Like, I think you can be vertical or horizontal all by yourself on a desert island depending on how you behave, integrate your experiences, try to grow, etc. If you prefer, it's almost synonymous with fox/hedgehog. Fox = horizontally integrated personality, hedgehog=vertical.
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Oh so vertical is like “I have A community, A set of values, etc” and horizontal moves between those things based on price, risk, rationality, etc?
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More radical. You don’t need vertical waypoints to make a horizontal trajectory. Nomad caravans are not homes being uprooted and re-founded repeatedly… they have wheels. Renters typically move more frequently but not because they buy/sell houses more often. They lease.
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Is your vertical/hedgehog preference really as strong as you’re making it sound? You don’t strike me as that strongly oriented one way or another.
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I can’t tell if I have an orientation one way or another because I can’t get a handle on what your horizontal thing even is. That could mean I’m so horizontal I can’t see it, or so vertical I can’t see it, or something else.
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You’re definitely more V than H, but rather than being pure V, I think you feed your V and starve your H. I’ve often read some of your blog posts and wished you’d go further down a bunnytrail, but you seem to rein in distraction strongly to return to your Big Things
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For an h-identity, low urgency dissipation and distractability, with strong, opportunistic responsiveness to shifting winds and serendipity feels like a natural and good way to be, while focused intensity seems bad and artificial. I think for v-identity it is reverse.
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Ah, I am naturally pretty scattered but I only indulge it because I have shitty willpower, I admire focus much more
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You’re kinda kidding, but “making father proud” = vertical identity!
My parents have had zero idea what to make of me since 2003. They’re too confused by me to be either proud or disappointed. The phd was the last thing I did that they could parse.

