As the author of this post, I found it interesting to re-read it more than a year later, because even though I remember the experience and feelings I describe in it, I do feel quite differently now. This is not because I came to some rational conclusion about how to think of self-worth vs instrumental value, but rather the issue has just kind of faded away for me.
It’s difficult to say exactly why, but I think it might be related to that I have developed more close friendships with people who are also highly engaged EAs, where I feel that they genuinely care about me and spend time not just supporting me on high-impact work, but on socially checking in and hanging out, joking or talking about private stuff—that they like me and care about me as a person.
This makes me question the assumptions I made in the post about how feelings of self-worth are created in the religious context. Perhaps even in church the thing is not the abstract idea being “perfect in Gods eyes”, but rather the practical experience of feeling loved and accepted by the community and knowing they have your back. If this is right, that’s a very good thing as that is something that can be re-created in a non-religious context.
So, if I’d update this post now, I might be able to develop some ideas for how we could work on this: perhaps a reason to be careful with over-optimizing our interpersonal meetings?
As the author of this post, I found it interesting to re-read it more than a year later, because even though I remember the experience and feelings I describe in it, I do feel quite differently now. This is not because I came to some rational conclusion about how to think of self-worth vs instrumental value, but rather the issue has just kind of faded away for me.
It’s difficult to say exactly why, but I think it might be related to that I have developed more close friendships with people who are also highly engaged EAs, where I feel that they genuinely care about me and spend time not just supporting me on high-impact work, but on socially checking in and hanging out, joking or talking about private stuff—that they like me and care about me as a person.
This makes me question the assumptions I made in the post about how feelings of self-worth are created in the religious context. Perhaps even in church the thing is not the abstract idea being “perfect in Gods eyes”, but rather the practical experience of feeling loved and accepted by the community and knowing they have your back. If this is right, that’s a very good thing as that is something that can be re-created in a non-religious context.
So, if I’d update this post now, I might be able to develop some ideas for how we could work on this: perhaps a reason to be careful with over-optimizing our interpersonal meetings?