I really like this post and am curating it (I might be biased in my assessment, but I endorse it and Toby can’t curate his own post).
A personal note: the opportunity framing has never quite resonated with me (neither has the “joy in righteousness” framing), but I don’t think I can articulate what does motivate me. Some of my motivations end up routing through something ~social. For instance, one (quite imperfect, I think!) approach I take[1] is to imagine some people (sometimes fictional or historical) I respect and feel a strong urge to be the kind of person they would respect or understand; I want to be able to look them in the eye and say that I did what I could and what I thought was right. (Another thing I do is try to surround myself with people[2] I’m happy to become more similar to, because I think I will often end up seeking their approval at least a bit, whether I endorse doing it or not.)
I also want to highlight a couple of related things:
“Recently I’ve been thinking about how all my favorite people are great at a skill I’ve labeled in my head as “staring into the abyss.” Staring into the abyss means thinking reasonably about things that are uncomfortable to contemplate, like arguments against your religious beliefs, or in favor of breaking up with your partner. It’s common to procrastinate on thinking hard about these things because it might require you to acknowledge that you were very wrong about something in the past, and perhaps wasted a bunch of time based on that (e.g. dating the wrong person or praying to the wrong god).”
(The post discusses how we could get better at the skill.)
I like this line from Benjamin Lay’s book: “For custom in sin hides, covers, as it were takes away the guilt of sin.” It feels relevant.
both explicitly/on purpose (sometimes) and often accidentally/implicitly (I don’t notice that I’ve started thinking about whether I could face Lay or Karel Capek or whoever else until later, when I find myself reflecting on it)
I really like this post and am curating it (I might be biased in my assessment, but I endorse it and Toby can’t curate his own post).
A personal note: the opportunity framing has never quite resonated with me (neither has the “joy in righteousness” framing), but I don’t think I can articulate what does motivate me. Some of my motivations end up routing through something ~social. For instance, one (quite imperfect, I think!) approach I take[1] is to imagine some people (sometimes fictional or historical) I respect and feel a strong urge to be the kind of person they would respect or understand; I want to be able to look them in the eye and say that I did what I could and what I thought was right. (Another thing I do is try to surround myself with people[2] I’m happy to become more similar to, because I think I will often end up seeking their approval at least a bit, whether I endorse doing it or not.)
I also want to highlight a couple of related things:
“Staring into the abyss as a core life skill”
“Recently I’ve been thinking about how all my favorite people are great at a skill I’ve labeled in my head as “staring into the abyss.”
Staring into the abyss means thinking reasonably about things that are uncomfortable to contemplate, like arguments against your religious beliefs, or in favor of breaking up with your partner. It’s common to procrastinate on thinking hard about these things because it might require you to acknowledge that you were very wrong about something in the past, and perhaps wasted a bunch of time based on that (e.g. dating the wrong person or praying to the wrong god).”
(The post discusses how we could get better at the skill.)
I like this line from Benjamin Lay’s book: “For custom in sin hides, covers, as it were takes away the guilt of sin.” It feels relevant.
both explicitly/on purpose (sometimes) and often accidentally/implicitly (I don’t notice that I’ve started thinking about whether I could face Lay or Karel Capek or whoever else until later, when I find myself reflecting on it)
I’m mostly talking about something like my social circle, but I also find this holds for fictional characters, people I follow online, etc.