She confesses big things loud and clear, her shoulders shaking just slightly with the effort. In our friend group we call her Tomahawk. She has a pacing mind, a bit of scattered energy, and yet there’s this wholesomeness about her that’s hard to articulate. Maybe what guides her is to be in life without bullshit, not talking bullshit, not being a bullshit person. She’s not gonna drag you misled. She’s gonna send it, perhaps slightly over the top, to feel she’s true to what is. I don’t feel from her, ever, that transactional mode of relating. This is what I love about her. I feel peace knowing that if things really fall apart, she’s that kind of person to be there for me. Sure, she’d set boundaries, but she’d still be genuinely interested in how the life-current runs through me.
I’ve been wanting to talk to her about altruism since I overheard her say something about it that was hard for me to add up. She says she doesn’t do altruism but I also saw her once in a parking lot giving a hundred bucks to a stranger. And I’ve seen her more than once chasing a panicked bug with a paper cup, just to put it back outside alive.
I don’t think I ever will (never say never) but really, probably never will do altruism. I should have money for altruism but something in me says no. On paper it’s I am median US earner blah blah, having disposable income that can be so large in other countries.
Hmm… I am eating animals not because it’s good. It’s because it’s a pattern, a behavioral button that parents, and grandparents have been pressing. We are jaws of this larger thing that just does things, and in a fundamental way is not interested in labyrinths of ethical calculations.
I definitely have this scared animal inside
If I have less I will marry worse. Also food, shelter, safety…
Everybody’s accruing and spending and eyeing each other, trying to climb the status ladder, explicitly or not. In one way a big part of me is allergic to status and in another, that’s our game.
I may miss out on money for a school for my kids or a medical bill for my mom?
Now, she laughed, like something hurt. Her gesturing hit a coffee cup, and its trajectory sent it a good couple of feet in the air before it landed, crushing. She was sorry and let the bartender clean it up.
When I look at the altruism space something twists in my stomach. There is feel-good altruism and people paying to terrible charities to be more liked. And there are charity effectiveness calculations, I even like those people, but it feels running on some obligation, like a bulk of it is coming from unworthiness with spreadsheets layered on top of it.
So many people are blocked around money. I mean blocked, blocked. I probably do too. But I’ve seen through some of my delusions. I have the will and imagination now to use my money, and I think I know how to do it well. You can always spend to live fuller, more connected, more taken care of, more informed. I see clearly now that I’m going to pay in time for what I don’t pay in money. It used to be difficult for me to value time, but now I’m willing to spend lightly to experience more of it.
It’s not even obvious to me that it’s better to help more somewhere far away, which in most cases is actual trauma land and trauma upbringing. It’s not clear to me that untangling, releasing, enlivening, informing life here won’t create better 2nd, 3rd, 4th order effects.
Because the systems that value and compare interventions reverberate flawed world models. Yes, it’s still better to make the models, probably, but my brain gets the error.
And finally, because the space is soooo large
Omg we need to include
People in my state
People outside of my state
People in other countries
Future people
Animals
Bugs
Future animals and bugs
🙉
Please don’t make me look at this scope! My life is already overcomplicated for me, myself.
Wait, there’s a larger field behind it? And another one behind that?
Sacrificing resources in my network already feels overwhelming. Every step further out only multiplies it. Seeing that there is so much suffering, most of it never to be undone, makes me want to shut the whole inquiry down.
Every piece I try to fix just reveals more suffering. It hurts just to look at it. How does my intervention matter? Whoever built that, let them solve it, physics, God, the blind watchmaker, whatever. I’m not it.
Why helping people feel so bad?
Link post
Epistemic status: wobbling
She confesses big things loud and clear, her shoulders shaking just slightly with the effort. In our friend group we call her Tomahawk. She has a pacing mind, a bit of scattered energy, and yet there’s this wholesomeness about her that’s hard to articulate. Maybe what guides her is to be in life without bullshit, not talking bullshit, not being a bullshit person. She’s not gonna drag you misled. She’s gonna send it, perhaps slightly over the top, to feel she’s true to what is. I don’t feel from her, ever, that transactional mode of relating. This is what I love about her. I feel peace knowing that if things really fall apart, she’s that kind of person to be there for me. Sure, she’d set boundaries, but she’d still be genuinely interested in how the life-current runs through me.
I’ve been wanting to talk to her about altruism since I overheard her say something about it that was hard for me to add up. She says she doesn’t do altruism but I also saw her once in a parking lot giving a hundred bucks to a stranger. And I’ve seen her more than once chasing a panicked bug with a paper cup, just to put it back outside alive.
I don’t think I ever will (never say never) but really, probably never will do altruism. I should have money for altruism but something in me says no. On paper it’s I am median US earner blah blah, having disposable income that can be so large in other countries.
Hmm… I am eating animals not because it’s good. It’s because it’s a pattern, a behavioral button that parents, and grandparents have been pressing. We are jaws of this larger thing that just does things, and in a fundamental way is not interested in labyrinths of ethical calculations.
I definitely have this scared animal inside
If I have less I will marry worse. Also food, shelter, safety…
Everybody’s accruing and spending and eyeing each other, trying to climb the status ladder, explicitly or not. In one way a big part of me is allergic to status and in another, that’s our game.
I may miss out on money for a school for my kids or a medical bill for my mom?
Now, she laughed, like something hurt. Her gesturing hit a coffee cup, and its trajectory sent it a good couple of feet in the air before it landed, crushing. She was sorry and let the bartender clean it up.
When I look at the altruism space something twists in my stomach. There is feel-good altruism and people paying to terrible charities to be more liked. And there are charity effectiveness calculations, I even like those people, but it feels running on some obligation, like a bulk of it is coming from unworthiness with spreadsheets layered on top of it.
So many people are blocked around money. I mean blocked, blocked. I probably do too. But I’ve seen through some of my delusions. I have the will and imagination now to use my money, and I think I know how to do it well. You can always spend to live fuller, more connected, more taken care of, more informed. I see clearly now that I’m going to pay in time for what I don’t pay in money. It used to be difficult for me to value time, but now I’m willing to spend lightly to experience more of it.
It’s not even obvious to me that it’s better to help more somewhere far away, which in most cases is actual trauma land and trauma upbringing. It’s not clear to me that untangling, releasing, enlivening, informing life here won’t create better 2nd, 3rd, 4th order effects.
Because the systems that value and compare interventions reverberate flawed world models. Yes, it’s still better to make the models, probably, but my brain gets the error.
And finally, because the space is soooo large
Omg we need to include
People in my state
People outside of my state
People in other countries
Future people
Animals
Bugs
Future animals and bugs
🙉
Please don’t make me look at this scope! My life is already overcomplicated for me, myself.
Wait, there’s a larger field behind it? And another one behind that?
Sacrificing resources in my network already feels overwhelming. Every step further out only multiplies it. Seeing that there is so much suffering, most of it never to be undone, makes me want to shut the whole inquiry down.
Every piece I try to fix just reveals more suffering. It hurts just to look at it. How does my intervention matter? Whoever built that, let them solve it, physics, God, the blind watchmaker, whatever. I’m not it.