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Self-help gets philosophical

thedriftmag.com

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Re: Self-help gets philosophical

#71

Post by zkmon »

AaronAPU wrote: post #66
zkmon wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most cultures, smiling at someone means, you know them personally. So, when you smile at a stranger, the stranger gets confused. They might think you are crazy. Also it could make them uncomfortable about how to respond. If they smile back, it means they know you, which is not true. Infact, if you smiled at a stranger of opposite gender, it could lead to other complications depending on who are with them, and they…

The phrase “low trust society” comes to mind.

No. It is lack of reason. Not long ago, if you went for morning jog in a village, you might be stopped and asked - I don't see a dog chasing you, why are you running? Same, if you give away some useful thing for free.

Re: Self-help gets philosophical

#72

Post by portaouflop »

jahsome wrote: post #37
portaouflop wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideology belongs in the trash. But yea you can pick and choose parts of some ideologies as they are useful in the moment.

Not to split hairs but isn't the phrase "ideology belongs in the trash" itself somewhat ideological?

Definitely. In a way ideology is what shapes our reality so you can never be fully free of it.

It’s like saying “I’m not political”, it’s also a political statement/stance.

Personally I came up with my own flavour of practical Taoism as ideology; something like Konrad from the bridge trilogy

Re: Self-help gets philosophical

#73

Post by IvanLudvig »

renewiltord wrote: post #17

Life’s pretty good, guys. It’s been good when I was a little child playing in the mud. It was good when I was on my one hour ride to school. It was good when I first cut my flesh to the bone and watched my dad sew it up. It was good when a girl I had a crush on didn’t feel that way about me. It was good when I nearly failed Algebraic Geometry because I didn’t have what it took. It was good when I almost didn’t get an…

life is good. without it, you'd be dead

Re: Self-help gets philosophical

#74

Post by ArcHound »

This article is a soup of concepts. And the worst part: most of them are not contradictory at all.

Nothing matters as in there is no purpose given to us from above is true (at least according to Nietzsche). That means we have the option of inventing our own purpose. Or not - it's still good to enjoy life as is.

I've read hope is fucked some long time ago. It touches the stoicism with: don't get too invested in things outside of your control, it's not good for you. Yes, but Mark forgets that living like this is not pleasant at all. But having the skill of acceptance is good as we're not omnipotent, so there are things we can't do anything about.

That brings me to manifesting (ugh). We all know we won't get everything by wishing hard. It's still good to try and by thinking about positive result we have better probability of figuring out a plan and sustaining motivation to see the plan through.

Next we move on to terrible people listening to philosophy. Yes, they can do that and it doesn't take away from the teachings. And no, e.g. stoicism has a strong moral component which they are purposefully ignoring.

Also, to respond to title directly: accepting your life is shitty and understanding it doesn't take away from your character doesn't mean not trying to improve your situation. Yes, it means feeling good if your attempts fail. You still have the option of trying again.

I give the article author massive props for being honest with themselves. But no, books cannot save you. Only you perhaps can, but you might fail. And that's ok.

To end positively, I agree with the call to action. And the article is a nice historical overview.

Re: Self-help gets philosophical

#75

Post by Spivak »

scruple wrote: post #59
cjbgkagh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accepting the things that you cannot change does not mean assume you cannot change things then accept it. It’s predicated on an accurate assessment of what you can and cannot change. In my view such acceptance is for optimizing application of effort by not wasting effort on things that actually cannot be changed. “Don’t go tilting at windmills”

The Serenity Prayer has been around for about 100 years now. I find myself repeating it fairly often, especially now that I've got young children.

This prayer bothers me because it punts the "hard part" to the Lord when it doesn't need to. The exact same sentiment which has been rediscovered over and over for at least 2000 years and is far more actionable is, "you can't control others*, you can only control your response to them."

It gives you a blueprint of what kinds of things you can expect to be able to change and the limitations you'll face in the attempt.

* Which more in the context of the 12 step program the other person can be yourself. You will have thoughts, impulses, emotions, urges that you can't control but you can control your reaction to them.

