once, a long time ago, the rationalists were briefly into this idea of "operant conditioning yourself" for doing things you wanted to do - e.g. going "yes!" and pumping your fist after you completed a task on your to-do list
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i mostly don't think this works and it felt fake and lame and bad to me for a long time
but lately i've been catching myself doing a kind of congratulating myself after doing things i'm glad i did. but it feels good and i don't feel like i'm forcing it
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and it's not about "conditioning myself" which to me is just such an icky and gross frame, one part of me treating another part as if it has no agency
it just sometimes feels like the right thing to do, the same way i congratulate other people
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also i do it by... i'm not sure how to describe it but i take on a particular personality when i do it, like i used to be as a teenager playing halo with the lads, or like a gaming youtuber
like "yooo let's fucking gooo" kinda energy which feels great and not fake to me
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this sorta goes back to when i started trying to enjoy video games on purpose - when i did a cool thing i felt good about i wanted to congratulate myself by saying shit like "i am a GENIUS, i am the SMARTEST MAN ALIVE" and i just rolled with it 😅
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so one of the several things i tried was this: i noticed that i wasn't really paying attention to the video games i was using to self-soothe. so, even though it felt extremely self-indulgent and kinda cringe, i tried enjoying them more on purpose
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me [feeling pleased about a cool thing i did with a client]: big brain strats over here. big... big heart strats?
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this thing about being called a chad by your grandma feels related. there's probably a whole thing here about like "how would you like an ideal parent to congratulate you" or "how would you like an ideal older sibling to congratulate you"
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i guess i am just very sensitive to the implied relationship in whatever kind of congratulations. the self-conditioning stuff the rationalists tried to do felt like a boss-employee relationship which is *not* the kind of relationship i wanted or want to have with myself
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agree — and there’s an interesting parallel with mettā practice, which I’ve observed to be almost absurdly effective “operant conditioning” — the model in yogacara is the “storehouse consciousness” in which “seeds” are planted. “Farming”, “nurturing” seem like better frames
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yes! when you cultivate a garden you respect it as a living thing, you are in relationship with it, etc. etc. as opposed to like... trying to be a pickup artist towards yourself 😅