I am concerned that keeping lots of identities—be them good or bad is a problem. If you have no choice but to have them obviously have the ones you prefer. But otherwise keep your identity small?
For example generous/careful are two identities that have different optimums in different situations.
Another conflict might be deep/thoughtful and adventurous/social. If you hold these identities too strong they become your prison.
Something that’s very strongly implied—if not necessarily ever explicitly stated—by the book is that identities drive motivation and behavior. So if you do keep your identity small, you might not have a very strong motivation to actually ever do anything. Worse, trying to keep your identity small might cause you to define yourself through what you’re not (e.g. “I’m not the kind of a person who would have a strong identity”), which is a self-concept by itself: but one which predominantly guides you to avoid taking specific actions, but it doesn’t guide you to take any actions in particular.
I’ve long suspected (even before reading the book) that the desire of many rationalists to keep their identity small, is directly linked to the seemingly high levels of akrasia among rationalists.
That said, it’s true that different identities may conflict with each other (which was what I pointed out), but on the other hand, “if you hold these identities too strong they become your prison” sounds like the kind of a thing that could be avoided by having lots of identities rather than few ones? The more identities you have, the more freely you can choose between them to find one that’s a good match for the situation that you’re in.
So if you do keep your identity small, you might not have a very strong motivation to actually ever do anything.
This is true, but on the other hand, if you actually succeed in keeping it small, as opposed to thinking wishfully about doing that, you will also actually not mind not doing anything.
I’m skeptical of whether this is a particularly common outcome in practice. I suspect that if you’re not an expert Buddhist meditator and basically living in a monastery, you’ll just fail at this, and you’d have a much easier time achieving happiness by actually having a strong identity.
I agree it is not a common outcome in practice, although that is largely because people identify as “someone who does things,” or at least as “someone who ought to do things,” without identifying as something else that would actually drive them to do things. That is a recipe for making yourself miserable. It may be, too, that “someone who ought to do things” is enough of a natural identity, so to speak, that it is very hard for someone not to identify in that way, even if they think they are not doing so.
I suspect that if you’re not an expert Buddhist meditator and basically living in a monastery, you’ll just fail at this
This is probably right. Fortunately for me, that is not too far off from describing my life.
Near the bottom of the article Kaj links in his post.
Here’s the list: curious, gentle, playful, healthy, balanced, funny, sensual, witty, honest, steadfast, scintillating, courageous, thoughtful, flirtatious, organized, loyal, creative, wise, kind, loving, deep, impeccable, social, considerate, centered, thorough, useful, responsive, adventurous, passionate.
Obviously there are others you could think of, but that seemed like a pretty good starting point to me.
I am concerned that keeping lots of identities—be them good or bad is a problem. If you have no choice but to have them obviously have the ones you prefer. But otherwise keep your identity small?
For example generous/careful are two identities that have different optimums in different situations.
Another conflict might be deep/thoughtful and adventurous/social. If you hold these identities too strong they become your prison.
Something that’s very strongly implied—if not necessarily ever explicitly stated—by the book is that identities drive motivation and behavior. So if you do keep your identity small, you might not have a very strong motivation to actually ever do anything. Worse, trying to keep your identity small might cause you to define yourself through what you’re not (e.g. “I’m not the kind of a person who would have a strong identity”), which is a self-concept by itself: but one which predominantly guides you to avoid taking specific actions, but it doesn’t guide you to take any actions in particular.
I’ve long suspected (even before reading the book) that the desire of many rationalists to keep their identity small, is directly linked to the seemingly high levels of akrasia among rationalists.
That said, it’s true that different identities may conflict with each other (which was what I pointed out), but on the other hand, “if you hold these identities too strong they become your prison” sounds like the kind of a thing that could be avoided by having lots of identities rather than few ones? The more identities you have, the more freely you can choose between them to find one that’s a good match for the situation that you’re in.
This is true, but on the other hand, if you actually succeed in keeping it small, as opposed to thinking wishfully about doing that, you will also actually not mind not doing anything.
I’m skeptical of whether this is a particularly common outcome in practice. I suspect that if you’re not an expert Buddhist meditator and basically living in a monastery, you’ll just fail at this, and you’d have a much easier time achieving happiness by actually having a strong identity.
I agree it is not a common outcome in practice, although that is largely because people identify as “someone who does things,” or at least as “someone who ought to do things,” without identifying as something else that would actually drive them to do things. That is a recipe for making yourself miserable. It may be, too, that “someone who ought to do things” is enough of a natural identity, so to speak, that it is very hard for someone not to identify in that way, even if they think they are not doing so.
This is probably right. Fortunately for me, that is not too far off from describing my life.
(either that, or people identify as “someone who doesn’t do things”, and find that to be a concept with negative value)
Right, I don’t think this is all too different. Saying that it is bad to be someone who doesn’t do things means that one ought to be doing things.
More clues here www.cnvc.org/Training/feelings-inventory