Re: Self-help gets philosophical

#76

Post by djoldman »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #14

> the idea that nothing matters has gained significant purchase An example of an increasingly popular trend that conflates what I'd call "value nihilism" with "action/effort nihilism". There's a huge difference. Value-nihilism is kind of soul-sickness that's probably super rare in the general population and usually comorbid with stuff like dark triad or clinical depression. Action/effort nihilism, or the POV that not…

Great comment.

I think the trump quote is more value-nihilist:

> "You win, you win, and in the end, it doesn’t mean a hell of a lot.”

Re: Self-help gets philosophical

#77

Post by jahsome »

portaouflop wrote: post #72
jahsome wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to split hairs but isn't the phrase "ideology belongs in the trash" itself somewhat ideological?

Definitely. In a way ideology is what shapes our reality so you can never be fully free of it. It’s like saying “I’m not political”, it’s also a political statement/stance. Personally I came up with my own flavour of practical Taoism as ideology; something like Konrad from the bridge trilogy

Yes I agree with all that and for the record, I was being a bit cheeky.

Personally, I think it's dogma that belongs in the bin, rather than ideology.

I can't really say it's based on anything empirical, but to me, ideology is almost meant to be critically analyzed where as dogma is based on strict acceptance.

I'd summarize my feelings by saying ideology is presented whereas dogma is dictated, if that makes any sense.

Re: Self-help gets philosophical

#78

Post by nradov »

walleeee wrote: post #65
rayiner wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The life possible in San Francisco is possible in large part because of the entropy it externalizes to "somewhere else", a place many in SF and the US more generally prefer to ignore, and which includes Bangladesh, alongside as much of the "global south" San Francisco is not rich because Bangladesh is poor. This idea is not only wrong, but dangerous. I’m stuck in America because my parents and grandparents in Bangl…

I'm not endorsing victimhood or saying that Bangladesh is poor because the US is rich. It was badly phrased if that is how it reads, for that I apologize. I'm saying the US does what it can to keep itself richer than other countries all around the globe by immoral means. It is not unique in this. This is not the only reason the US is rich or the only reason any other is not. I'm also saying that this is a really bad…

The US hasn't done anything to prevent Bangladesh from being as rich as, let's say, Singapore. Rather the opposite.

Re: Self-help gets philosophical

#79

Post by wiseowise »

wcfrobert wrote: post #36
maCDzP wrote: post #10

I used to think stoicism was great. But now I think that it’s not so great. In retrospect I should have focused on changing my situation in stead of learning to live with it. Compared to Aurelius - I am not living around 0 bc - in today’s world I can change a lot of things.

Reminds me of that one scene in Equalizer. It's cheesy and I will never admit to liking the movie in real life. But it's one of those scenes that's really stuck with me over the years. Robert: "I think you can be anything you want to be." Teri: "Maybe in your World, Robert. Doesn't really happen that way in mine." Robert: "Change your world."

Spoilers ahead

“Change your world” said retired elite corps officer, and all-around badass Denzel Washington, to a young trafficked sex-worker without passport.

Re: Self-help gets philosophical

#80

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

rayiner wrote: post #5
cantor_S_drug wrote: post #2

> When those expectations include owning a vacation home or winning a Nobel Prize, letting go might be healthy — but doing so is tragic when they include stopping a genocide or ending homelessness. I don't understand such analysis when there are opposing "blob" forces trying to push the world into worse state. Forget about people dying in earthquakes, consider current wars, we are using resources (human, capital, tec…

That’s backwards. Our fight isn’t against “blob forces, but instead against human nature and regression to the mean. My dad’s village in Bangladesh is the default state of humanity. The life you have in San Francisco or wherever is a bubble of order and flourishing in a hostile world, like the inside of a single cell organism.

The state of nature would have been preagricultural and nomadic, not a village with permanent buildings. I don’t like this over-application of an entropy metaphor to human society. Cosmopolitan cities are centers of production because they’re as disordered as they are ordered. They constantly reorganize their production processes, which is why they’re always the places discovering the new source of economic growth. A farming village is ordered by contrast. It’s only a “bubble of flourishing” because, like any process of experimentation, the city produces waste products which have to be handled somewhere, and it shunts them off to get them out of the way of its continual reorganizations.
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