It’s kind of wild, when you stop to think about it, that one person will experience this world as a cold and lonely and terrifyingly dangerous place full of abusers and manipulators and people who are not to be trusted, and another person who lives on the same street in the same city and went to the same schools with the same teachers and grew up with parents in the same economic bracket will experience it as warm and friendly and forgiving and safe, and both of these people will be able to present overwhelmingly compelling evidence in favor of these fundamentally incompatible worldviews. What, uh. What the fuck is going on?
This has always been fascinating to me, but I think there is a clear answer: Good and Bad things cluster together across different axes, not just spatially. If you find something good, keep going in that direction. There is probably more Good around it. If you find something bad, flee. There is probably a lot more Bad around too.
Both clusters of good and bad have limits, and bad things do happen next to good things. But the good and bad clusters tend to congregate quite densely with each other.
This example seems to me as though it is looking at the wrong dimensions/axes (economics, teachers, neighborhood may be less influential than friends, family, and romantic) and so misses that there are still clear clusters of good and bad surrounding each person.
Understanding that good and bad things cluster together has driven the largest change in my life and has been a huge improvement for me.
This has always been fascinating to me, but I think there is a clear answer: Good and Bad things cluster together across different axes, not just spatially. If you find something good, keep going in that direction. There is probably more Good around it. If you find something bad, flee. There is probably a lot more Bad around too.
Both clusters of good and bad have limits, and bad things do happen next to good things. But the good and bad clusters tend to congregate quite densely with each other.
This example seems to me as though it is looking at the wrong dimensions/axes (economics, teachers, neighborhood may be less influential than friends, family, and romantic) and so misses that there are still clear clusters of good and bad surrounding each person.
Understanding that good and bad things cluster together has driven the largest change in my life and has been a huge improvement for me.