Remembering it makes you value life more
Beware: Stream of Consciousness
It is my understanding that's Stoicism's main goal is to answer one question. This question is, "How do we best prepare for the final test of our character, the moment when we die?"
One way I like to think about life is as a regret minimization algorithm. But for one to have regrets one must have wants and desires. In my last post, "Psyching Myself Out In The Mirror", I tried to narrate my wants and desires. Sadly those wants and desires are still filled with the delusions that hold up my current persona. They are also so abstract that they don't mean anything tangible. Before interrogating those wants a little further I want to contextualize death for you as well as myself with a series of questions.
- What are my biggest regrets so far?
- Who would care about me when I am dead?
- How are those people going to remember me when I am dead?
- How much of my life did I spend pretending to be someone I wasn't just to fit in?
- Should I have spent more of my life pretending to fit in so I wasn't alone?
- What did I fight for?
- Why did people respect me?
- Did I respect people that did not deserve respect?
- Did anyone see me for who I thought I was?
- Did anyone see me for who I actually was?
- What am I most grateful for?
- Where did I waste my time and energy?
- What values and principals did I adhere to over the course of my life?
- What values and principals should I have adopted over the course of my life?
- Where did my words differ from my actions?
- Who did I hurt, was it justified?
- What relationships did I value the most across my life?
- Overall, did I have a positive or negative on humanity as a whole?
- What was the most important decision I made with my life?
- If one lesson could be extracted from my life what would it be?
Well I am going to have fun answering these questions, I hope you do too. The key question I want to answer, is "What did I fight for?" If I know that I should be on the path to identifying my muse. Now to follow up on
A Spy for the Human Condition, You Say #
I say to myself, "I think of myself as a spy for the human condition." But what exactly does this mean? Well there is a simple way to get an answer to that question,
Why thank you ChatGPT, you are fitting more and more into my extended mind every day. Hmmm.... I should go about explicitly conducting research. But research requires questions and before I can ask relevant questions I need to familiarize myself with some existing literature. Content for future blog posts.
Understand People Better Than Themselves, You Say #
I also say, "I want to understand people better than they understand themselves to help remind them of who they are deep down inside." But what have I done to actually understand myself? I have spent a lot of time thinking in circles reinforcing those delusions I have mentioned. What are these delusions, where did they come from, and how do I get rid of them? Well that is another research project. For now I want to articulate what staring into another person's soul feels like.
Have you ever had an emotional connection with someone where you knew their intentions were pure. Their words can just feel different, you can sense how they feel about you just by being in their presence. You have an intuition for how their life is going to play out. Sometimes you can see their delusional expectations knowing they will come into conflict with reality leading them to becoming a different person. You can sense what they care about. You can sense a shape to their ego. You can feel their resonating discomfort. They will also sometimes answer questions you have not asked them yet.
When I think about staring into someone's soul I should know what they want and desire. Many people do not do what they really want and are just living out the life society provided for them. There is always something hidden deep inside there. How to go about fishing for it from the surface is a fun quest we can all get a kick out of trying.
One of My Delusional Expectations #
I have spent my life waiting for some sort of savoir to come save me. Someone to tell me who I am and provide the guide rails, a clearly defined problem, that I could work on with their guidance that would build a foundation for who I would eventually become. These people do exist, they have tried to help me, I just lack a few character traits that would have led me down one of those many paths. I have an image of myself in my mind of how capable and knowledgeable I am and I am coming to grips with the fact I have the illusion of knowledge and don't have any real accomplishments. But what accomplishments was I actually expecting to have? What happened to all those problems I got pleasure for coming up with but never pursued? Knowing who I am now how would I have gone back and mentored myself?
The phrase, "God only helps those that help themselves" rings out to me. I have not been very good in helping myself towards my own goals. That is partly because I am bad at defining these goals but it is also because I have a fear of truly trying. I would rather spend all my time commuting the planning fallacy than actually pursuing something tangible. I do not like this characteristic being reflected back at me, it is time for a change.
Always fear regret more than failure