As with most (?all) biases, the key seems to be to notice the bounds of its usefulness.
Having a normal human amount of faith in narratives is useful for making conversation and probably for motivating oneself, but not for (?most) planning.
A stranger comes to town…
Most planning is about motivating yourself to do the right thing.
Let’s say I want to work on an big project. Then I check facebook.
If I ask myself: “If this would be a movie, would the actor check facebook?” I get a pretty clear answer: “No.” The actor would do something meaninful.
The times in my life where I was the most productive were the time where I was clearly in touch with a narrative.
The more strongly you develop a narrative the more likely you are to get other people to want to participate. If you want to get big things done you need other people to help you.
Yep. I’ve always liked the adage about trying to make one’s own life an artwork (variously attributed IIRC to Oscar Wilde, Nietzsche, Pope John Paul II and possibly someone else too).
Indeed, it’s good to be aware of the narrative-bias on some level, just not too aware. More like an exception handling routine that’s just checking for out-of-bounds errors.
Welcome to LW, glad that my little comment sparked you to make your first comment. :)
As with most (?all) biases, the key seems to be to notice the bounds of its usefulness.
Having a normal human amount of faith in narratives is useful for making conversation and probably for motivating oneself, but not for (?most) planning.
A stranger comes to town… Most planning is about motivating yourself to do the right thing.
Let’s say I want to work on an big project. Then I check facebook. If I ask myself: “If this would be a movie, would the actor check facebook?” I get a pretty clear answer: “No.” The actor would do something meaninful. The times in my life where I was the most productive were the time where I was clearly in touch with a narrative.
The more strongly you develop a narrative the more likely you are to get other people to want to participate. If you want to get big things done you need other people to help you.
Yep. I’ve always liked the adage about trying to make one’s own life an artwork (variously attributed IIRC to Oscar Wilde, Nietzsche, Pope John Paul II and possibly someone else too).
Indeed, it’s good to be aware of the narrative-bias on some level, just not too aware. More like an exception handling routine that’s just checking for out-of-bounds errors.
Welcome to LW, glad that my little comment sparked you to make your first comment. :)
Oh God. I love this place.