I think you have a lot more sympathy for your past self than I have for my past self. That guy was a real asshole. And the effort required to overcome his flaws often turned out to be not that much; things could have gone so much faster if he’d been braver, more strategic, more long-term oriented, and above all spent more time understanding the world rather than looking for clever exploits.
Something about ‘braver’ strikes me here in a good way. Something like asking yourself if bravery is a bottleneck. Alternately a more triggering construction: ′ what would your life be like if you weren’t a coward? ′ Or alternately: You generally see obstacles and say to yourself you don’t have the money or connections or time to develop skills, you don’t say to yourself/notice you lack the courage and persistence to try.
Scary thought that either actions requiring bravery are pre-pruned from conscious awareness, or immediately replaced via attribute substitution (I want X, getting X would be easy if I had Y, I don’t have Y, ignore X, maybe this could be called the Munchkin’s Curse. Similar to Paul Graham’s Schlep Blindness).
An attempted aphorism: Better strategy can redeem a poor army, but only if you get to choose the battlefield.
I’m running at 100% thinking my past selves are assholes. That implies that my current self is probably an asshole by the standard of my future selves. Future selves know which dimensions you need to change in which directions to improve but that isn’t straightforward to a current self.
With this in mind I both think my past selves were assholes but maintain some sympathy for them on the assumption that not being an asshole is incredibly difficult and I am still failing in ways that I don’t even know about yet.
I wrote a long rambling thought on Steel Empathy and Steel Love (the kind of Industrial Strength empathy and love that Steve Jobs or Elon Musk could use on their employees without becoming worse CEOs, while making pareto improvements on their relationships and employee mental health).
But then found that I was probably making some assumptions about which background beliefs of yours underlay your comment.
I do probably have more sympathy for my past self than you have for yours, and I also probably have less sympathy for your past self than I have for my past self. (I was pretty careful about what commitments I made about what empathy and emotional support I was offering to arbitrary people, and fairly confident that I stand by them)
I read your comment and get some sense of… “and therefore...” what? Your past self shouldn’t have sympathy? You don’t endorse giving your past self the “Pray to Future Self” tool?
For people who are currently making excuses for themselves, while making bad choices, pursuing bad goals, or hurting others… who are nonetheless stressed about their situation such that Praying To Their Best Future Self seems like a useful thing to do...
...I think it’s possible for people to misuse the tool, and turn it into an excuse to keep making the same bad choices. But I think it’s unlikely to make things worse, and in many cases can make things better.
I am perhaps making some claim, which you disagree with, which is that I think your future future best self is going to have empathy and sympathy for both your present self and your past self.
I agree with john here, at least insofar as I very rarely feel love for my past self. I’m not necessarily angry at him, but all I see is his mistakes and what went wrong. So I rarely remember explicitly the struggle (although I journal, so I could if I wanted), and I certainly never empathize with my past self.
Thus I appreciate the sentiment and feels like it might be useful to some, but I’m definitely not one of them.
So, not claiming this is a particularly universally useful tool.
But, it is pretty important that when I say “your best future self” I mean “the future where either the singularity was worked out and now you’re an immortal god with centuries of skills you don’t currently have, including various emotional skills”, or, at least “Various life choices went pretty well, you lucked into the right relationships and experiences to learn the right combination of skills such that as a healthy 70 year old you’re able to talk with your past self with… if not empathy and compassion, whatever you think your past self actually needs.”
I do think in some cases that might mean more like “tough love.” I think if you’re a healthy 70 year old with useful life experiences who looks back and is like “man, Young Adam sure needed a kick in the pants to get going when he was busy whining to future me”… maybe past-simulated-future-you should ideally reply more like Bruce Lee did in this anecdote. But, I claim, you can still say “oh geez kid just grow up” or whatever with (subtle) underlying empathy and compassion (and if your past self is desperate and alone and felt motivated to pray to future you, I think it would be good to do so).
Notably: this is not necessarily a claim that it’s worth your effort to prioritize gaining the Steel Empathy skill and corresponding relational stance. But, in the world where you are scared and sad and alone, and don’t feel like you’re able to get the help you need from other people around you… you’re allowed to pray to the branching future version of yourself who eventually gained Steel Empathy and listened to the prayer.
Following your comment, I think what I feel that is the closest is the acceptation of my past self when I like where I’m at now. Right now, if you give me the opportunity to relive and change my youth, I don’t think I would do it. That’s because I think I’m in a good place, both in terms of my evolution and in terms of my relationships.
I can extrapolate this feeling to my future self, and imagine him feeling something akin to “damn, this past Adam did made some mistakes, but he did good enough and had enough luck to end up in this good place I’m here now”.
