Thanks for your kind, encouraging, and thought-provoking comment Willa :)
Definitely the ideal would have been to write this earlier on- the post itself has been on my list to write for a long time, which probably didn’t help. I like the idea of having some kind of objective comparison method- the ideal would be some kind of Rationality score, but I don’t know if that kind of thing does/could ever exist, or would even reflect the breadth of change one is likely to experience enough to make it even vaguely useful.
I think “dark night of the soul” works pretty well as a descriptor of the experience we’re talking about, although to me it conjures some images of being either guilty or having to make a difficult choice, rather than necessarily specifically having your cognitive foundations shaken. Whatever we call it, I would- as you suggested- be interested to hear how other’s dealt with it, and how they managed to fulfil their responsibilities in other areas of life when at times everything else can suddenly seem quite unimportant.
Your ideas for avoiding our Dark Night sound reasonable and it comforts me that you seem to be a lot further on in your “thought journey” and still find solace somewhere; I guess my worry would be that lifeboats might not be enough for me to retain enough functioning for the rest of my life, and I would like a reasonably solid intellectual terra firma to act from. I think your idea about self-talking with very concrete, predictable things is likely to help, and I have heard of such things being used for anxiety attacks and the like.
I’m interested to hear what your “snapshot” looks like- even if you’re not at the beginning of your journey, it’s probably worth doing both for yourself and for other travellers. And thanks again for your encouraging and thoughtful reply- lots to consider!
I think we may not ever reach some sort of objective comparison method, but, I suspect a list of achievements, habits / actions that become habitual for someone, and so on could be created that would map decently to some notion of what Rationalists Self-Improvement ought to look like. For example, with few exceptions, a person who does not exercise regularly nor eat a decent diet but manages to change to where they regularly exercised and ate a decent diet would be a great example of Rationalist Self-Improvement (to be a Rationalist and not do those things is definitely a failure mode, and I’m still trying to overcome that failure mode myself). I think mental habits, modes of thinking, identity things, and so on related to what someone ought to be like / be capable of as a “Rationalists” would be waaaaaay more difficult to add to such a list without being too alienating or too arbitrary, but I suspect there are things, that could be added.
Why does “dark night of the soul” conjure images of being either guilty or having to make a difficult choice in your mind? Also, I believe the term applies to even more situations than just cognitive foundations being kicked out from under oneself, it is very applicable to similar situations occurring around identity, the self, and more, I think.
I’ve been told that Daoism is a particularly good tradition to look into for living foundationlessly. I don’t know much about it, but I’ve bought a few books and will begin learning more about it. Thus far what’s helped me the most, intellectually anyways, are probably postmoderism and continental philosophy more generally. All those esoteric French philosophers, basically. I’ve done pretty okay with functioning while not “having a center” or while not having a foundation for self nor identity nor ideas. Those philosophers and ideas have been helpful, though the praxis of meditation and mindfulness has probably been more helpful.
I hope your last month has gone well! How have your considerations gone?
I’ve decided that I do want to do a snapshot, however, my plan is to form a group to do the Hammertime sequences. Upon forming a group and prior to doing those sequences is when I’ll write a snapshot of my present self (with what I can remember of how I was at times previous) so that after doing Hammertime I can write a new snapshot then and find out how much doing the Hammertime sequences was or wasn’t beneficial and in what directions if any. Want to join that group?
Thanks for your kind, encouraging, and thought-provoking comment Willa :)
Definitely the ideal would have been to write this earlier on- the post itself has been on my list to write for a long time, which probably didn’t help. I like the idea of having some kind of objective comparison method- the ideal would be some kind of Rationality score, but I don’t know if that kind of thing does/could ever exist, or would even reflect the breadth of change one is likely to experience enough to make it even vaguely useful.
I think “dark night of the soul” works pretty well as a descriptor of the experience we’re talking about, although to me it conjures some images of being either guilty or having to make a difficult choice, rather than necessarily specifically having your cognitive foundations shaken. Whatever we call it, I would- as you suggested- be interested to hear how other’s dealt with it, and how they managed to fulfil their responsibilities in other areas of life when at times everything else can suddenly seem quite unimportant.
Your ideas for avoiding our Dark Night sound reasonable and it comforts me that you seem to be a lot further on in your “thought journey” and still find solace somewhere; I guess my worry would be that lifeboats might not be enough for me to retain enough functioning for the rest of my life, and I would like a reasonably solid intellectual terra firma to act from. I think your idea about self-talking with very concrete, predictable things is likely to help, and I have heard of such things being used for anxiety attacks and the like.
I’m interested to hear what your “snapshot” looks like- even if you’re not at the beginning of your journey, it’s probably worth doing both for yourself and for other travellers. And thanks again for your encouraging and thoughtful reply- lots to consider!
Cheers :)
I think we may not ever reach some sort of objective comparison method, but, I suspect a list of achievements, habits / actions that become habitual for someone, and so on could be created that would map decently to some notion of what Rationalists Self-Improvement ought to look like. For example, with few exceptions, a person who does not exercise regularly nor eat a decent diet but manages to change to where they regularly exercised and ate a decent diet would be a great example of Rationalist Self-Improvement (to be a Rationalist and not do those things is definitely a failure mode, and I’m still trying to overcome that failure mode myself). I think mental habits, modes of thinking, identity things, and so on related to what someone ought to be like / be capable of as a “Rationalists” would be waaaaaay more difficult to add to such a list without being too alienating or too arbitrary, but I suspect there are things, that could be added.
Why does “dark night of the soul” conjure images of being either guilty or having to make a difficult choice in your mind? Also, I believe the term applies to even more situations than just cognitive foundations being kicked out from under oneself, it is very applicable to similar situations occurring around identity, the self, and more, I think.
I’ve been told that Daoism is a particularly good tradition to look into for living foundationlessly. I don’t know much about it, but I’ve bought a few books and will begin learning more about it. Thus far what’s helped me the most, intellectually anyways, are probably postmoderism and continental philosophy more generally. All those esoteric French philosophers, basically. I’ve done pretty okay with functioning while not “having a center” or while not having a foundation for self nor identity nor ideas. Those philosophers and ideas have been helpful, though the praxis of meditation and mindfulness has probably been more helpful.
I hope your last month has gone well! How have your considerations gone?
I’ve decided that I do want to do a snapshot, however, my plan is to form a group to do the Hammertime sequences. Upon forming a group and prior to doing those sequences is when I’ll write a snapshot of my present self (with what I can remember of how I was at times previous) so that after doing Hammertime I can write a new snapshot then and find out how much doing the Hammertime sequences was or wasn’t beneficial and in what directions if any. Want to join that group?