath symptom onset would be just another run of Dream Quest. Also I had really really valuable Podcasts to listen to, which were highly relevant to my current interests with great signal/noise ratio, but I can’t listen to Podcasts without doing anything else on the side like gaming.
So, a round of Dream Quest with the Podcast in the back ground was the perfect action for the situation, despite defying my rule which was generally good and beneficial. Because my rule lacked exceptions. It now has exceptions for mental health crisises.
The next point is exploit protection. I can also make an ammend to the rule that allows me to game when I have a valuable podcast to listen to, but given how long podcasts tend to be, that is a very easy rule to create exploits with, which would render the whole framework impossible. As such the rule also needs an exploit inhibitor for an exploitable exception.
The rule now looks something like “You can game on Monday/Thursday/Sunday, you can also game if you need the stress relief for emergency reasons. You can also game when you are listening to a really valuable podcast, you are not allowed to exploit the hunt for podcasts to game all day.”
I had an example for the last point in my head, it had something to do with how emergency and valuable are subjective words and thus have a need for a definiton, and if you have multiple rules which have emergency or value clauses it is nice to have a set definition for emergency and value. But I forgot the exact specifics, I suppose I should have written down the examples immediatly!
The important part is however how that rule formed. It started as a fairly straight up inhibition, and ended up as a reasonably complex cluster which functions well, and it is open for further evolution, because it is the subject of an ongoing negotiation in myself—between the part that really loves Card games and the part that tries to get shit done.
Welcome! I like the article as it is, but I think it could be further improved by adding specific examples, for example of the last 4 points. It seems like you had some examples in your mind when you wrote this, that are not obvious to people who don’t do IFS. (If you could add some examples to the article or in the comments, that would be nice, otherwise just maybe please remember this the next time.)
Oh sure! It is fairly abstract, and that could make it more concrete.
I will stick with the video gaming example. I am currently on a schedule that allows me to game 3 days a week, because I tend to get addicted to online card games if unregulated.
However that is a rule that reads (If it is not Monday/Thursday/Sunday, you can’t ever game).
That functions, per se, you gain slack by not being compelled to game on these days, but lose it by not being able to game, even if it would be a good idea.
I was super stressed recently, to the point of some latent genetic mental health problems butting up, and I realised the easiest way to hammer down my stress beneath symptom onset would be just another run of Dream Quest. Also I had really really valuable Podcasts to listen to, which were highly relevant to my current interests with great signal/noise ratio, but I can’t listen to Podcasts without doing anything else on the side like gaming.
So, a round of Dream Quest with the Podcast in the back ground was the perfect action for the situation, despite defying my rule which was generally good and beneficial. Because my rule lacked exceptions. It now has exceptions for mental health crisises.
The next point is exploit protection. I can also make an ammend to the rule that allows me to game when I have a valuable podcast to listen to, but given how long podcasts tend to be, that is a very easy rule to create exploits with, which would render the whole framework impossible. As such the rule also needs an exploit inhibitor for an exploitable exception.
The rule now looks something like
“You can game on Monday/Thursday/Sunday, you can also game if you need the stress relief for emergency reasons. You can also game when you are listening to a really valuable podcast, you are not allowed to exploit the hunt for podcasts to game all day.”
I had an example for the last point in my head, it had something to do with how emergency and valuable are subjective words and thus have a need for a definiton, and if you have multiple rules which have emergency or value clauses it is nice to have a set definition for emergency and value.
But I forgot the exact specifics, I suppose I should have written down the examples immediatly!
The important part is however how that rule formed. It started as a fairly straight up inhibition, and ended up as a reasonably complex cluster which functions well, and it is open for further evolution, because it is the subject of an ongoing negotiation in myself—between the part that really loves Card games and the part that tries to get shit done.