1/ The mind can only hold one idea at a time. To pick one up is to put the other down. E.g. if a woman wants to be more than 'just' a woman often they accused to rejecting femininity.
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2/ To hold two ideas in the mind you have to create a new one that is a combination of both. You can't do this on the fly for everyone you meet. Too many combinations. It's easier to put people into buckets.
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3/ The internet has allowed us to individuate far more than previously possible. It's easier to pick up all sorts of hobbies with ease and expertise that would've have taken much longer in the past.
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4/ Instead of a simple identity we can all be philosophers, writers, musicians, artists, etc.. Our ability to recognize individuality hasn't kept pace so we end up feeling alienated and unseen.
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5/ Ironically, tech culture, which isn't exactly known for having diversity offers a potential solution. Raising standards.
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6/ So what if you can learn piano or juggling in a few hours over youtube what previously required traveling the world and years of meeting people and practice. Everyone else can do the same.
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7/ If you refuse to label yourself and keep your identity small no matter how great you feel you are at something, there's less room to feel unseen and less opportunity for ego to get triggered.
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8/ Competition, bell curves & the free market check ego via global calibration. Without it all you have is your circle of friends which fall into the traps of (1) feel good circle jerk (2) thinly veiled dog-eat-dog competition (3) cold professional pragmatism
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9/ Actual friendship requires refusing to judge others as well as yourself. The internet makes this easier because we present smaller slices of ourselves making everything more difficult to judge. But only if you view the other as 99% mysterious.
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10/ When we start putting people into boxes based on small slices, we tend to make caricatures out of people. We end up fighting ourselves because our minds are what creates these caricatures.
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11/ In the early days of the internet and even the early days of facebook we had this mysterious quality. It felt like the world was suddenly a lot bigger. Now that it no longer feels mysterious it feels claustrophobic.
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12/ And it IS claustrophobic. We're living in our own world because we trust our minds too much. Most school systems squeeze out individuality and create an empty and malleable mind. Well suited to learn whatever is needed by whatever system.
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13/ We become the mind and believe ourselves to be this brain that can only experience one thing at a time. We lose the ability to see the wholeness of things in exchange for the ability to slice the moment into every smaller and smaller pieces.
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14/ A 'smart' person is someone who sees the world in slow motion because that moment was sliced into small pieces. It makes regular moments terribly boring. Nothing survives being cut up so much, not even reality.
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15/ This claustrophobic and myopic way of living constantly disconnects you from the body, from the people around you, from your emotions, etc...
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16/ You can't solve this by learning more. Knowledge and even wisdom only help you make more accurate judgements when what you should be doing is learning how to make no judgements.
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17/ What makes this impossible is the belief that suppressing your judgements is the same as not judging. When you think you are your mind you feel a distinction between who you "really" are (what you speak, write) vs your real private thoughts.
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18/ This creates the illusion that what is real is what is recorded. Some people literally live in the world of facebook, instagram, twitter. They don't feel 'present'
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19/ Who you think you are is never who you really are. Leave that mystery alone, stop picking at it, stop trying to swallow the ocean. The scalpel does save lives. But it is not the path of living.
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End of conversation
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