“You can just do things,” yes, really, but that doesn’t imply that you always should, or that you have high likelihood of said things causing the results you’d prefer. Even so, the reminder is often valuable that yes, actually, you can, you have the power to choose to do so and the right to determine what to do with your own body, including choosing when to listen to conventional wisdom or to those who consider themselves wiser than you. Power is dangerous, and necessary, and agency is a big part of that.
Another side of this that gets discussed here sometimes is: no human actually has enough experience and personal competence in enough things to properly wield the powers the modern world gives us, not by their own strength. It takes a surprising amount of self-awareness to recognize whose fumbling attempts are more likely to go well, but at some level we’re all fumbling around trying to reach beyond ourselves because the alternative is (individual or collective) failure and, sooner or later, death.
I spent the first decade of my adult life paralyzed by indecision and imposter syndrome and leaned helplessness (along with depression and anxiety, which is definitely not entirely separate). I still struggle with this, and probably always will to some degree. It’s very freeing and empowering when I can let go of all that. Honestly, I think the modern world has done us a bit of a disservice by making it possible to (almost) always access knowledge about things before we even take thirty seconds to think for ourselves. And also for structuring kids’ lives to not have much exposure to practical and independent problem solving and, yes, the sometimes devastating consequences of failure. Are we safer? Absolutely. We’re also more fragile, in body and mind. There’s a Discworldquote I’ve always liked about how if you treat children like kittens and puppies, they’ll grow up to be like cats and dogs, when what we want is for them to grow up to be adults.
“You can just do things,” yes, really, but that doesn’t imply that you always should, or that you have high likelihood of said things causing the results you’d prefer.
“You can just do things,” yes, really, but that doesn’t imply that you always should, or that you have high likelihood of said things causing the results you’d prefer. Even so, the reminder is often valuable that yes, actually, you can, you have the power to choose to do so and the right to determine what to do with your own body, including choosing when to listen to conventional wisdom or to those who consider themselves wiser than you. Power is dangerous, and necessary, and agency is a big part of that.
Another side of this that gets discussed here sometimes is: no human actually has enough experience and personal competence in enough things to properly wield the powers the modern world gives us, not by their own strength. It takes a surprising amount of self-awareness to recognize whose fumbling attempts are more likely to go well, but at some level we’re all fumbling around trying to reach beyond ourselves because the alternative is (individual or collective) failure and, sooner or later, death.
I spent the first decade of my adult life paralyzed by indecision and imposter syndrome and leaned helplessness (along with depression and anxiety, which is definitely not entirely separate). I still struggle with this, and probably always will to some degree. It’s very freeing and empowering when I can let go of all that. Honestly, I think the modern world has done us a bit of a disservice by making it possible to (almost) always access knowledge about things before we even take thirty seconds to think for ourselves. And also for structuring kids’ lives to not have much exposure to practical and independent problem solving and, yes, the sometimes devastating consequences of failure. Are we safer? Absolutely. We’re also more fragile, in body and mind. There’s a Discworld quote I’ve always liked about how if you treat children like kittens and puppies, they’ll grow up to be like cats and dogs, when what we want is for them to grow up to be adults.
cf https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BnFuHDueG9vRAYqLd/changing-the-world-for-the-worse