I think you have a lot more sympathy for your past self than I have for my past self. That guy was a real asshole. And the effort required to overcome his flaws often turned out to be not that much; things could have gone so much faster if he’d been braver, more strategic, more long-term oriented, and above all spent more time understanding the world rather than looking for clever exploits.
Something about ‘braver’ strikes me here in a good way. Something like asking yourself if bravery is a bottleneck. Alternately a more triggering construction: ′ what would your life be like if you weren’t a coward? ′ Or alternately: You generally see obstacles and say to yourself you don’t have the money or connections or time to develop skills, you don’t say to yourself/notice you lack the courage and persistence to try.
Scary thought that either actions requiring bravery are pre-pruned from conscious awareness, or immediately replaced via attribute substitution (I want X, getting X would be easy if I had Y, I don’t have Y, ignore X, maybe this could be called the Munchkin’s Curse. Similar to Paul Graham’s Schlep Blindness).
An attempted aphorism:
Better strategy can redeem a poor army, but only if you get to choose the battlefield.
I’m running at 100% thinking my past selves are assholes. That implies that my current self is probably an asshole by the standard of my future selves. Future selves know which dimensions you need to change in which directions to improve but that isn’t straightforward to a current self.
With this in mind I both think my past selves were assholes but maintain some sympathy for them on the assumption that not being an asshole is incredibly difficult and I am still failing in ways that I don’t even know about yet.
I wrote a long rambling thought on Steel Empathy and Steel Love (the kind of Industrial Strength empathy and love that Steve Jobs or Elon Musk could use on their employees without becoming worse CEOs, while making pareto improvements on their relationships and employee mental health).
But then found that I was probably making some assumptions about which background beliefs of yours underlay your comment.
I do probably have more sympathy for my past self than you have for yours, and I also probably have less sympathy for your past self than I have for my past self. (I was pretty careful about what commitments I made about what empathy and emotional support I was offering to arbitrary people, and fairly confident that I stand by them)
I read your comment and get some sense of… “and therefore...” what? Your past self shouldn’t have sympathy? You don’t endorse giving your past self the “Pray to Future Self” tool?
For people who are currently making excuses for themselves, while making bad choices, pursuing bad goals, or hurting others… who are nonetheless stressed about their situation such that Praying To Their Best Future Self seems like a useful thing to do...
...I think it’s possible for people to misuse the tool, and turn it into an excuse to keep making the same bad choices. But I think it’s unlikely to make things worse, and in many cases can make things better.
Curious what exactly you meant to imply.
I am perhaps making some claim, which you disagree with, which is that I think your future future best self is going to have empathy and sympathy for both your present self and your past self.
Yeah, I doubt that claim. That was all I intended to imply.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
I agree with john here, at least insofar as I very rarely feel love for my past self. I’m not necessarily angry at him, but all I see is his mistakes and what went wrong. So I rarely remember explicitly the struggle (although I journal, so I could if I wanted), and I certainly never empathize with my past self.
Thus I appreciate the sentiment and feels like it might be useful to some, but I’m definitely not one of them.
So, not claiming this is a particularly universally useful tool.
But, it is pretty important that when I say “your best future self” I mean “the future where either the singularity was worked out and now you’re an immortal god with centuries of skills you don’t currently have, including various emotional skills”, or, at least “Various life choices went pretty well, you lucked into the right relationships and experiences to learn the right combination of skills such that as a healthy 70 year old you’re able to talk with your past self with… if not empathy and compassion, whatever you think your past self actually needs.”
I do think in some cases that might mean more like “tough love.” I think if you’re a healthy 70 year old with useful life experiences who looks back and is like “man, Young Adam sure needed a kick in the pants to get going when he was busy whining to future me”… maybe past-simulated-future-you should ideally reply more like Bruce Lee did in this anecdote. But, I claim, you can still say “oh geez kid just grow up” or whatever with (subtle) underlying empathy and compassion (and if your past self is desperate and alone and felt motivated to pray to future you, I think it would be good to do so).
Notably: this is not necessarily a claim that it’s worth your effort to prioritize gaining the Steel Empathy skill and corresponding relational stance. But, in the world where you are scared and sad and alone, and don’t feel like you’re able to get the help you need from other people around you… you’re allowed to pray to the branching future version of yourself who eventually gained Steel Empathy and listened to the prayer.
Following your comment, I think what I feel that is the closest is the acceptation of my past self when I like where I’m at now. Right now, if you give me the opportunity to relive and change my youth, I don’t think I would do it. That’s because I think I’m in a good place, both in terms of my evolution and in terms of my relationships.
I can extrapolate this feeling to my future self, and imagine him feeling something akin to “damn, this past Adam did made some mistakes, but he did good enough and had enough luck to end up in this good place I’m here now”.