#mattering

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hello mbti-notes. Happy holiday and new year. Hope this year is a better year. INTP here. My question is about being stuck in Si loop. I can't seem to be able to get out of it. And it's been a (long) while.

When I was a teenager, I wanted to become an adult, I wanted to get strong, successful, independent, more capable, but now I resent it. There are so many unexpected and unwanted changes and I just can't get used to them. When I look at my timeline, and some other people's timelines, I think to myself that despite all the progresses in science and tech, and all the claims that life has become easier and more convenient, life quality is getting worse.

People around me are getting older, weaker, less beautiful, less capable, needier, more bitter. They age, lose their youth privilege, lose their health, motivation, opportunities, and they keep having more regrets and bad memories, more setbacks, more deaths, more divorces, more lost opportunities than before. Interpersonal and family relationships are getting more awkward and more complicated, people are getting more bitter, colder and more distant, less forgiving, less open, less supportive, more judgemental.

Maybe it's what adulthood has always been for everyone. Maybe it's because of tech and social media. While tech is not all bad and has pros and cons, I can't ignore the cons. Most people around me have become adapted or even somewhat addicted to tech, social media or mobile gaming and seem to enjoy them. They spend more time thinking about their online image or other people's online lives, than building actual memories or doing actual stuffs for the sakes of it. Maybe I'm wrong, but things are getting more complicated. Al and Social media are getting integrated in every aspect of our lives. We have less privacy.

I had tough childhood and teenage years, but all of this makes me think that things were simpler and somewhat better when I was a teenager. My loved ones were younger, healthier, more capable, more hopeful, more positive and forgiving, with better interpersonal and social lives, more friends, more activities, more possibilities and less physical or behavioral issues and less social media influences.

And society seemed more simple, easier, kinder, less complex, more forgiving, less sensitive, more supportive and inclusive.

Plus, I myself was mentally stronger, a bit more self-confident, more hopeful, cheerful, curious, more motivated and less sensitive.

I could never predict these things back then as a teenager. But as I see these patterns over time, I think life, or at least my life is getting worse and worse and more complicated with time. To the point that I have lost my interest in life, live in the state of cynicism, numbness and limbo, and often engage in Si, nostalgia and regressing back to my teenage years in order to seek guidance or calmness.

[(Please delete the following paragraph if it gets your blog in trouble) :

I'm still curious about the universe, cultures and some other subjects. But overall, I have lost my interest in life and living. To the point that I chronically wish there could be a quit button (even when I sleep). I have tried most things, even antidepressants, but they don't seem to make a difference. It makes me think it is not major depression, but realism, or a type of depression related to life situation and unhealthy Si loop. I can see that some aspects of my life are genuinely better now, but that doesn't seem to be enough to improve my mental state.

I keep these thought patterns internal and don't share it with other people, in order to not make them concerned or more depressed, but I sometimes wonder why they rarely think or care about these obvious issues and how they haven't lost interest in living.]

I seem to be stuck in a Si loop. I have lost care for present, yearning and optimism for future, and keep regressing back to past, in order to experience calmness and simplicity.

I have tried to focus on my Ne, my interests and curiousities, in order to bring my past self back, but even when I have the mental and physical energy for that, it only seems to work temporarily and these negative thoughts keep getting triggered and coming back.

How do I stop myself and force myself out of Si loop when I'm somewhat addicted to it?

---------------------

There are two aspects to this problem that you seem to be overlooking:

(1) The key concept comes in the last sentence you wrote, about being "addicted". People opt to stay in tertiary loop or maintain an addiction because they get some kind of "benefit" from it that they aren't willing to relinquish. Just as a drug addict is aware of the health risks but isn't willing to relinquish the highs, as long as you keep believing that the "benefit" is worth the suffering, then change isn't going to happen, is it?

What "benefits" do people get from tertiary loop? Generally speaking, many possible things, including but not limited to:

safety from perceived threats

feelings of comfort or relief (from negative feelings/emotions)

escape from problems and demands for change

"evidence" to confirm underlying biases and prejudices

reinforcement of their negative attitude

protection for distorted, illusory, or grandiose beliefs

a sense of power or control (to cover up low self-esteem)

a sense of dominance or superiority (to cover up low self-worth)

rationalizations for unethical or destructive behavior

ways to excuse or justify repeated mistakes and failures

In short, tertiary loop is an ego defense mechanism. Ego defense mechanisms allow people to avoid facing up to deep psychological problems, usually through some form of distraction, deflection, deferral, or denial.

