I had this idea too. I think Bruce is an agent of social order. He causes us to lose to keep us on good terms with those around us.

I think he applies on a level even shallower than "I'm afraid if I enter the top 1% of success, my competition will be far too strong.", rather Bruce is eyeballing the situation and thinking. "If I win I get positive X1 and negative Y1, if I give up I get positive X2 and negative Y2, if I lose while seemingly trying to win I get positive X3 and negative Y3." And deems the combination X3 and Y3 to be the most favorable of all of them.

This is an interesting article. I wrote out some thoughts on it.

I think Bruce is not the part of you that needs to lose, but rather the part of you that cares more about your place in society than your own goals.

This is helpful to me, because if I take Bruce to be an agent keeping me in line with my beliefs about society, then if Bruce is keeping me down it's because I believe I'm part of the losing class. I'm doing a good citizen's duty of being walked on so that others may stand taller.

So in my context, the belief that is the limiting belief may be a line of reasoning in which believing that I am successful and others will accept me even if I'm not is actually a bad thing?

I think there's something to that. I think I'm afraid of complacency, but if I have success and acceptance, then am I really being complacent?

This was helpful, thank you.

The question "is it true" is exactly what informs me when I say "I know this fear to be irrational". I've seen situations in which one person is little more than a burden on another, and is still accepted and even taken care of much like one would do with any given loved one regardless of their practical worth. The failure I'm pointing to is that I can completely understand that line of reason, but my intuitive belief seems to be unaffected by it. The update in information created by this test didn't cascade down into my intuition, which I think is because my intuition is holding a piece (or set) of stronger beliefs that conflict with this anticipation. There is something arguing a "Yes, but..." where the 'but' is still more convincing than the 'yes'.

I'm not sure I follow you on the idea of lines of retreat. It seems like it a 'line of retreat' is moving around an obstacle deemed to difficult rather than through it. It would be useful to accept the obstacle as insurmountable without rigorous testing if you need to move forward before you can complete the testing. But my issue is that if this obstacle is too long, then I'm constantly skirting a more optimal path. It's like walking around a forest instead of through it because you don't trust yourself how to survive in the forest. What I'm after right now is how to survive in the forest because I think it will be faster and better in the long term to learn this skill than to become really good at skirting the forest.

I hadn't heard Confidence All The Way Up as a name but I'm familiar with the concept, in some places I have this, and more often than not other people had called it a weakness. That I would too readily dismiss other people's ideas as "not aligned with the evidence" because I was spending more time developing my own theory than I was about thinking about the implications of the statements of others. Part of me would think "So now I'm selfish because I don't care about things that are easily disproven?" and part of me would think "Maybe I didn't understand what they actually meant." The second part recently started winning (probably due to a deterioration of a key relationship and not necessarily based on evidence in the strictest sense) and so I've been purposefully suppressing Confidence All The Way Up and trying to be a better listener. But I think he has a point that this is a useful way to function, and I would do well to apply it here. I don't think I've sunk into hopelessness, so much as I've gotten stuck.

I can still function, most of this trouble lies in my free time, what I do when there is nothing obvious to do. It's perfectly natural to study, go to work and the like. But when I'm ahead in my studies and there's no work to be done, I usually end up feeling like garbage because I feel like I'm wasting time by not doing something important. I had a semester where my solution was simply to not have free time, I overloaded my classes, had 3 jobs, and participated in a bunch of clubs. I was so stressed out I developed shingles. I recognize that I need meaningful resting time, but "down-time" only feel like a problem. I don't feel like I'm doing myself an favor by not doing anything, and I don't perceptively feel refreshed. So when I have free time I try to figure out what I should do and I fall into this trap I outlined.

I find myself struggling with profit escalation and decision paralysis, that is, as I'm doing something Merely Okay I'll find something that is Slightly Better, and I'll change to that because it's better, then I'll find something Slightly Better than the first thing, and after a few rounds I look at how I've started lots and finished little and think, well, if I just picked something I'd probably finish it. But then what to pick? And I pick nothing because I have no criteria for what the best thing to pick is. But when I think, "okay, I'll just pick something Merely Okay and stick to it." I have an equally powerful thought that says "Aren't you wasting your potential? I mean, 'insert Merely Okay thing here', really? That's all you've got?" And I'll think, "well, no, I can do better." Rinse repeat.

Thanks for the recommendation!

I think you've pointed to something I'm aware of but having yet mustered a plan to unravel, which is the need to feel validated. I've long since been aware that simply telling myself "this is good enough" is a short recipe for complacency which is uncomfortable in the short and stifling in the long. I trust even less the judgement of other people. I think I was trying to get at something Hazard mentioned, this idea of universal values so that I could self-validate in accordance with objective criteria, thereby giving myself the power to direct myself and understand if my direction is correct.

I'm of the thinking that even the most abstract psychological needs come from how physical needs are perceived. I would say the answer to why power is basically as follows. Power for two reasons, one attention, the other, power itself. I think power (in the sense of political power) attracts attention, in this way I hope to have many more people than just myself working to make me the best possible thing. I think this is dual rooted in my own belief that I am not competent enough to reach my own fullest potential (a paradox, i'm sure) and that I just /like/ other people paying attention to me. I want to be the center of attention more often than not. I would say the other is power for it's own sake. Power is the ability to make change, which is a form of control, if you have control you have security, and as a human I just want security.

I would be lying if I said I'm sure I'm altruistic. I only know that I /want/ to be. But this desire seems to be rooted in a fear of being rejected by other people. I know that I can't be accepted by everyone, but it seems that if I am altruistic, then is in other's best interest to accept me, which will make me more likely to be accepted. The idea that the need for acceptance is rooted this deep in my values is actually disgusting to me, I think because saying that it's not genuine altruism is to admit that there is grounds to reject me.