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Keep Your Identity Small

paulgraham.com

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Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#211

Post by perusio »

billswift wrote: post #207
bianco wrote: post #200

Identity is not the problem. And identity is always strong, and has to be strong to be able to achieve great things. We are all very vulnerable when it comes to things that are rooted deeply in our own live (read: soul). So we behave quite aggressively when someone touches these things -- especially when we have been hurt there (and who hasn't been hurt in our violent times?). If anybody is telling me that I should k…

I think identity requires both the internalization of a belief and an emotional commitment to its truth. Paul's argument is that you should not incorporate unimportant beliefs into your identity. I suspect the "strength" of a person's identity is either unrelated to its size in these terms, or possibly even inversely related - that is, the more peripheral beliefs you have incorporated into your identity the more diff…

What about the practicality of holding strong beliefs? Is it not thebest way for you to achieve something to be imbued of the "true spirit" of that thing. Even if it is "wrong".

Nietzsche talked about a pessimism of strengh related with the Will to Power where he says that holding something true is important to achieve a certain purpose. He distinguished that from the pessimism of weakness where beliefs are hold not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself.

Having strong convictions is important, because it focus all your being in achieving this purpose that you've created for yourself.

I would rather phrase the main idea in Mr. Graham's essay not as

"keep your identity small."

but rather

"keep your identity flexible."

What you believe today might not be what you'll need to believe in order to reach a certain goal in the future.

Yes it's a form of relativism, and it requires a lot of self discipline to avoid falling in to a kind of "it's no use", pessimistic stance, that nothing really matters. It means holding something true, even if you know it isn't true. Just make it so. Because that's the efficient and practical thing to do.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#212

Post by kajecounterhack »

benhoyt wrote: post #172
astine wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that statement bothered me to. People seeming to assume that just because a vocal minority of a group believe something, that all members of the group believe the same thing. This especially includes people who's expressed ideology hopes to avoid prejudice and bigotry. Thought I don't think PG, really thinks all Evangelicals are YECs. at least I hope he doesn't.

The other thing is that believing in natural selection is quite different from saying "man evolved from monkeys". Also, it's possible to believe that God created the heavens and the earth, and that he created it 10,000 years ago but 14 billion years old. Similar to believing he created Adam and Eve after 6 days, but 20-or-so years old.

...does it even matter? If you're a Christian, your faith lies in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not the creation of the world 10,000 years ago. Frankly, it should be a non-issue.

But we should stop here because news.yc isn't the place to be discussing religion.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#213

Post by lgrove »

benhoyt wrote: post #124

Preface: one thing I like about PG's essays is that even though I often strongly disagree with his position, they really make me think, and force me to clarify my own position in my mind. The essay said, "people can never have a fruitful argument about something that's part of their identity". Hmmm. I don't think that's correct at all. For example, I have a great marriage, and my wife's a big part of my identity, but…

I think husbands and wives are a special case only in that they are almost always significantly motivated to preserve their relationship. And that is the key to avoiding the useless discussion problems PG saw. When it is important to preserve relationship with someone else (even only met in an on-line forum) then a discussion won't degrade into a "religious war".

Ironically for the context, this view has crystalized for me from religious teaching.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#214

Post by jayasankar »

"To question history, to correct it, you need people who are not anyone's children." Anand, Indian Writer.

Oddly, this same thought has been on my mind for quite a few weeks now. To move forward, especially to look back at history and learn from it, we can't be anyone's children, however uninstinctive and bastardly it sounds.

Because if we are going to become someones lineage, rationally we should go back to that incestous tribe somewhere in southern Africa. And all of us too. It is undoubtedly our partial knowledge and living with the legacy of the few generations before us that many a time makes us unable to rationally and honestly analyze and learn and move forward.

There are two not-insignificant roadblocks to this. Perhaps more too.

The first one can best be illustrated by a 'lower-caste' friend of mine who once told me that his identity is something he didn't choose and can't escape from, most probably, till he dies.

The second is the weltanschauung question. What if you really do believe that you are part of the blessed tribe/religion/group/whatever. So it also requires a 'scientific worldview' for the lack of a better phrase.

In both, in different ways, the identity imposed or chosen becomes the lifelong prison.

Regards, Jay http://www.jayasankar.org

PS:- Paul, this was too small and sort of 'Cliff Notes' type. May I request a longer, deeper essay.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#215

Post by giles_bowkett »

No matter how small you try to make it, it's always there. If you try to make it smaller you'll just push part of it below your conscious perception. Then it's a big freaking iceberg destroying things and you don't even know.

Better to disengage your identity. Use your imagination to adopt other people's identities. Experience and consider things from within those identities.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#216

Post by wrinklz »

Spoken like a true, "objective", small-identity scientist. The problem with that view is that we all do have an identity, and attempting to deny, suppress, or "put aside" our identity is fairly impossible. A better path IMHO, is to realize a larger identity. Broadening of the identity is the natural progression from infancy to adult. Quote from Einstein: "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#219

Post by linhares »

One thing that makes me crazy is how americans tend to place labels in people since their teens: that's a loser, two nerds, three jocks, four yuppies, etcetcetc. Once people are stigmatized with those, it's hard to backtrack, and my feeling is that they tend to go all the way with others' expectations of them.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#220

Post by dhimes »

c00p3r wrote: post #94
dhimes wrote: post #22

Such is the wisdom of Zen and some other Buddhist philosophical flavors.

in very simple words selfish thoughts are the cause of a suffering (the third of the Four Noble Truths), so, all the benefits of a small identity is just an effect.

the key is the "self" in "selfish"...
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