The real question is whether it is equally effective to lie and say you meditate without the hard work. Then, does it matter if the other person knows it’s untrue? Does it still work if you lie and know the other person doesn’t believe you. Then does it matter if you know that they know why you’re lying?
Hey, y’all, this post was very meditative.
The world needs all types of activism: from the firebrands to the bridge-builders. I too find his tone to be abrasive at times. He can be self-aggrandizing, pompous, and downright insulting. In my experience this is not uncommon for people (most typically men) who believe they’re the smartest person in the room.
Personally, I try to live by, “first, be kind.” I’ve found the most success with leading with empathy, but it’s not effective in every circumstance. Some people you can reach better by showing them our commonalities. Some people need to be shocked into thinking about what the implications of their beliefs are. Sometimes a sit-in is effective in bringing about needed change, other times it takes a riot.
8. I know that whatever practical thing you look for in a partner (e.g. money), you not only lack the thing yourself, you also lack the faith you will obtain it on your own.
I can relate to most of your items, but this one confused me. What do you mean by practical here? Honesty, integrity, intelligence, and kindness seem practical to me, and are things I think I do pretty well. Also, I want partners that are financially independent, and I already am; I don’t want to lose that.
I think that the one that I first filled out for my son was maybe a little longer, but not much. As I filled it out I noticed that my own score was high too. That one sheet of paper changed my life—and my son’s.
I was ultimately assessed for four hours over two days. The medication turned out to be a big help, but the biggest change was I had a lot of guilt for my personal failings, which mostly turned out to be symptoms that many people with ADHD experience.
It took a while, but I let go of that shame and guilt. I started using cognitive prostheses (calendar events, timers, physical notes, etc.). Now when I have an ADHD meltdown, it no longer throws me into a depression and self-recrimination.
The drugs have been a great help too. It’s lessened my symptoms, and just made things easier. I’m so thankful for that initial assessment.
If you’ve read the above assessment, and it indicates you should get further testing, DO IT. Your life may be changed too
It’s also appropriate to apologize when you’ve purposely taken some action that caused harm as a by-product, even when you do not regret the action taken, but regret the harm you caused.
I would argue that process apologies are less important than outcome apologies. A process apology is about what could have happened.
That sounds like an intentional response, and a way to fight against trolls. I’ve certainly used that strategy before.
I’d add Hubris too. Intelligence is a virtue, but it comes with a weakness of not listening to those that are viewed as less intelligent for one reason or another. Also, intelligence and wisdom in one field, makes someone more likely to fall for the Dunning-Krueger Effect for others. We must be mindful of this trap, and seek to err on the side of humility.
Hubris can take other forms too, such as presuming a solution will scale or apply universally. Expanding Internet access is great, but if the people being serviced don’t have electricity, there isn’t much point. Providing resources to poor families may be less effective than just giving them money, so they can do their own prioritizations. If we are going to help people, those people should have a say in the solutions.
RSS here too. I scroll past a bunch of them, but find gems and I comment where I have something to say.
I suppose that this is very dependent on how you know, and how confident you are. I have seen cases where I agree, but I’ve also seen the opposite problem of being too selective breeding homogeneity, resentment, and cults.
The times I have seen communities dissolve were not due to people that weren’t a good fit, but instead it’s been the people that fit well (usually in leadership), but had a big falling out with other members (usually leadership).
From personal experience, I’d be weary of defending the community from drama. It’s a dangerous motivation: that’s one way to enable abusive behavior. Saving people by hurting them is a dangerous motivation too, as it’s easy to justify one’s own bad behavior—yeah, I’ve done that too.
Again though, this is all highly context dependent. I am not familiar with most of your examples, so I can’t talk to specifics. I have also regretted not stepping in sooner.
Community leadership is hard, y’all.
In any case, thanks for the perspective, and the reminder of that line.
This brings to mind a post, On Stance, by Screwtape, and my comment relating the mental stances I use to remind myself in the moment of how my brain consistently fails. In the past few years I have been trying to take this more seriously. Especially as I’ve become more aware of how my inattentive ADHD makes certain things difficult.
I’m coming up on my first full year of journaling, I’ve been doing that for about 1.5 years now, but I’m a little proud/excited to finish out 2025 with a journal entry for every day. I’m 47, and I really wish I had started earlier. Not only does this help me with analysis and memory augmentation now, but as I get older and really start experiencing mental decline I hope it will help me reconnect with who I used to be. Maybe once I’m dead it’ll help my son connect with me too.
It sounds like you’re coming to some of the same realizations as I have. “Is this true?” is a great general-purpose mental stance. “Later is a lie,” is how I remind myself that I’m not likely to remember something in the future. While we can’t do much about the underlying problems, we can create systems to compensate, and mitigate our failures.