(2) The second aspect of the problem follows from the first. When people use defense mechanisms to avoid confronting psychological problems, it makes them unable to see just how wrong their thinking is, which allows them to reside in a mental space where they never have to admit they're wrong. This is soothing to the ego. It feels good to always be right, doesn't it? If you really want to exit tertiary loop, the first step is to recognize that there's something very wrong with your thinking.

Notice how your question is about psychology yet you go off on many tangents about society, a mythological past, social media, tech, AI, etc etc? While it's true that those things do have an influence over people, at the end of the day, aren't YOU the one who makes the final decisions about your own life?

It seems you want to be able to claim that some "thing" - something that is not you - is "causing" you to be unhappy. But isn't the truth of the matter more like you are unhappy because you don't care enough about yourself and your life to improve it? And even in the rare event that you feel motivated to improve your life, is it not true that your own lack of imagination continually holds you back?

When you look into the world and judge the people around you and how they live their lives, what you're really doing is looking for inspiration about how you should live yours? And when you don't get inspired, you denounce the world as empty or meaningless? You talk about how the world was "better before", when you were younger, but isn't that because you were new and had a lot to learn, so the world was full of wonder and, therefore, felt wonderful to you? What if you were only born five years ago?

What this shows you is that the problem lies mainly in your own perception - not the world out there. You've essentially become jaded because your view of the world was far too naive and simplistic to begin with. Every time "reality" turned out to be different than what you expected, you fixated on the disappointments and lost more and more of your hopeful attitude. Instead of rising to the occasion to understand complexity and adapt to reality, you rejected reality. And now you're stuck on an island of your own making.

Yes, factually, one cannot deny that there are lots of problems in this world, and they do sometimes constrain us. However, the difference between healthy vs unhealthy NPs is that healthy NPs see problems as opportunities. In other words, it is precisely because we are constantly being challenged by problems that human beings have many chances to exercise ingenuity and learn, improve, grow, mature, and evolve over time. From this perspective, problems ought to be accepted and treated as necessary for living a full life.

You believe "reality" or "society" are bad things that beat people down. You're looking for a scapegoat, so you point your finger and blame whatever for your unhappiness. But the problem largely lies within you and your denial of reality. When human beings get offended by problems and recoil from them, they trap themselves in a mental corner, and problems remain unresolved. As a result, they stop learning, improving, growing, maturing, and evolving - they stop living. From this perspective, wishing for a problem-free life is like wishing for spiritual death.

If you want to call yourself a rational person, you must face up to the facts of life. The facts of life include pain and suffering. And pain and suffering serve a purpose to teach you lessons and help you become the person you're meant to be. If you truly want to change your life, then you have to face up to and take responsibility for the pain and suffering you feel, rather than deflect and blame. Listen to pain carefully because it will tell you exactly what needs to change. And it is your job to make the necessary changes for your own well-being.

Your question is about psychology, yet you talk all around the most important aspects of psychological well-being rather than confronting them directly: feelings and emotions. If you were to read what you wrote as an objective third party, you might be able to see just how alienated and lonely the author really is.

Alienation and loneliness are painful emotions, aren't they? At least, they should be. Do you really allow yourself to feel them, or do you instantly deflect? In order to solve a problem, you first have to be aware of it. These emotions are important because they make you aware of a serious problem of not having a place in the world, of not mattering, of not belonging anywhere.

Every person is a unique individual, so we all have a unique path to take for carving out a space in society. It used to be that your place was forced upon you through family or society. People nowadays have more freedom to choose, so in that way, we are better than the past. Instead of appreciating the freedom and making full use of it, you expect what, for everything in life to just magically fall into place for you? Freedom comes with the responsibility to wield it wisely.

If you want to feel like you matter, that the world matters, that life matters, then you have to DO things that matter in the world. Mattering is not an abstract concept. It is found in the concrete ways through which you relate to the world. But it sounds like you don't do much relating to the world other than spectating and judging it from a distance? Your actions won't amount to much as long as your vision doesn't stretch far enough beyond your own ego.

Things seem different nowadays because they are. Nowadays, people's knowledge of the world is too often secondhand. Excessive consumption of trash media really distorts your perspective and confines your imagination. You are right to indict it, but what are you going to do about it? Couldn't you, at any point, choose differently rather than behave helplessly? Couldn't you put down the devices and go spend more time living a real life in the flesh-and-blood world?

If you choose not to, despite knowing that you should, then it is a problem of underdeveloped Ne+Fe. Don't you find it odd that there are millions of people in this world doing fascinating things that really matter, but you seem to fixate only on the people doing small things you don't like? Doesn't this fixation conveniently confirm your faulty belief that there's nothing good out there for you?

