So. I’m Samwise. If you earn my loyalty, by convincing me that what you’re working on is valuable and that you’re the person who should be doing it, I’ll stick by you whatever it takes, and I’ll make sure you succeed. I don’t have a Frodo right now. But I’m looking for one.
...
For me, finding someone who shared my values, who was smart and rational enough for me to trust him, and who was in a much better position to actually accomplish what I most cared about than I imagined myself ever being, was the best thing that could have happened to me.
Just out of curiousity—is Frodo person implicitly intended to be a romantic partner here? Or can Frodo just be anyone you work closely with? The wording certainly makes it seems seem like a romantic partner. And it could be a spurious trend but I also couldn’t help but notice the female skew of all the Samwise’s you mentioned, which, given the low grade dominance/submission dynamics often at play between the genders, makes me suspect this even more.
I think nursing is a valid life choice, and I think being a Samwise is a valid choice, and I think wanting to find a romantic partner and take care of them and make their ambitious dreams come true is a valid choice, and I think in general just being a person who isn’t actively trying to save the world is a valid life choice. (Mostly because I’m not certain that people who have a burning ambition to save the world are actually contributing that much more than the rest of the population.)
I feel like things get kind of… weird… if these perfectly good traits are recombined into “I want to be in a super-intense relationship with someone who is successfully saving the world”. I’m not sure how to describe this—I’d like to try and “save the world” myself with my own little contribution, but I don’t want that contribution to be the major reason my partner is drawn to and stays by me. I don’t want it to be because my work is “valuable”.
If Frodo utterly fails in his ambitions, Samwise-who-wants-to-save-the-world-via-auxiliary-roles aught will hop to a new, better Frodo to support. Can a bond which is essentially based off of someone’s propensity to succeed at what they are doing in life really grow to be unconditional? What if Frodo suddenly gets a debilitating disease and can’t be a Frodo anymore?
I’m well aware that I might be completely misreading/projecting the intended relationship between Frodo/Samwise here, and feel free to put me in my place if that is the case. But If I presumed rightly, I would say: It’s okay, you don’t need to conceptualize yourself as a sidekick, - by doing so you’re still implicitly buying into the whole comic-book heroism meme, in which you must behave dramatically and drastically in order to be relevant.
It’s perfectly alright to just say that you would like to live a simple life of devotion to your partner, patients, friends, family, and community, and that abstract ideas of “saving the world” have nothing to do with it. People like that are the fabric of the society the comic-book types want to protect and enrich in the first place!
All of the above is true. And this post is explicitly written for the people who have bought into “the world needs saving” and are angsty about it because they don’t want to perform a “hero” role but feel like they should. I’m sure there are thousands of people all around me living simple lives of devotion to their families, partners, and communities. (This includes many of my fellow nurses.) They don’t need telling that this is okay. In fact, I think that in larger society, this might be an overall bad message for me personally to send, because it’s possible that in society at large women are dissuaded harder from being CEOs than from being executive assistants (or whatever dichotomy) and sending that message an extra time, even if it’s well-written and nuanced, would just sum up to “see, honey, another smart-sounding lady says your place in the world is as the CEO’s assistant!” (The message would have a different impact if I were male, but I’m not and I can’t do that hypothetical.)
But I’m posting this on Less Wrong, where the worldview of “the world is broken and my ethics dictate I try to fix it” is a pretty common mindset. It’s something I’ve bought into, to a degree. I’m talking to the people who already believe that heroes exist. (Maybe they ought not to.) I’d like those people not to have to feel distressed about this.
Can a bond which is essentially based off of someone’s propensity to succeed at what they are doing in life really grow to be unconditional? What if Frodo suddenly gets a debilitating disease and can’t be a Frodo anymore?
No. If I were helping someone accomplish an important project, and they became debilitated, I’d find another Frodo. (After I’d made sure my first Frodo was going to at least be comfortable and not miserable.) It’d be hard. Loyalty runs deep in me. I don’t know if this is a necessary fact about a Samwise character, or if it’s just happened to be true of all the people I’ve talked to so far. But the ethics I have now that dictate that being a nurse for forty years is not the thing I can do with the largest positive expected impact on the world, would also dictate the same thing about being my former Frodo’s home-care nurse. Brienne has been pretty explicit that if she’s working with a hero, and finds out that they’re wrong about a fundamental thing and thus that she could make more impact on her own, she would do it, even though it would be a personal tragedy.
