Same remedy for the "call of the void" which tells me to dive teeth-first into the curb now and then? It's like tourettes. But remains suppressed. We're all vulnerable, actually, and it requires confidence?
I think call of the void is a different beast and the solution there is more about having directedness and purpose, cotv is dizziness of freedom. I always quote the same kierkegaard thing about this where he says somewhere that the fear of heights is not the fear of falling, but the fear of your own freedom and that you could choose to jump
And this is where the whole meme falls apart, some men are not equipped with "it", and are oblivious to vulnerability. And thus the only thing stopping them from throwing it, is reason, either virtue, obligation, or consequence... it does not matter. "Dorsia Vobiscum" is their ritualistic game (don't shoot me, I am a Taoist), and between intelligence and animalistic behavior, one can only emulate a "heart". Those men tend to act like "god's hand". https://archive.fo/nyB1W
The poisonous part of modernity: Not Knowing How to Hear a Confession. Your friends IRL say a Good Honest Thing and you go "Aha, nice try guy, looking to pull my strings." Or you think "Ah, I've seen this before, he cannot be redeemed" because nobody on the tl is really looking for redemption/confession. You think, "Doesn't he know that HR won't tolerate this?" "Isn't that a Bad Thought?"
And all the while you make no confessions - per yourself, who would listen? (lots of people) - and you get crusty and mad and bleak. So no one lets you hold baby, but you see all these babies and you're like "What the fuck look at all these sinners holding babies, don't worry stick to the plan."
I think you are correct about these thoughts and their root in a hatred/rejection of vulnerability.
Somewhat related:
I don't randomly have thoughts like in the OP pic but I do occasionally have thoughts of violence against my children. Happened occasionally for both until they were about 6 months old. It only occurred though when they were screaming inconsolably and wouldn't sleep/eat/etc and I was trying to work on something else. I think this is a different but semi related situation of control and self direction. Having a newborn baby puts you in basically complete submission to it, and I am autistic and driven and thus hate submitting to others. With jobs or adults, you can escape, or you can defeat them with words. With a newborn, you cannot escape nor will words help. Once they are old enough to be able to occupy themselves for a few minutes or be negotiated with, this went away for me.
Here's a confession. When my children were first born I would cope by spending way to much time on my cellphone (Twitter). It was some Peter Pan Syndrome type sh**. My wife would complain all the time "spend time with your children!" but I was so addicted and absorbed in my little fantasy cope world. Finally to break the spell, one day I took my smart phone and smashed it with a hammer in front of her. I left Twitter and spent more time with my kids after that.
> In Jewish legend, the Chamber of Guf is a pit where all the proto-souls hang out whispering and murmuring. Whenever a child is born, an angel reaches into the chamber, scoops up a soul, and brings it into the world. In the syncretist mindset where every legend has to be a metaphor for the human mind, I map the Chamber of Guf to all the thoughts that exist below the level of consciousness, fighting for attention.
> In the process of deciding what behavior to do, brain subconsciously considers many different plausible behaviors, all of which compete to be enacted. I don’t know how this extends to humans, but it would make sense that maybe only the top few candidate behaviors even make it to consciousness, with the rest getting rejected without conscious consideration.
> The particular qualities of a behavior that help it reach consciousness and implementation vary depending on mental state. Guyenet goes on to talk about how in dopamine-depleted states, only the simplest and most boring behaviors make it out of the Guf; with enough dopamine blockade, a person will sit motionless in their room for lack of any better ideas. In high dopamine states like mania or methamphetamine use, it’s much easier for behaviors to make successful “bids”, and so you tend to do bizarre things that would never have seemed like good ideas otherwise.
> Gay OCD, and its close cousins Pedophilic OCD and Incest OCD, are varieties of obsessive-compulsive disorder where the patient can’t stop worrying that they’re gay (or a pedophile, or want to have sex with family members). In these more tolerant times, it’s tempting to say “whatever, you’re gay, that’s fine, get over it”. But a careful history will reveal that they aren’t; most Gay OCD patients do not experience same-sex attraction, and they’re often in fulfilling relationships with members of the opposite sex. They have no good reason to think they’re gay – they just constantly worry that they are.
