Oh yes, thank you for this article! Since 2011-ish I’ve gradually discovered these various mental coping strategies. I wish I had had a summary like yours back then!
The scene from Schindler’s List is powerful. Back in 2011 or maybe 2012 I often spent sleepless hours in bed crying and wondering why I’m not doing more than I am, why I’m the only one who has made these moral inferences, whether I’m crazy or overlooking something, and how I’m supposed to do it all alone. It would take me till early 2014 to find out about EA and find out that there are renowned philosophers who’ve made the same inferences, so I couldn’t be all that crazy.
What has helped me a lot is a specific kind of compartmentalization. I find it intellectually painful to compartmentalize, so I’m very hesitant to do it purposefully, but after a longer deliberative process I’ve found that my strong emotions paralyzed me more than they motivated me, and that I was sufficiently motivated anyway, so instead of wasting time crying, I trained thinking about things without feeling them. Or “trained” is an exaggeration, it’s more that it took me a tiny bit of effort to bring my empathy to this paralyzing emotional level in the first place, so that I could just avoid putting in this bit of effort. It’s still pretty hard when I see something visually, but it’s easier when I just think about it.
These emotions are not to scale anyway, and I don’t think I’m atrophying my ability to empathize doing this, so I think this is a kind of compartmentalization that will not negatively impact my decision-making.
As Bertrand Russell said:
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of [sentient beings]. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
It’s just too unbearable to not suppress it and still function.
There’s also the factor that many EAs who do earning to give still keep savings. I think this also gives them the ability to give large amounts with regularity sustainably. It might also give them the ability to be more enterprising in their job search and thus better at maximizing their income. There are a lot of people who already feel a need to donate more but don’t dare to out of self-preservation-related fears. Those may be in some cases disproportionate, but self-preservation is probably an instinct that is easier to pacify than to vanquish.
Conversely, there is also the problem of coping with other people who are very strongly compartmentalized. There, Robert’s and my exchange on another article seems relevant.
I’ve also written another introduction to EA article for people with low compartmentalization, which I haven’t posted here yet. I’ll probably do that one of these days.
PS: You copied a lot of in-line style. The article will look prettier when you strip it.
Compassion is also helpful—sometime visualising the suffering of the world and trying to identify with it in a cleaner way than involving guilt can generate some really powerful energy in the right direction. Doing this is the only way I can keep going while recognising that I’m a bottom 1-10% performer of the people that I’ve met in the movement—which is quite ego-depleting!!
Tonglen is a Tibetan buddhist practice that seeks to build compassion in this way.
Yeah, I’ve been hard pressed to find any use for guilt. There is this justice-related defense against helping (“Why am I supposed to help if [random other person] doesn’t!”), and showing someone how they profit from a system of exploitation can break thought that. But otherwise empathy/compassion is my central motivation. I know that this unbearable suffering exists. I just don’t let it take the emotional shape that overwhelms and paralyzes me with its sheer intensity.
I hope the ego depletion doesn’t keep you from aspiring to become a top 1–10% performer in the movement?
other things stop that, like raw ability, health, resource and availability of time due to prior commitments, but thanks for the encouragement!
Now its been written about I can see the comparison between these feelings and the feelings people often have of ‘oh, well, there’s no way I can compete with Bill Gates so why bother’. I haven’t let them affect me that much but now I can see that they shouldn’t affect me at all / even come in to play quite clearly. Thank you Telofy! :)
Oh yes, thank you for this article! Since 2011-ish I’ve gradually discovered these various mental coping strategies. I wish I had had a summary like yours back then!
The scene from Schindler’s List is powerful. Back in 2011 or maybe 2012 I often spent sleepless hours in bed crying and wondering why I’m not doing more than I am, why I’m the only one who has made these moral inferences, whether I’m crazy or overlooking something, and how I’m supposed to do it all alone. It would take me till early 2014 to find out about EA and find out that there are renowned philosophers who’ve made the same inferences, so I couldn’t be all that crazy.
What has helped me a lot is a specific kind of compartmentalization. I find it intellectually painful to compartmentalize, so I’m very hesitant to do it purposefully, but after a longer deliberative process I’ve found that my strong emotions paralyzed me more than they motivated me, and that I was sufficiently motivated anyway, so instead of wasting time crying, I trained thinking about things without feeling them. Or “trained” is an exaggeration, it’s more that it took me a tiny bit of effort to bring my empathy to this paralyzing emotional level in the first place, so that I could just avoid putting in this bit of effort. It’s still pretty hard when I see something visually, but it’s easier when I just think about it.
These emotions are not to scale anyway, and I don’t think I’m atrophying my ability to empathize doing this, so I think this is a kind of compartmentalization that will not negatively impact my decision-making.
As Bertrand Russell said:
It’s just too unbearable to not suppress it and still function.
There’s also the factor that many EAs who do earning to give still keep savings. I think this also gives them the ability to give large amounts with regularity sustainably. It might also give them the ability to be more enterprising in their job search and thus better at maximizing their income. There are a lot of people who already feel a need to donate more but don’t dare to out of self-preservation-related fears. Those may be in some cases disproportionate, but self-preservation is probably an instinct that is easier to pacify than to vanquish.
Conversely, there is also the problem of coping with other people who are very strongly compartmentalized. There, Robert’s and my exchange on another article seems relevant.
I’ve also written another introduction to EA article for people with low compartmentalization, which I haven’t posted here yet. I’ll probably do that one of these days.
PS: You copied a lot of in-line style. The article will look prettier when you strip it.
Thanks, great points! I got some help and managed to fix the layout.
Compassion is also helpful—sometime visualising the suffering of the world and trying to identify with it in a cleaner way than involving guilt can generate some really powerful energy in the right direction. Doing this is the only way I can keep going while recognising that I’m a bottom 1-10% performer of the people that I’ve met in the movement—which is quite ego-depleting!!
Tonglen is a Tibetan buddhist practice that seeks to build compassion in this way.
Yeah, I’ve been hard pressed to find any use for guilt. There is this justice-related defense against helping (“Why am I supposed to help if [random other person] doesn’t!”), and showing someone how they profit from a system of exploitation can break thought that. But otherwise empathy/compassion is my central motivation. I know that this unbearable suffering exists. I just don’t let it take the emotional shape that overwhelms and paralyzes me with its sheer intensity.
I hope the ego depletion doesn’t keep you from aspiring to become a top 1–10% performer in the movement?
other things stop that, like raw ability, health, resource and availability of time due to prior commitments, but thanks for the encouragement!
Now its been written about I can see the comparison between these feelings and the feelings people often have of ‘oh, well, there’s no way I can compete with Bill Gates so why bother’. I haven’t let them affect me that much but now I can see that they shouldn’t affect me at all / even come in to play quite clearly. Thank you Telofy! :)