I agree with john here, at least insofar as I very rarely feel love for my past self. I’m not necessarily angry at him, but all I see is his mistakes and what went wrong. So I rarely remember explicitly the struggle (although I journal, so I could if I wanted), and I certainly never empathize with my past self.
Thus I appreciate the sentiment and feels like it might be useful to some, but I’m definitely not one of them.
So, not claiming this is a particularly universally useful tool.
But, it is pretty important that when I say “your best future self” I mean “the future where either the singularity was worked out and now you’re an immortal god with centuries of skills you don’t currently have, including various emotional skills”, or, at least “Various life choices went pretty well, you lucked into the right relationships and experiences to learn the right combination of skills such that as a healthy 70 year old you’re able to talk with your past self with… if not empathy and compassion, whatever you think your past self actually needs.”
I do think in some cases that might mean more like “tough love.” I think if you’re a healthy 70 year old with useful life experiences who looks back and is like “man, Young Adam sure needed a kick in the pants to get going when he was busy whining to future me”… maybe past-simulated-future-you should ideally reply more like Bruce Lee did in this anecdote. But, I claim, you can still say “oh geez kid just grow up” or whatever with (subtle) underlying empathy and compassion (and if your past self is desperate and alone and felt motivated to pray to future you, I think it would be good to do so).
Notably: this is not necessarily a claim that it’s worth your effort to prioritize gaining the Steel Empathy skill and corresponding relational stance. But, in the world where you are scared and sad and alone, and don’t feel like you’re able to get the help you need from other people around you… you’re allowed to pray to the branching future version of yourself who eventually gained Steel Empathy and listened to the prayer.
Following your comment, I think what I feel that is the closest is the acceptation of my past self when I like where I’m at now. Right now, if you give me the opportunity to relive and change my youth, I don’t think I would do it. That’s because I think I’m in a good place, both in terms of my evolution and in terms of my relationships.
I can extrapolate this feeling to my future self, and imagine him feeling something akin to “damn, this past Adam did made some mistakes, but he did good enough and had enough luck to end up in this good place I’m here now”.
I agree with john here, at least insofar as I very rarely feel love for my past self. I’m not necessarily angry at him, but all I see is his mistakes and what went wrong. So I rarely remember explicitly the struggle (although I journal, so I could if I wanted), and I certainly never empathize with my past self.
Thus I appreciate the sentiment and feels like it might be useful to some, but I’m definitely not one of them.
So, not claiming this is a particularly universally useful tool.
But, it is pretty important that when I say “your best future self” I mean “the future where either the singularity was worked out and now you’re an immortal god with centuries of skills you don’t currently have, including various emotional skills”, or, at least “Various life choices went pretty well, you lucked into the right relationships and experiences to learn the right combination of skills such that as a healthy 70 year old you’re able to talk with your past self with… if not empathy and compassion, whatever you think your past self actually needs.”
I do think in some cases that might mean more like “tough love.” I think if you’re a healthy 70 year old with useful life experiences who looks back and is like “man, Young Adam sure needed a kick in the pants to get going when he was busy whining to future me”… maybe past-simulated-future-you should ideally reply more like Bruce Lee did in this anecdote. But, I claim, you can still say “oh geez kid just grow up” or whatever with (subtle) underlying empathy and compassion (and if your past self is desperate and alone and felt motivated to pray to future you, I think it would be good to do so).
Notably: this is not necessarily a claim that it’s worth your effort to prioritize gaining the Steel Empathy skill and corresponding relational stance. But, in the world where you are scared and sad and alone, and don’t feel like you’re able to get the help you need from other people around you… you’re allowed to pray to the branching future version of yourself who eventually gained Steel Empathy and listened to the prayer.
Following your comment, I think what I feel that is the closest is the acceptation of my past self when I like where I’m at now. Right now, if you give me the opportunity to relive and change my youth, I don’t think I would do it. That’s because I think I’m in a good place, both in terms of my evolution and in terms of my relationships.
I can extrapolate this feeling to my future self, and imagine him feeling something akin to “damn, this past Adam did made some mistakes, but he did good enough and had enough luck to end up in this good place I’m here now”.