Reality Laughs

Find it. Walk it. Return when you stray from it.

It’s in the title. Get to fucking work.

the thing I will be a broken record about is that no truly ambitious person will be distracted from their ambitions by simplistic attitude towards self-care or whatever

the omnipresence of terrible advice and trivial distractions is only an issue because people are susceptible to it. and people are susceptible to it because they’re gullible, impressionable, have no taste, no sense of self. that’s the real problem IMHO

but if you really know who you are, what you care about, what you want to do, and how you’re going to do it, (A)

then the rest of the world could spew an infinite amount of bullshit your way (B) and it wouldn’t bother you

but people focus on B because A is hard and scary

https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1504504463662661633?s=21

the stuff you joke about (even ironically or whatever) has a way of shaping your reality so be careful and deliberate with that stuff. a lot of people out here fumbling their own bags by joking about outcomes they don’t want. you might as well joke about the outcomes you do want

@visakanv

It’s a variant of “As a man thinketh . . . .”

P: One cannot change what one was born with. But one can, under one own’s power, go about changing what use one makes of that equipment. So, in that case, one simply has to focus on what one can change, rather than on what one cannot. This is what I call self-acceptance.

Y: What one can change, and what one cannot.

P: That’s right. Accept what is irreplaceable. Accept “this me” just as it is. And have the courage to change what one can change. That is self-acceptance.

The Courage to be Disliked, pp. 210-211.

Followed by a short reference to the Serenity Prayer.

Preceded by a discussion of why self-acceptance is preferable to self-affirmation.

And ending with this:

We do not lack ability. We just lack courage. It all comes down to courage.

Italics on courage are in the original text.

Self-acceptance implies—no, it demands—recognition of my inherent limitations. Brain-fart focusing ability. Physical attributes. Etc. But those limitations do not mean limited ability.

I’d say that the big thing that almost everyone gets wrong is re: scale. most people’s sense of possibility is calibrated to assume a fairly small number of attempts. fewer than a dozen attempts. the idea of trying and failing 1,000 times is alien to most people

@visakanv again

the answer to almost every “if you’re so smart why aren’t you X” question is “because you’re a coward”

@visakanv

Thread from @visakanv:

with each passing year I increasingly realize that, not only should I focus on what I want to see more of, I should also let go of trying to help other people stop focusing on what they say they don’t want to see more of. brings us to Nietzsche’s “I wish only to be a yes-sayer”

https://mobile.twitter.com/visakanv/status/1500482262672232449?cxt=HHwWgsDSpeCq5NIpAAAA

the core “engine” of this is even more radical than I thought, even after I thought I already understood it. and it radicalizes me more and more with experience

https://mobile.twitter.com/visakanv/status/1500482453567578113

“i want to stop X” must be reframed into “I want to do Y”, this seems to dramatically improve the odds of success, it feels like an order of magnitude or more

https://mobile.twitter.com/visakanv/status/1500482755947560960

How do I get there? How do I get to the point where all I do is say “Yes” or “I want to do Y”?

Assertion: with filters. Lots of “No” answers to X.

Which is not as hard as it sounds. The Y crowds out the X. Saying “Yes” to Y (this is the hard part) makes saying “No” to X easier.

Synthesized:

• Only say yes to Y. It helps if I say no to X, too. But that’s just a question of how long the transformation takes, from X to Y.
• This means I know that I want Y and I don’t want X. I have a goal. This is the necessary pre-condition. The goal can be a tentative hypothesis (“Let’s see what happens if I have more Y and less X”) but an Aim is necessary.
• More Y means less time for X.
• More Y brings me even more Y. Birds of a feather, etc. (It will probably bring me unexpected K, and P, and W. These are the second order effects of aiming at Y).
• X becomes a trivial part of my life. Eliminate it in favor of all Y, all the time. Or one of the second order effects that became visible while focusing on Y.

Your words mean nothing. Your intentions mean nothing.

Do stuff. Do it well.

The universe will reward you.

Aspire to be competent.

You become competent by taking action. The noob who takes action is a competent noob. Your first time painting your house? Your first oil change? Your first day at the range with a pistol in your hand? Your first time having sex? Be a competent noob.

Everything else after that is refinement. You will develop and expand you skill through repetition of action, whether as a house painter, auto mechanic, pistolero, or sexor.

Take action. Then do it again. Maybe take @visakanv’s advice and do it 100 times and see what happens.

Write 100 songs, cook 100 omelettes, talk to 100 people. It never seems like a huge deal until you try it yourself. It’s manageable, and yet it stretches you, and you’ll be observably different at the end of it. Effective way to get a foothold on a new thing

https://mobile.twitter.com/visakanv/status/1330985556872818689

And ignore the wordcels.

Inspired by this: https://alexandertechnique.com/articles2/howmanylessons/

I don’t even know what the Alexander Technique is. But the article is a tremendous example of reframing a question.

A student wants to learn the Alexander Technique and asks the teacher how long this will take. She writes:

Now, my student is expecting a certain type of answer to this question, probably either a time-related answer (x number of months) or an answer about application (depends on how much you practice). Instead, I asked a question in return, and asked the class to answer it. How about you have a go, too!

How long does it take to learn the violin?

She answers her own question:

How quickly you progress in anything does depend on the quality and frequency of your practice. And learning is indeed a constantly evolving process. But if we settle for these answers, when will be finished learning how to play the violin?

Never.

That’s a depressing way to frame reality, isn’t it? You will be shoveling snow uphill in Hell in the summertime. Forever.

Why even bother. Let’s just die right now, shall we?

Here’s the reframing:

So what if we turned this on its head? Try this for size. As soon as we know that if we pluck or draw a bow across the string of the violin, and that we can change the note by changing the length of the string, we can play the violin. Everything else is refinement.

Can you see that this way of looking at the issue is instantly empowering? A couple of basic facts, and we have the basic tools to go away and work the rest out entirely by ourselves, if we choose to. How fantastic!

When am I going to have a good life? When am I going to be happy? When am I going to be skilled in activity X? Now. And then you refine and expand it forever, as far as you care to go.

I have demonstrated this in my own life. Every five years or so I think “Well, I have this nailed.” (Whatever “this” happens to be, but most noticeably in my spiritual development.) “I’m so advanced, sophisticated, and enlightened. Unlike that dumb, arrogant know-it-all bastard I was five years ago. He was fucking clueless.”

This has continued for thirty-plus years. Constant work on self. Reading. Thinking. Talking about these principles. Help and guidance from others.

There is no reason to expect this to stop.

World without end, Amen.