> (...) Variables like truth-value, relevance, and interestingness play important roles. But the exact balance depends on our mood. Anxiety is a global prior in favor of extracting fear-related thoughts from the Guf. Presumably everybody’s brain dedicates a neuron or two to thoughts like “a robber could break into my house right now and shoot me”. But most people’s Selecting Angels don’t find them worth bringing into the light of consciousness. Anxiety changes the angel’s orders: have a bias towards selecting thoughts that involve fearful situations and how to prepare for them.
> In a few unlucky people with a lot of anxiety, the angel decides that a thought provoking any strong emotion is sufficient reason to raise the thought to consciousness. Now the Gay OCD trap is sprung. One day the angel randomly scoops up the thought “I am gay” and hands it to the patient’s consciousness. The patient notices the thought “I am gay”, and falsely interprets it as evidence that they’re actually gay, causing fear and disgust and self-doubt. The angel notices this thought produced a lot of emotion and occupied consciousness for a long time – a success! That was such a good choice of thought! It must have been so relevant! It decides to stick with this strategy of using the “I am gay” thought from now on. If that ever fails to excite, it moves on to a whole host of similar thoughts that still have some punch, like “Was I just sexually attracted to that same-sex person over there?” and the like.
> I practice in San Francisco, and I rarely see Gay OCD these days. Being gay just isn’t scary enough any more. I still see some Pedophilic OCD and Incest OCD, as well as less common but obviously similar syndromes like Murderer OCD and Infanticide OCD. I’ve also started noticing a spike in Racism OCD; the patient has a stray racist thought, they react with sudden terror and self-loathing, their angel gets all excited, and then they can’t stop thinking about whether they might be a racist. There’s a paper to be written here about OCD patients as social weathervanes.
> All of these can be treated with the same medications that treat normal OCD. But there’s an additional important step of explaining exactly this theory to the patient, so that they know that not only are they not gay/a pedophile/racist, but it’s actually their strong commitment to being against homosexuality/pedophilia/racism which is making them have these thoughts. This makes the thoughts provoke less strong emotion and can itself help reduce the frequency of obsessions. Even if it doesn’t do that, it’s at least comforting for most people.
Eggy from rand report
Same remedy for the "call of the void" which tells me to dive teeth-first into the curb now and then? It's like tourettes. But remains suppressed. We're all vulnerable, actually, and it requires confidence?
I think call of the void is a different beast and the solution there is more about having directedness and purpose, cotv is dizziness of freedom. I always quote the same kierkegaard thing about this where he says somewhere that the fear of heights is not the fear of falling, but the fear of your own freedom and that you could choose to jump
> Mirror-neurons blasting alert.
And this is where the whole meme falls apart, some men are not equipped with "it", and are oblivious to vulnerability. And thus the only thing stopping them from throwing it, is reason, either virtue, obligation, or consequence... it does not matter. "Dorsia Vobiscum" is their ritualistic game (don't shoot me, I am a Taoist), and between intelligence and animalistic behavior, one can only emulate a "heart". Those men tend to act like "god's hand". https://archive.fo/nyB1W
The poisonous part of modernity: Not Knowing How to Hear a Confession. Your friends IRL say a Good Honest Thing and you go "Aha, nice try guy, looking to pull my strings." Or you think "Ah, I've seen this before, he cannot be redeemed" because nobody on the tl is really looking for redemption/confession. You think, "Doesn't he know that HR won't tolerate this?" "Isn't that a Bad Thought?"
And all the while you make no confessions - per yourself, who would listen? (lots of people) - and you get crusty and mad and bleak. So no one lets you hold baby, but you see all these babies and you're like "What the fuck look at all these sinners holding babies, don't worry stick to the plan."
I think you are correct about these thoughts and their root in a hatred/rejection of vulnerability.
Somewhat related:
I don't randomly have thoughts like in the OP pic but I do occasionally have thoughts of violence against my children. Happened occasionally for both until they were about 6 months old. It only occurred though when they were screaming inconsolably and wouldn't sleep/eat/etc and I was trying to work on something else. I think this is a different but semi related situation of control and self direction. Having a newborn baby puts you in basically complete submission to it, and I am autistic and driven and thus hate submitting to others. With jobs or adults, you can escape, or you can defeat them with words. With a newborn, you cannot escape nor will words help. Once they are old enough to be able to occupy themselves for a few minutes or be negotiated with, this went away for me.