In terms of the romance aspect… I have no idea. It doesn’t feel necessary. It feels like there are lots of real-life examples of a dynamic that would be satisfying and feel right to me and aren’t romantic–a CEO’s executive assistant isn’t normally their romantic partner. Nursing has many of the same aspects, and makes me deeply happy, and there’s nothing to do with romance there. Maybe if you’re going to be working with a single person, romance is convenient; time spent with your partner is also time spent on your important project, you don’t have to budget them separately. (This sounds potentially unhealthy/hard on the relationship aspect, so I don’t know.)
I’m talking to the people who already believe that heroes exist. (Maybe they ought not to.) I’d like those people not to have to feel distressed about this.
Why should not being distressed be a terminal goal?
Surely what you really want is that they not feel distressed if it’s a good idea, but that they do feel distressed if it’s a bad idea. You don’t want them to be not-distressed unconditionally regardless of whether the idea is good or bad.
Which means that in order to decide whether they should feel distressed about doing something, you first need to decide whether it’s a good idea. You don’t want to just be feeding their delusions, if you conclude that they are delusions.
I’m an aromantic asexual who is not a woman and does not want a romantic relationship and I identify very closely with the expressed desire to ‘find a Frodo’. I interpreted this as a desire for exactly what was stated: a hero-sidekick relationship.
This is anecdotal, and so not data, but it’s enough to prove that this isn’t ONLY about intense romantic relationships.
It worries me a bit that several young LWers appear to be leaving paid employment to do (presumably?) unpaid work for their partners. What happens if these relationships break down? Are they going to be able to find paid work after a long break from the job market?
Sorry, I meant to say it worries me a bit if young LWers are leaving paid employment to work unpaid for their partners. I haven’t actually witnessed a bunch of people appear to do this—it was more of a concern after reading the post. However, it looks as if Swimmer963 is making sensible plans.
Does “partners” mean “romantic partners”? Is that a good idea?
This is not a rhetorical question, and I could see how it is a awful I idea that has the potential to go wrong, but can also see that the intimacy is actually extremely beneficial.
Clarification: I’m not actually planning to do unpaid work for Ruby, at least not immediately. I’m going to be retraining as an executive assistant, because they’re useful, and keeping my nursing license valid (possibly finding a part time nursing job if that turns out to be at all feasible, because I really love working as a nurse.)
possibly finding a part time nursing job if that turns out to be at all feasible, because I really love working as a nurse
I strongly suggest that.
I’m not a nurse so I don’t really know, but I have trouble imagining scenarios where a nurse who is agenty enough to be an executive assistant doesn’t end up making a big difference as a nurse, at least locally, to a lot of people. Passion confers abilities, and ripple effects of small improvements in hands-on fields should not be underestimated.
...
Just out of curiousity—is Frodo person implicitly intended to be a romantic partner here? Or can Frodo just be anyone you work closely with? The wording certainly makes it seems seem like a romantic partner. And it could be a spurious trend but I also couldn’t help but notice the female skew of all the Samwise’s you mentioned, which, given the low grade dominance/submission dynamics often at play between the genders, makes me suspect this even more.
I think nursing is a valid life choice, and I think being a Samwise is a valid choice, and I think wanting to find a romantic partner and take care of them and make their ambitious dreams come true is a valid choice, and I think in general just being a person who isn’t actively trying to save the world is a valid life choice. (Mostly because I’m not certain that people who have a burning ambition to save the world are actually contributing that much more than the rest of the population.)
I feel like things get kind of… weird… if these perfectly good traits are recombined into “I want to be in a super-intense relationship with someone who is successfully saving the world”. I’m not sure how to describe this—I’d like to try and “save the world” myself with my own little contribution, but I don’t want that contribution to be the major reason my partner is drawn to and stays by me. I don’t want it to be because my work is “valuable”.
If Frodo utterly fails in his ambitions, Samwise-who-wants-to-save-the-world-via-auxiliary-roles aught will hop to a new, better Frodo to support. Can a bond which is essentially based off of someone’s propensity to succeed at what they are doing in life really grow to be unconditional? What if Frodo suddenly gets a debilitating disease and can’t be a Frodo anymore?
I’m well aware that I might be completely misreading/projecting the intended relationship between Frodo/Samwise here, and feel free to put me in my place if that is the case. But If I presumed rightly, I would say: It’s okay, you don’t need to conceptualize yourself as a sidekick, - by doing so you’re still implicitly buying into the whole comic-book heroism meme, in which you must behave dramatically and drastically in order to be relevant.