Ultimately, whether or not other people are finding meaning in their activities is their business and irrelevant to your journey, so rambling about it is a pointless distraction. Nobody is forcing you to copy anyone. Your job is to explore and discover a path that suits your unique needs.

Would you rather waste time basking in your critical judgments of the world's problems, or would you rather spend that time actually being out in the world finding opportunities to put yourself to good use in addressing those problems? In other words, do you choose the "benefits" of loop and grip, or do you choose to do the difficult work of forging a real connection to the world? You claim to have done some Ne work, but did it connect you to the world in any substantial way? If not, you've not been on the right track.

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

Stay Safe Online

[kntxt]

Metaphysics of Mattering

“Diagnostic questions you can ask to measure how much meaning in life you have:

1. What do you want to exist even if you don't?

2. How real is it? Is it really real?

3. How much of a difference do you make to it now?”

— John Vervaeke

[ofthuinn]

[fidelity to the event]

JH: When did he first come on this language? Was it in the Seven Sermons or was it earlier?

SS: I take it to be in the summer of 1914. The first layer of the text, running from October of 1913 through to February, where he engages in introspective elaboration of his fantasies, the method that he subsequently calls active imagination, is not an elevated language. It’s a precise depiction of what transpires. He maintains in that what I call a fidelity to the event.

JH: Fidelity to the event.

SS: Accurate notation, dates, precision, indicating that something of significance is taking place. There is no attempt to fictionalize it. It’s quite fantastic but it is real.

JH: And he is recording.

SS: He is recording it.

JH: I wanted to ask you about that. Does he record as it happens? Or does he record after he’s had the dialogues? Because when I did active imagination myself long ago most of it was done as it happened. So it was a writing, in a way. Some of it was not. Some of it was a conversation, interior, and then I would write it recapture it—by writing.

SS: This is one of the imponderable questions of which I’ve hit my head against the wall for many a year now in that it’s hard to make a decision on this. Certain segments of the text give the sense that he sees a dramatic sequence and then notes it down, whereas certain other segments of the text appear to unfold in the writing.

JH: Unfold in the writing as a flowing dialogue.

SS: Yes. Or there are certain statements that I like. There’s one point where he says, “I’ve run out of tobacco so I can’t write anymore.”

JH: That’s good.

SS: My intuition leans to this as a writing experience, but again you can’t be sure about this. Just looking at the materiality of the text suggests to me as a writer that he’s writing this out.

JH: Yes. But he does report dreams.

SS: Well actually very few and that’s one striking element of the text-my reading of this is that the dreams and the fantasies are separate layers. There are very few dreams noted, and there’s also very surprisingly little interplay between his dreams during this period and the fantasies that unfold.

JH: So he doesn’t take a figure from a dream and begin to work with that dream, that figure.

SS: No, if anything sometimes the opposite occurs. Characters from his fantasies then reemerge in the dream.

[Response]

Image work, if it is to be recorded, necessitates that there is fidelity to documenting the event (the image). But the act of documenting itself is a material practice, one that is deeply embedded in power structures and shaped by the cultural and social norms of the time and this has to considered when thinking about what fidelity to the event - means. Also I am an artist, this is a weird complication I am struggling with, documenting the image can be art, but it doesn't have to be and I really don't want it to be. But it is an art, a kind of art that I am struggling to find find the language to talk about. 

I am looking at my own desk in my own studio. I have in front of me a computer, as I think of this I now look to the pile of papers and bills on my right-hand side, what pierces immediately is the thought that within this pile is a bill for the debt that enabled me to buy this computer. This pile also has a lot of post-it notes with ideas, fragments written on them, image-words and there is also a postcard from a friend. The bills and the work are all in one pile and now I am beginning to think about this relationship and I can feel the poke of an image, like a tinge of a corner but now I try and stay with what I am physically present with and rather than sink down - or move forward into space with this I am trying to stay present for now and widen the gyre - a horizontal circular boundary around this slice of reality, space and time. 

The image is a thing I think I impulsively work with in a certain way - grab it or hold it? To make it real, am I spinning it - or am I spinning with it each time it becomes something else? When words or things come into place is this an equal exchange or have I exerted a power over something, some being trying to speak?  Maybe it doesn't want to be words or a thing or an idea. What really is the position of the ego as I do this?

To stay true to the facts, to resist the pull of form or aesthetic is challenging, I am wondering if this requires minimalism or maximalism. It is one of these extremes surely?  Do I record everything or nothing? 