Here's a confession. When my children were first born I would cope by spending way to much time on my cellphone (Twitter). It was some Peter Pan Syndrome type sh**. My wife would complain all the time "spend time with your children!" but I was so addicted and absorbed in my little fantasy cope world. Finally to break the spell, one day I took my smart phone and smashed it with a hammer in front of her. I left Twitter and spent more time with my kids after that.
Damn thank you
A headstrong young woman in Ealing
Threw her two weeks' old child at the ceiling;
When quizzed why she did,
She replied, "To be rid
Of a strange, overpowering feeling."
-Edward Gorey
Better interpretation: it's OCD https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/15/the-chamber-of-guf/
> In Jewish legend, the Chamber of Guf is a pit where all the proto-souls hang out whispering and murmuring. Whenever a child is born, an angel reaches into the chamber, scoops up a soul, and brings it into the world. In the syncretist mindset where every legend has to be a metaphor for the human mind, I map the Chamber of Guf to all the thoughts that exist below the level of consciousness, fighting for attention.
> In the process of deciding what behavior to do, brain subconsciously considers many different plausible behaviors, all of which compete to be enacted. I don’t know how this extends to humans, but it would make sense that maybe only the top few candidate behaviors even make it to consciousness, with the rest getting rejected without conscious consideration.
> The particular qualities of a behavior that help it reach consciousness and implementation vary depending on mental state. Guyenet goes on to talk about how in dopamine-depleted states, only the simplest and most boring behaviors make it out of the Guf; with enough dopamine blockade, a person will sit motionless in their room for lack of any better ideas. In high dopamine states like mania or methamphetamine use, it’s much easier for behaviors to make successful “bids”, and so you tend to do bizarre things that would never have seemed like good ideas otherwise.
> Gay OCD, and its close cousins Pedophilic OCD and Incest OCD, are varieties of obsessive-compulsive disorder where the patient can’t stop worrying that they’re gay (or a pedophile, or want to have sex with family members). In these more tolerant times, it’s tempting to say “whatever, you’re gay, that’s fine, get over it”. But a careful history will reveal that they aren’t; most Gay OCD patients do not experience same-sex attraction, and they’re often in fulfilling relationships with members of the opposite sex. They have no good reason to think they’re gay – they just constantly worry that they are.
> (...) Variables like truth-value, relevance, and interestingness play important roles. But the exact balance depends on our mood. Anxiety is a global prior in favor of extracting fear-related thoughts from the Guf. Presumably everybody’s brain dedicates a neuron or two to thoughts like “a robber could break into my house right now and shoot me”. But most people’s Selecting Angels don’t find them worth bringing into the light of consciousness. Anxiety changes the angel’s orders: have a bias towards selecting thoughts that involve fearful situations and how to prepare for them.
> In a few unlucky people with a lot of anxiety, the angel decides that a thought provoking any strong emotion is sufficient reason to raise the thought to consciousness. Now the Gay OCD trap is sprung. One day the angel randomly scoops up the thought “I am gay” and hands it to the patient’s consciousness. The patient notices the thought “I am gay”, and falsely interprets it as evidence that they’re actually gay, causing fear and disgust and self-doubt. The angel notices this thought produced a lot of emotion and occupied consciousness for a long time – a success! That was such a good choice of thought! It must have been so relevant! It decides to stick with this strategy of using the “I am gay” thought from now on. If that ever fails to excite, it moves on to a whole host of similar thoughts that still have some punch, like “Was I just sexually attracted to that same-sex person over there?” and the like.
> I practice in San Francisco, and I rarely see Gay OCD these days. Being gay just isn’t scary enough any more. I still see some Pedophilic OCD and Incest OCD, as well as less common but obviously similar syndromes like Murderer OCD and Infanticide OCD. I’ve also started noticing a spike in Racism OCD; the patient has a stray racist thought, they react with sudden terror and self-loathing, their angel gets all excited, and then they can’t stop thinking about whether they might be a racist. There’s a paper to be written here about OCD patients as social weathervanes.
> All of these can be treated with the same medications that treat normal OCD. But there’s an additional important step of explaining exactly this theory to the patient, so that they know that not only are they not gay/a pedophile/racist, but it’s actually their strong commitment to being against homosexuality/pedophilia/racism which is making them have these thoughts. This makes the thoughts provoke less strong emotion and can itself help reduce the frequency of obsessions. Even if it doesn’t do that, it’s at least comforting for most people.