found more than once that when i find smth that might really help (oh this paper is precisely about the problem i've been having!) i postpone engaging with it... almsot as if had grown accustomed to the mode of 'there being a problem' and face resistance to moving on from it...
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the old CFARians used to say "it's okay for your problems to be solvable"
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in the early days CFAR was like "oh we will just come up with and iterate on techniques and then give the best techniques to people this is going to be great"
and then we ran into load-bearing problems and meta-problems and feelings about problems and feelings about techniques
you weren't a real rationalist until you ran into your first problem that actively resisted being solved
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it's being loved
it's always being loved
this sounds strangely reminiscent of the early history of psychoanalysis. "whoops turns out this thing is more dynamic and complex than we expected"
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~turns out people are complicated welp~
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can you elaborate on what some of these problems were? i am very curious
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i don't remember detailed examples off the top of my head but the structure that made them hard to deal with was pretty similar across examples: problems that felt bad to think about so you never thought about them, techniques that felt bad to use so you never used them
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I am trying to understand why this is resonating with me so much
I think it is because as I untangle this emotional mess inside, I'm finding a lot of Parts that deal with the fallout of other Parts, and in general, tons of feelings-about-feelings
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