I am thinking about boring poetry, poetry that is just a list of thing words. Shopping list, packing list, to-do list. 

Perceptions of events are shaped by the materials and technologies of the documentation, by the social and cultural contexts in which they were produced. Rather than seeking to transcend these material realities, how do I engage with them and grapple with them? How do I record a movement through digital space - freely - authentically - what are the wordable facts behind a drift, can I word them?

Image work is a practice of listening, this means there are voices heard and voices silenced. As such, the act of documenting an image is a political act, one that has the power to challenge dominant narratives and to bring marginalised voices to the forefront - this includes both the human to non-human. It is a practice that demands a deep engagement with materiality and a willingness to embrace complexity and resist the pull of simplistic or fantastical narratives.

To stay true to the facts, to resist the immediate temptation to ‘give form’ (a drawing, a poem, an object) means rethinking what it means to work with an image, a strange art that can mean - no things. This is a decentering of ego - a willingness to make (with) by making nothing. No physical truthy proofy thing.

[image] [vesseling] [spiralling] [mattering] [amplifying]

[road2nf]

I felt a lot more inspired to do things important to me

The Nerdfighter community has helped me realize that I’m not alone. At school, I was a geek, nerd, freak, etc. Sometimes I felt really self conscious, but I usually ignored it.

Then I read Paper Towns. There were some links in the back of the book, so I started watching the Vlogbrothers. That, in turn, led me to the online community.

I’ve made a lot of friends that are really rad. After a while, I also began watching Crash Course. They’ve helped me study for multiple tests. Also, I felt a lot more inspired to do things important to me. Music is one of the most important things in my life, but I didn’t know what to write about. Some of the artists on DFTBA Records reminded me that you should write for yourself. If Doctor Who is the only thing I can relate to, it’s 100% okay to write a song about it, and maybe someone else will like it too. I just want to thank them both for starting this and becoming so relevant to my life.

Marissa (Thehillsarealivewithfangirls.tumblr)

[realityhop]

"Does it matter if women ‘lean in’, to quote Sheryl Sandberg, and get positions of power?  These sorts of ambitions are only open to a small number of women by definition, and increasing the number of women in positions of power doesn’t seem to change much, ultimately.  Succeeding here perhaps only reinforces a particular system of domination and exploitation. [...] Far from possessing great power, men are frequently trapped in systems of other men’s making. […] Patriarchy, if we accept that this term refers to something real, absolutely hurts men too."

— Nina Power, What do Men Want? (2022)

"In the eighteenth century the conviction that man is endowed with certain rights was not a repetition of beliefs that were held by the community, nor even a repetition of beliefs handed down by forefathers.  It was a reflection of the situation of the men who proclaimed these rights; it expressed a critique of conditions that imperatively called for change, and this demand was understood by and translated into philosophical thought and historical actions.  The pathfinders of modern thought did not derive what is good from the law—they even broke the law—but they tried to reconcile the law with the good."

— Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason (1947)

"Men who choose the terrain of reason, as opposed to emotion, place themselves in a position of authority.  Only someone in a position of dominance can permit himself to be calm and reasonable in any circumstance, because he’s not the one who is suffering. [...] The thing is, no one likes emotions spilling over, even less so when they’re from a woman, and so it took a long time to reclaim this anger.  Now it’s begun to find its voice, and the taboos that have stifled it for centuries are being stripped away: people have started to write about it, to reflect on its causes, to compare it to male anger.  It exists.  We must cherish this voice and feed the flames of our anger deep in our breasts, heed its calls for justice and reparations, its insistence that we not lose heart."

— Pauline Harmange, I Hate Men (2020)

"If we are to change, it won’t be through rational knowledge, but through emotionally charged values."

— Paul Verhaeghe, What about Me? (2012/2014)

"Intentions are how we enact values in specific situations.  They’re ways we turn values into action at a specific time and place. […] There is the basic choice in life: doing what matters, doing what you care about, or having your days focused on trying to escape pain.”

