Anacardo
02-15-2007, 09:58 AM
I'm sure we all remember that whole to-do recently. I'd like to offer a continuation. The other night I had something of an epiphany over dinner and scribbled some notes on the back of a Zodiac placemat. I think they represent a tolerable step forward towards understanding and explaining my own life and its problems. Nothing special, probably, but any kind of progress is welcome.
Before beginning I will freely point out that, yes, much of this is inspired by ideas I quibbled with in the original thread. I hated many specific examples, but en masse they coalesce into general themes seem to offer something substantial. I'm pathologically stubborn about advice on anything important; I'm pretty sure this is the only way by which I've ever learned anything: autoresist, mull it over, make something out of it.
I firmly believe in the idea of inborn temperament, that in effect, we all have inborn, fundamental characteristics of our personality that can be reshaped somewhat but never broken. To me knowledge is everything. The key to solving any problem or performing creditably in any challenge is to know enough about it. I will always be better at analyzing something than doing it, though I believe under the right circumstances the articulation of an analysis can be action, as can be seen from its effect - consider any great work of divine revelation, or Newton's laws, or Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
None of these things are in themselves problematic. My personal problems largely stem from this: Knowledge proceeds from the combination of theory and experience, which perpetually examine and propose one another. It is my lifelong habit, particularly in times following emotional upset or great stress, to rely far too heavily on the theory section of this cycle. Analysis is a wonderful thing. I excel at it, when clearheaded, which used to be pretty much all the time, and there are few sensations I prefer to that of crystalline, focused, searching thought. That enjoyment, and the structuring of my lifestyle to take advantage of the opportunity to enjoy it as much as possible, is to a great extent my undoing, because it tends to put me in plights like my current one. Experience and theory are necessarily mutually stoking processes; unexamined, repetitive experience produces little growth, but neither does static, unrefreshed analysis, since analysis is so limited in its ability to add to itself and conceive the new.
So much of useful experience is completely unpreconceived. Many of the activities that dominate my waking life, poker and fencing for example, had long been in my mind as objects of preconceived enjoyment before I ever tried either. Others were recommended highly but I never would have guessed at their actual nature; the sensations of sex, for example, or the taste of Indian food (nice fruits of civilization, Diablo.) These experiences are everywhere - quite common, the world is rich - but one must put oneself in a position to experience them, and it may well be that an expedient method is the sort of random groping around in the dark that I so detest when trying to find a solution. It will not surprise you that a lazy man hates wasted effort. In addition, many cliched sources of inspiration have proven unfruitful to me - I consider my college experience ultimately a failure, for example, as I came out virtually unchanged intellectually from what I was when I entered - other people report wonderful job experiences but I personally have never been employed by another person on terms that didn't fill my non-working hours with apprehension and disgust at the idea of having to go back.
In any case, I have been here before. This is a more severe version of anything I have previously experienced; before, circumstances changed and the mood lifted with it; now I've been all over everywhere and nothing's really changed. I tend to forget how I got out the last time, but I have recalled; it's always some fresh piece of information, often acquired by luck or by digging around, e. g. new experiences. Thinking and thinking with nothing new to feed it accomplishes very little; the mainspring unwinds, and futility and depression are the result. Information sources that have bailed me out in the past include, among others, the Revelation of Baha'u'llah, Kiersey's theory of temperament, and 2+2's publications. Where's the next one?
My fortune: "Hard words break no bones; fine words butter no parsnips."
Before beginning I will freely point out that, yes, much of this is inspired by ideas I quibbled with in the original thread. I hated many specific examples, but en masse they coalesce into general themes seem to offer something substantial. I'm pathologically stubborn about advice on anything important; I'm pretty sure this is the only way by which I've ever learned anything: autoresist, mull it over, make something out of it.
I firmly believe in the idea of inborn temperament, that in effect, we all have inborn, fundamental characteristics of our personality that can be reshaped somewhat but never broken. To me knowledge is everything. The key to solving any problem or performing creditably in any challenge is to know enough about it. I will always be better at analyzing something than doing it, though I believe under the right circumstances the articulation of an analysis can be action, as can be seen from its effect - consider any great work of divine revelation, or Newton's laws, or Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
None of these things are in themselves problematic. My personal problems largely stem from this: Knowledge proceeds from the combination of theory and experience, which perpetually examine and propose one another. It is my lifelong habit, particularly in times following emotional upset or great stress, to rely far too heavily on the theory section of this cycle. Analysis is a wonderful thing. I excel at it, when clearheaded, which used to be pretty much all the time, and there are few sensations I prefer to that of crystalline, focused, searching thought. That enjoyment, and the structuring of my lifestyle to take advantage of the opportunity to enjoy it as much as possible, is to a great extent my undoing, because it tends to put me in plights like my current one. Experience and theory are necessarily mutually stoking processes; unexamined, repetitive experience produces little growth, but neither does static, unrefreshed analysis, since analysis is so limited in its ability to add to itself and conceive the new.
So much of useful experience is completely unpreconceived. Many of the activities that dominate my waking life, poker and fencing for example, had long been in my mind as objects of preconceived enjoyment before I ever tried either. Others were recommended highly but I never would have guessed at their actual nature; the sensations of sex, for example, or the taste of Indian food (nice fruits of civilization, Diablo.) These experiences are everywhere - quite common, the world is rich - but one must put oneself in a position to experience them, and it may well be that an expedient method is the sort of random groping around in the dark that I so detest when trying to find a solution. It will not surprise you that a lazy man hates wasted effort. In addition, many cliched sources of inspiration have proven unfruitful to me - I consider my college experience ultimately a failure, for example, as I came out virtually unchanged intellectually from what I was when I entered - other people report wonderful job experiences but I personally have never been employed by another person on terms that didn't fill my non-working hours with apprehension and disgust at the idea of having to go back.
In any case, I have been here before. This is a more severe version of anything I have previously experienced; before, circumstances changed and the mood lifted with it; now I've been all over everywhere and nothing's really changed. I tend to forget how I got out the last time, but I have recalled; it's always some fresh piece of information, often acquired by luck or by digging around, e. g. new experiences. Thinking and thinking with nothing new to feed it accomplishes very little; the mainspring unwinds, and futility and depression are the result. Information sources that have bailed me out in the past include, among others, the Revelation of Baha'u'llah, Kiersey's theory of temperament, and 2+2's publications. Where's the next one?
My fortune: "Hard words break no bones; fine words butter no parsnips."