I have spent the last couple years secluding myself from the world constructing more and more convoluted narratives about my self importance. I view my existing social media as pristine, not to be touched because I could lose what little prestige and reputation I have left fading in the minds of others. It was almost like other people had a better idea of who I was than I did. When it comes to my IRL relationships I am shaped more by them rather than me shaping them. I am an intuitive follower rather than any sort of leader, oh the delusions of self I have.
I need to change my relationship with others so I can change my relationship with myself. I need a set of heuristics that can help me overcome the rigid set of behaviours I have subconsciously adopted to protect my ego. How can I go about deconstructing these patterns is something I am going to have to dive into later.
I talked about relating to others in my last post, "Let's Talk About Death". I talked about this intuitive feeling I have labelled staring into other people's souls. What I consider staring into other people's souls is not interacting with other people that's judging their intentions and values. This is more within the context of, is my romantic partner is committed in this relationship, my close friend has a conception of greatness, or deeply empathizing with someone's trauma.
If I really want to be a sage I need a framework for understanding and interacting with people. The sage sees people for how they are even when they themselves can't. What questions would I need to answer in order to understand someone.
- What desires does this person have?
- What kind of experiences does their lifestyle consist of?
- What kind of relationships does this person have with their family, friends, coworkers, and strangers?
- What is this person's conception of greatness?
- Does this person lead or follower?
- What kind of stressors does this person have in their life?
- What kind of media does this person consume and what does it say about them?
- What accomplishments does this person have?
- Where does this person get their sense of self worth?
- What kind of story does this person perceive themselves living in?
- Does this person see themselves as the protagonist in the story of their own life?
I have not answered these questions for myself let alone other people. I also will only be able to answer these questions for people I know closely. But everything I have written about so far is analysis. This is some analysis paralysis. I need to actually be interacting with the world rather than masturbating to a simulacrum of it in my mind. What if I re frame things as a science experiment. What if I simply go reread Facebook messages from a decade ago and see how that makes me feel.
This is a weird experience, people I do not remember, talking about events I do not remember. I don't really feel anything, it is all in the past. I would definitely feel something if I was to add a message to these ancient chats. But what am I even supposed to message. There is no narrative holding that past relationship together. I don't know what I want from my friends let alone strangers.
Let's go take a look at Facebook and Instagram stories and see how I feel? I see people traveling, shopping for esoteric merchandise, sharing memes and quotes from other accounts, getting dinner and drinks with friends.
- Which one of these stories do I want to live in?
- If my life was a social media montage what would it look like?
- What kind of life would I want to portray in a social media montage?
- How would I best map out and categorize social media stories?
- What is the missing context from these stories?
- How can I insert myself into the narrative of these stories?
- What kind of model can I generate of this person from these people's social media posts?
Hmm.... This has got me thinking. If I could design friends what would they be like? I will start to answer that in my next post.