31–40 of 59 posts
I think about this a lot. I try to be kind to everyone, but there are at least a handful of people in the world who cringe when they think about me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Happy Sunday.
The cringer are the weak ones. I think we should make MORE people cringe.
Without the context of non-verbal communication or the closeness towards people we've never met we react differently online to offline. I think it's important not to lose sight of the idea that people can blow up online, call you every name under the sun and still be perfectly good people.
I found Innuendo Studios' Why Are You So Angry[1] and SSC's varieties of Argumentative Experience[2] really helpful in coming to terms with my own online behaviour. There's also a pg essay[3] that's fairly relevant. I particularly enjoyed Rationality.org's double-cruxing approach[4].
Right now I'm focusing on avoiding continuing discussions at the point they stop adding overall. Nobody's perfect but it's definitely keeping my internal Angry Jack at bay.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y8XgGhXkTQ&list=PLJA_jUddXv...
[2] - https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/08/varieties-of-argumenta...
[3] - http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
[4] - https://www.rationality.org/resources/updates/2016/double-cr...
When you're twenty, you worry about what people think. When you're forty, you don't care what people think. And when you're sixty, you realize that nobody was thinking about you in the first place.
I mostly understand this, but it doesn't go deep enough. Sure, I don't worry about what people consciously think of me, like "Does he think I'm incompetent because of that mistake I made? Does she like the way I'm dressed?". I'm more concerned with what they're not thinking, or rather the biases they may be unconsciously harboring about myself or others. Look at this [1], from a study on the relation of criminal sent…
As in, society is biased to pick the square-jaw guy for leadership, because society knows that society follows square-jaw guys in leader roles better.
When you're twenty, you worry about what people think. When you're forty, you don't care what people think. And when you're sixty, you realize that nobody was thinking about you in the first place.
It isn’t likely that nobody thinks about me at all, given that I think about everyone else quite a bit.
Whoever coined this mildly amusing canard sounds a bit antisocial.
In each and every case these people were relatively underprivileged and could be described as underachievers. In some cases these people had more money than me, or they had more academic achievements, etc., so their feelings can't just be described as "envy" or "jealousy".
I think it's a more complex emotion that has to do with knowing both your status in society and what your future looks like - none of these people went on to achieve much in their career, and in a couple of cases they weren't even able to land a job in the industry in the first place, while I was already working on exciting projects when I was a student.
Some people are allergic to the success and hard work of others, but when it comes to working hard themselves they just "can't be arsed" for whatever reason.
One key insight about social relationships that took me a while to understand is that people respond mainly to whether you are life-affirming in your behavior or not. If you have things going on in your life and aren't afraid to exist as a person, they will naturally gravitate to you and give you a lot of leeway. Being a nice person or an asshole is orthogonal to the issue: they are just facets that may help or hinde…
I'd love to know more what you mean by 'life-affirming.' Based on context, sounds like you mean, be an authentic person, don't sugar coat things, be imperfect, show vulnerabilities. Is that right? I find myself drawn to these types--they may have asshole-ish moments or nice moments. That doesn't matter as much as my personal connection to them, the sense of whether I am rooting for them or not.
When you're twenty, you worry about what people think. When you're forty, you don't care what people think. And when you're sixty, you realize that nobody was thinking about you in the first place.
I experienced this first hand on our high school reunion party. Zero people remembered my most awkward or embarrassing moments - only I did. The only thing they cared about was themselves. I was totally stunned. They had a completely different picture of me. Then it damned on me: I couldn't really remember any other awkward nor embarrassing moments by others. All I cared about was I. Relief. :D
When you're twenty, you worry about what people think. When you're forty, you don't care what people think. And when you're sixty, you realize that nobody was thinking about you in the first place.
It's a great "mind-bown" insight story, but just not true. People do judge each other and have opinions and put them in little mental boxes all the time. Impressions matter and can make or break your life. For example, anyone who used to be fat and then loses weight can attest that it matters what others think of you and they do think things. It's comfortable and uplifting and "wise" to say that nobody cares but they…
Yes, we all understand that people stereotype. I think you're getting bogged down in the details and missing the overall point, which is far more generalized. The above story is meant to be short and clever, and to do so it glosses over a few things that you're meant to pick up contextually. The point it's trying to make is this:
20 year olds tend to think people are watching, judging, and remembering their every move and are concerned about it
40 year olds still tend to think they're being watched and judged, but don't care
60 year olds realize that everyone is too busy thinking about their own situation to really pay much attention to others beyond superficial stereotyping, and that unless you affect someone deeply with your presentation, they won't likely cling to previous judgements of you.