TDT is not even that good at cooperating with yourself, if you’re not in the right mindset. The notion that “If you fail at this you will fail at this forever” is very dangerous to depressed people, and TDT doesn’t say anything useful (or at least nothing useful has been said to me on the topic) about entities that change over time, ie Humans. I can’t timelessly decide to benchpress 200 pounds whenever I go to the gym, if I’m physically incapable of it.
A failure or so, in itself, would not matter, if it did not incur a loss of self-esteem and of self-confidence. But just as nothing succeeds like success, so nothing fails like failure. Most people who are ruined are ruined by attempting too much. Therefore, in setting out on the immense enterprise of living fully and comfortably within the narrow limits of twenty-four hours a day, let us avoid at any cost the risk of an early failure. I will not agree that, in this business at any rate, a glorious failure is better than a petty success. I am all for the petty success. A glorious failure leads to nothing; a petty success may lead to a success that is not petty.
TDT is not even that good at cooperating with yourself, if you’re not in the right mindset. The notion that “If you fail at this you will fail at this forever” is very dangerous to depressed people, and TDT doesn’t say anything useful (or at least nothing useful has been said to me on the topic) about entities that change over time, ie Humans. I can’t timelessly decide to benchpress 200 pounds whenever I go to the gym, if I’m physically incapable of it.
-Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day
A dangerous truth is still true. Let’s not recommend people try at things if a failure will cause a failure cascade!
The notion of “change over time” is deeply irrelevant to TDT, hence its name.