It’s perfectly alright to just say that you would like to live a simple life of devotion to your partner, patients, friends, family, and community, and that abstract ideas of “saving the world” have nothing to do with it. People like that are the fabric of the society the comic-book types want to protect and enrich in the first place!
All of the above is true. And this post is explicitly written for the people who have bought into “the world needs saving” and are angsty about it because they don’t want to perform a “hero” role but feel like they should. I’m sure there are thousands of people all around me living simple lives of devotion to their families, partners, and communities. (This includes many of my fellow nurses.) They don’t need telling that this is okay. In fact, I think that in larger society, this might be an overall bad message for me personally to send, because it’s possible that in society at large women are dissuaded harder from being CEOs than from being executive assistants (or whatever dichotomy) and sending that message an extra time, even if it’s well-written and nuanced, would just sum up to “see, honey, another smart-sounding lady says your place in the world is as the CEO’s assistant!” (The message would have a different impact if I were male, but I’m not and I can’t do that hypothetical.)
But I’m posting this on Less Wrong, where the worldview of “the world is broken and my ethics dictate I try to fix it” is a pretty common mindset. It’s something I’ve bought into, to a degree. I’m talking to the people who already believe that heroes exist. (Maybe they ought not to.) I’d like those people not to have to feel distressed about this.
No. If I were helping someone accomplish an important project, and they became debilitated, I’d find another Frodo. (After I’d made sure my first Frodo was going to at least be comfortable and not miserable.) It’d be hard. Loyalty runs deep in me. I don’t know if this is a necessary fact about a Samwise character, or if it’s just happened to be true of all the people I’ve talked to so far. But the ethics I have now that dictate that being a nurse for forty years is not the thing I can do with the largest positive expected impact on the world, would also dictate the same thing about being my former Frodo’s home-care nurse. Brienne has been pretty explicit that if she’s working with a hero, and finds out that they’re wrong about a fundamental thing and thus that she could make more impact on her own, she would do it, even though it would be a personal tragedy.
In terms of the romance aspect… I have no idea. It doesn’t feel necessary. It feels like there are lots of real-life examples of a dynamic that would be satisfying and feel right to me and aren’t romantic–a CEO’s executive assistant isn’t normally their romantic partner. Nursing has many of the same aspects, and makes me deeply happy, and there’s nothing to do with romance there. Maybe if you’re going to be working with a single person, romance is convenient; time spent with your partner is also time spent on your important project, you don’t have to budget them separately. (This sounds potentially unhealthy/hard on the relationship aspect, so I don’t know.)
Why should not being distressed be a terminal goal?
Surely what you really want is that they not feel distressed if it’s a good idea, but that they do feel distressed if it’s a bad idea. You don’t want them to be not-distressed unconditionally regardless of whether the idea is good or bad.
Which means that in order to decide whether they should feel distressed about doing something, you first need to decide whether it’s a good idea. You don’t want to just be feeding their delusions, if you conclude that they are delusions.
I’m more okay with it being because my work is valuable: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/
Some people do need to see that link, but note that it, too, is rather dangerous.
I’m an aromantic asexual who is not a woman and does not want a romantic relationship and I identify very closely with the expressed desire to ‘find a Frodo’. I interpreted this as a desire for exactly what was stated: a hero-sidekick relationship.
This is anecdotal, and so not data, but it’s enough to prove that this isn’t ONLY about intense romantic relationships.
It worries me a bit that several young LWers appear to be leaving paid employment to do (presumably?) unpaid work for their partners. What happens if these relationships break down? Are they going to be able to find paid work after a long break from the job market?
Name three?
Sorry, I meant to say it worries me a bit if young LWers are leaving paid employment to work unpaid for their partners. I haven’t actually witnessed a bunch of people appear to do this—it was more of a concern after reading the post. However, it looks as if Swimmer963 is making sensible plans.
Does “partners” mean “romantic partners”? Is that a good idea?
This is not a rhetorical question, and I could see how it is a awful I idea that has the potential to go wrong, but can also see that the intimacy is actually extremely beneficial.
Clarification: I’m not actually planning to do unpaid work for Ruby, at least not immediately. I’m going to be retraining as an executive assistant, because they’re useful, and keeping my nursing license valid (possibly finding a part time nursing job if that turns out to be at all feasible, because I really love working as a nurse.)
I strongly suggest that.
I’m not a nurse so I don’t really know, but I have trouble imagining scenarios where a nurse who is agenty enough to be an executive assistant doesn’t end up making a big difference as a nurse, at least locally, to a lot of people. Passion confers abilities, and ripple effects of small improvements in hands-on fields should not be underestimated.