Tuesday, 27 February 2024
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I've read a bit more in the book, and I really liked a part about a model. It was called the Fear-Love model or something close to that. What is the motivation behind our actions, our intent? That is an interesting question because I think it can reveal a lot about many struggles we may have such as social anxiety, fear of rejection, poor self esteem, selfish or anti social behaviour. The book also had a good saying that went something like to get or to give. This referring to our intent or what we wish to achieve. Do we interact with the world with fear? That out priority is to look out for ourselves, that we look good to the outside world. Or even going further, we make a clear distinction between us and others. That ultimately our true desire is to get others to view us favourably. If one lives like this either aware of it or not, it seems clear to me it will cause great burden to oneself. And I think this is the default driving force of humans, but they do extend the circle to a smaller collective of people. Those we don't fear how they judge us, but we know their concern comes from love. That they want the best for us and care deeply about our wellbeing as if they are us. Usually this is our partner, family, and closest friends in the context of modern western society or whatever I live in is called.

To get back to the burdens caused when we fear the outside world I'll think of some examples. When I started to think about examples I seem to find that the way society is constructed forces us many times to see the world in fear. Specifically when it comes to the economy, how one must participate in it in order to survive, which is not something to take lightly, though regarding death. I don't think you have to fear death but love life as a motivator but that's for another writing. I'm also not going to talk about the best way of structuring society. That I want to look more into but right now I have no clue. Also what I meant with fear is forced in economy related stuff is things like your job. Will I get the job, will I get the promotion. We have to look out for ourselves, or you will get eaten alive, especially as the more competitive environment you participate in. Now I was going to write that outside of work we have more range to act from love instead of fear. I realise I haven't really said much about acting from love and why that is smart and not just some hippy drug induced naive wishful thinking.

Quick note, I wrote like that because I find it funny, I don't know much about hippies, I want to write in a way that fuels my compassion but also in a funny way sometimes, I guess I will try find a blance. On that note it is also interesting to think about where we get these things from. That was my instinctive thought about a hippy, my autopilot prejudice. It is easy for me to acknowledge it here for what it is. But it'd probably be harder for me in a social situation where I want to look favourable where that is the popular belief or prejudice. If we have doubts about it or confronted about it, do we make it out as a joke to be funny as I just did. I think I also wrote it in an attempt to front run someones predjuice about a person calling for people to act from love. I'm not fully sure but something to ponder about.

Enough about that, why is acting from love a good idea? First of all, it shifts your focus away from you to your surrondings. When the underlying driver and goal is not based on fear, you no longer have to worry how you act will make others think of you. You're not seeking to get anything so it becomes rational to not worry about, as it is no longer what aim for. Beause I don't find it silly that people have great worry about how they represent themselves, especially if they are disadvantaged in some form. If the goal is to get, it is damn important you don't mess it up. I want to make this extremely clear. If the goal is to get, and know that you obviously don't consciously think that but your feelings will direct you automatically. Funny thing is your brain may consciously rationalise some reason, usually set in a verry narrow perspective of your life, like on the grand scheme of being a conscious human is so little. Life is so beautiful goddammit, but all I can think about is my next job performance. Anyway, fooling yourself isnt going to work, well I can't speak for everyone. So saying something like I don't care what others think about me. I am on the sigma grindset. I am a girl boss just building my empire. This is moving someone in the opposite direction. We actually become more fearful and view our surrondings with more hostility, which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Becaus at out core, we are still fear driven with the get goal. We are social beings so ultimately we satisfy the get in some form from people. this is where I think our behaviour can get very perverse and confused.