— McKay/Greenberg/Fanning, The ACT Workbook for Depression and Shame (2020)

"What matters to us depends on what we care for, and there is no reason that we must all care for the same thing.  Morality should be part of the art of living, not a dictatorial authority ruling over us." — Nietzsche, narwhals and the burden of consciousness (2023)

"When people talk of morality they do not know what it is they are talking about.  At the same time they are unshakably certain in what they say.  This may seem paradoxical.  But it is not, since what they are doing is expressing their emotions.  Apart from any facts they may cite in support of them, there is nothing true or false in their judgements of value.  That is why there cannot be agreement in morality.  If value judgements merely express emotions, there is nothing to agree (or disagree) about." — Feline Philosophy (2020)

— John N. Gray

"The power of rhetorical discourse is often based upon its ability to harness this motivational power of emotions to encourage new beliefs and actions.  A rhetor who wishes an audience to reject something will inspire repelling emotions, while attracting emotions will be attached to the preferred belief or course of action.  However, emotions do not guarantee action.  The larger challenge is to use emotions productively rather than simply arousing them and then leaving them to fester or dissolve away."

— Nathan Crick, Rhetorical Public Speech: The Art of the Engaged Citizen (2007)

"No one has been as effective at mobilizing popular resentment of the [Professional Managerial Class] as Donald Trump.  He merely stepped in to take advantage of decades of successful conservative propaganda positioning PMC liberalism as the enemy of the people and popular interests.  Trump never pretended to be virtuous: his id-driven politics and lack of self-control formed the core of his appeal to those who felt scorned by the liberal superego.  To defeat reactionary politics masquerading as populism, we need anti-PMC class struggle from the Left, not more identity politics, which has become just another vehicle of PMC virtue signaling.  The Democratic Party, however, is not the political organization that will lead us in a struggle against capitalism and its deeply destructive system of exploitation and rent seeking.”

— Catherine Liu, Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class (2021)

"As long as enough people can be convinced to see men as the bourgeosie who have always unjustly benefited from their exploitation of women and women as the proletariat who have always been forced to toil and slave without benefit under the boot-heel of those privileged men, you can justify anything.  It becomes acceptable, justifiable, and appropriate for women to expropriate men's undeserved and unearned power, wealth, and privilege by any means necessary—including state coercion."

— Karen Straughan, Feminism: Socialism in Panties

[abdalsalam2000]

The ceasefire agreement was reached and joy is floating among the Palestinian people

[111papilio]

brazil miku

[kosmogrl]

the secret to life is always having something to look forward to

[correllian]

[snowstories]

My biggest tip for fanfic writers is this: if you get a character's mannerisms and speech pattern down, you can make them do pretty much whatever you want and it'll feel in character.

Logic: Characters, just like real people, are mallable. There is typically very little that's so truly, heinously out of character that you absolutely cannot make it work under any circumstance. In addition, most fans are also willing to accept characterization stretches if it makes the fic work. Yeah, we all know the villain and the hero wouldn't cuddle for warmth in canon. But if they did do that, how would they do it?

What counts is often not so much 'would the character do this?' and more 'if the character did do this, how would they do it?' If you get 'how' part right, your readers will probably be willing to buy the rest, because it will still feel like their favourite character. But if it doesn't feel like the character anymore, why are they even reading the fic?

Worry less about whether a character would do something, and more about how they'd sound while doing it.

[queerstudiesnatural]

some of my favourite sign fails <3

[arcanejude]

ARCANE 1.03 || 2.06

[guldaastan]

i genuinely hate how people have to sit and write a post that stands out while boosting a fundraiser because most people won't bat an eye at the misery and inhumane conditions Palestinians are living in.

i see people making art and telling others to use it because fundraisers with art are generally reblogged more often. i see people using colored text in order to make the post more eye catching.

palestinians on instagram are using popular audios and stitch trending reels at the beginning to make the world pay attention to them. imagine having to make something look entertaining in order to survive.

they are living under constant threat of israeli airstrikes, bombing, scarcity of food and disease. many have lost a lot in the past few months.

palestinians on tumblr are posting their pictures and the horrible conditions in which they are living. they travel long distances for internet connection only to be called a scammer by some privileged ass who cannot locate gaza on a map.

here are some verified gfms. please share the linked posts. it's the bare minimum we can do from the comforts of our home.

@amjadshiltawu: link to the post

vetted

@dima96yousef: link to the post

vetted

@tamer200333: link to the post

vetted

@ahmed8311: link to the post

vetted (#161)

@saratahrawi: link to the post

vetted

[blackbearmagic]

Shoutout to the two coworkers today who casually announced that they were voting for Trump, then asked me who I was voting for. I told them "I did early voting, and I voted for the candidate who isn't going to make it harder for me to exist as a trans person" and both of these women had to awkwardly try and assure me that it wasn't personal, and it's not like they hated Harris or anything, they actually do like some things about her, and they definitely don't hate me, of course not, it's just that, you know, well, it's like, well, you know, it's just, like, and no matter how many times they tried to pass the shovel off to me, I just let them hold onto it