There are several aspects of this project which seem admirable to me. The general goal of helping others, and taking that seriously. Trying to protect your ability to think clearly. Acting on your own inside views, in order to better learn about the world.
Reading this, however, I feel alarmed, for a few reasons:
The plan, on its face, not seeming to hang together so well
Why are you pursuing isolation gradually? If the aim is (eventually) to help others, is it not important to keep that in sight directly, and view time out of contact with others as a cost (which may sometimes be worth paying)
Moreover, even for the learning phase I would have guessed that the thing you wanted to learn was how to think clearly in the presence of society. And that could certainly involve some taking time in isolation, but I would expect that periodic isolation and reengagement would give you better ability to train the muscles than a long period of complete isolation
A view that communication with others, while it can have costs for thinking, also has large benefits
I feel that I am smarter by having access to a large exo-brain consisting of other-people-that-I-can-consult-on-things
As well as helping me by giving me a stream of ideas I can passively consume (which wouldn’t require communication from me), they react to my ideas in ways that are helpful for me in identifying which parts are something special, and where I’m missing something
I’m sure that there are sometimes social distortions on my thinking that accompany this, but it seems to me that the benefits outweigh the costs
Moreover, there is a spectrum of ways of engaging, and if I were more paranoid about social distortions I could restrict myself to just those engagements which are most purely idea-focused, and which give minimal opportunity for social incentives, in order to get the highest benefit:cost ratio
It seems to me (noting of course that your circumstances might be different, or I might just be wrong) that the lowest-hanging fruit here will have benefits that very very clearly outweigh the costs
A worry that even if you are mistaken about this being a good course of action, it may not be self-correcting
e.g. I’m concerned that you’ve been operating in a status quo baseline X, which is not working well, for reasons. Now you’re going to move to an isolationist Y. You may observe that Y > X, and decide that you were correct to do Y, and keep on doing it—all while missing a non-isolationist Z which would have been >> Y.
I feel moved to ask whether you have a (good) therapist?
If you said that you were isolating, except for regular check-ins with a therapist, I’d feel significantly less alarmed (not zero alarm, but more of a sense that this would be a good precaution which might catch some of the times when it would otherwise fail to be self-correcting)
I imagine that a therapist would be less problematic than most communication for your ability to think, since they wouldn’t have a social agenda in the interactions
Actually I think that this whole topic pattern-matches to places where a therapist is unusually likely to be helpful-for-thinking
It’s gnarly and about one’s own internal cognition
An anchoring perspective can help to hold various poles, and to keep track of things, as well as to actively create small social motivations in precise directions that you mutually agree on
It’s unusually easy to have blind spots about one’s own cognition, and no natural self-correction mechanism unless you talk things through with someone external
Many people (including you, if my read is correct) find it socially costly and inaccessible to ask friends for help with this stuff
Even if friends did offer help, there would be concerns that they would have various social motivations, which could themselves be distortions on your thinking
Whereas a therapist should (largely) dodge these issues, by being in the role of professionally trying to help you (to do whatever things are important for you)
This might of course be wrong, but FWIW my strong recommendation would be (if you haven’t already) to try to find someone who works well for you in this role
My particular claim is that given your particular position as described here, there’s reason to think there’s a decent chance (>20%) of a very large benefit (IDK, >50% increase in your ability to self-actualize?), and this is well worth investing in as a serious experiment if you haven’t already
Hey Emrik --
There are several aspects of this project which seem admirable to me. The general goal of helping others, and taking that seriously. Trying to protect your ability to think clearly. Acting on your own inside views, in order to better learn about the world.
Reading this, however, I feel alarmed, for a few reasons:
The plan, on its face, not seeming to hang together so well
Why are you pursuing isolation gradually? If the aim is (eventually) to help others, is it not important to keep that in sight directly, and view time out of contact with others as a cost (which may sometimes be worth paying)
Moreover, even for the learning phase I would have guessed that the thing you wanted to learn was how to think clearly in the presence of society. And that could certainly involve some taking time in isolation, but I would expect that periodic isolation and reengagement would give you better ability to train the muscles than a long period of complete isolation
A view that communication with others, while it can have costs for thinking, also has large benefits
I feel that I am smarter by having access to a large exo-brain consisting of other-people-that-I-can-consult-on-things
As well as helping me by giving me a stream of ideas I can passively consume (which wouldn’t require communication from me), they react to my ideas in ways that are helpful for me in identifying which parts are something special, and where I’m missing something
I’m sure that there are sometimes social distortions on my thinking that accompany this, but it seems to me that the benefits outweigh the costs
Moreover, there is a spectrum of ways of engaging, and if I were more paranoid about social distortions I could restrict myself to just those engagements which are most purely idea-focused, and which give minimal opportunity for social incentives, in order to get the highest benefit:cost ratio
It seems to me (noting of course that your circumstances might be different, or I might just be wrong) that the lowest-hanging fruit here will have benefits that very very clearly outweigh the costs
A worry that even if you are mistaken about this being a good course of action, it may not be self-correcting
e.g. I’m concerned that you’ve been operating in a status quo baseline X, which is not working well, for reasons. Now you’re going to move to an isolationist Y. You may observe that Y > X, and decide that you were correct to do Y, and keep on doing it—all while missing a non-isolationist Z which would have been >> Y.
I feel moved to ask whether you have a (good) therapist?
If you said that you were isolating, except for regular check-ins with a therapist, I’d feel significantly less alarmed (not zero alarm, but more of a sense that this would be a good precaution which might catch some of the times when it would otherwise fail to be self-correcting)
I imagine that a therapist would be less problematic than most communication for your ability to think, since they wouldn’t have a social agenda in the interactions
Actually I think that this whole topic pattern-matches to places where a therapist is unusually likely to be helpful-for-thinking
It’s gnarly and about one’s own internal cognition
An anchoring perspective can help to hold various poles, and to keep track of things, as well as to actively create small social motivations in precise directions that you mutually agree on
It’s unusually easy to have blind spots about one’s own cognition, and no natural self-correction mechanism unless you talk things through with someone external
Many people (including you, if my read is correct) find it socially costly and inaccessible to ask friends for help with this stuff
Even if friends did offer help, there would be concerns that they would have various social motivations, which could themselves be distortions on your thinking
Whereas a therapist should (largely) dodge these issues, by being in the role of professionally trying to help you (to do whatever things are important for you)
This might of course be wrong, but FWIW my strong recommendation would be (if you haven’t already) to try to find someone who works well for you in this role
My particular claim is that given your particular position as described here, there’s reason to think there’s a decent chance (>20%) of a very large benefit (IDK, >50% increase in your ability to self-actualize?), and this is well worth investing in as a serious experiment if you haven’t already
Obligatory link to Lynette’s post on finding a therapist
In any case, good luck with things!