Quick note, my last writing comes across as "this is how it is". I want to make it clear I only see it as my current understanding with an acknowledgment I can't possibly see and understand all the complexity and nuances about the topic I'm writing about. I usually like to use words like think, feel, seems because I know I'm writing as a human and I don't think one should forget that. Humans have feelings, limited memory, limited energy, limited knowledge, a bunch of optimisations you know that whole range of fallacies we make. I've never looked into those much, something I intend to do in light of this note. I also like to define or explain what I mean with a word like when I used the word value in previous writing because that word means many things and I just wanted to use it in a specific way to make sense. A lot of confusion comes when we use abstract words and we don't have a shared definition for the context we use it in. Thats another one, context. I like to define a context for what I'm talking about. Because without it just makes no sense. Like when I said positive or negative feeling I wrote in parenthesis that I mean it in terms of purpose. Like a tool a system uses to reinforce something. Like giving a treat (positive) to a dog for behaviour we want, vice versa. Without stating this someone may think I'm making some fundamental opinion of what is positive and negative, and maybe think like theres "nothing bad or wrong but thinking makes it so", because yes, these words make no sense if we don't apply them to a specific context. In the context of winning a game of chess there is a clear range of moves from very bad to very good. Anyway, what I wanted to say with all of this is that I noticed sometimes I just like to have a quicker flow of thoughts where some of this may be lost but to understand this is still recognised that I don't think this is the absolute truth but also think about what is meant with abstract words and think of what context I may be applying the thought to.

So, yes, one quick note later, I'm not sure if the get and give saying is the best way to explain what I'm trying to get at because I think it confuses it with some other ideas. The idea I'm trying to think about right now isn't about being generous or altruistic in the sense you should give stuff in whatever form and not care about yourself. Like from an objective view if we clearly define a context of something we want to improve in the world, nothing really makes it so that can't be better achieved with fear, wanting to be admired and liked. One that buys into that idea might be the biggest benefactor to the world in the context of some goal like inventing some cure for a disease. At the moment I'm interested in the idea of acting in love as a way to experience life better for oneself. I'm of course interested in this idea on a larger scale but it is outside my scope for now. Another way of looking at the idea of acting in love is to consider how important authenticity is. This relates to the idea that people can feel lonely even when they are surronded by other people. I imagine this can be due it was built on fear. And fear can be something simple as not following norms and standing out.

Still regarding this, in the book, it seems many solutions are band aid fixes as in treating the symptom but ignoring the underlying issue. That if you can resolve the root of the issue all the symptoms will go away by themselves. But that is also something interesting to think about in regards to the cost of solving the root issue and the cost of quickly patching up the symptoms. We're all different, something may work for someone else and so on. What I like is what causes as little conflict and confusion in my mind. About the book, I'll get an example. There is a chapter about jealousy. Here it talks about not making unfair comparisons to other people. "The problem here is you fail to make an 'apple to apple' comparison. You dismiss your own strengths or qualities which make you feel as though you're not as good as they are". I think this is a weak idea to follow that I think will cause conflict. Why does the comparison have to be made in the first place. What does it mean to not be as good and why does it matter? Now there are good answers to these questions if one is driven by fear where its them vs us, and to be liked, so on. Ask oneself if theres someone I don't need to compare or I don't even mind if they are better than me, and then those where you must compare. What is the difference between those two groups. Would'nt it be greater to be free from the burden of having to compare and needing to match up or be better? I'd choose that instead of some half baked copium. Some people are just better in so many ways looking at common metrics used. I'm not phrasing this well but what I'm trying to say is one doesn't have to be affected by the fact someone is better than you. In fact, with love, you can feel good for others greatness and just admire the things humans can accomplish.

And this is just one symptom that disappears with love. In fact so many of our burdens is down to being driven by fear. But the thing is, going from fear to love is not easy thing and requires great commitment. For me, I feel like I've only experienced a glimpse of it yet it is the first thing that has profoundly moved me that it is something I've found worth looking into more deeply. I've heard about things "clicking" for people, like from one moment to the other something just makes a lot of sense and lots of confusion goes away. I didn't really think that was a thing just like if you haven't experienced love at first sight. But that aha moment was very real for me in regards to loving kindness. But more as this is a good path to take not that I had already arrived. But as I follow the path I seem to feel better and better. Now even if I can see some of this path I realise how far I have and I see many people ahead of me.