re: your remark that you’ve often identified as contrarian as a sort of reaction to social ostracism, you might be interested in Scott Alexander’s classic post Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism. Reading that a long time ago was perhaps the single biggest reason my contrarian-for-its-own-sake instinct flamed out, replaced by fact-posting (cf. Sarah Constantin’s Fact Posts: How and Why), which is less fun short-term but has ultimately been far more rewarding, including in unanticipated ways (e.g. enabling mid-career pivots).
re: your remark that you’ve often identified as contrarian as a sort of reaction to social ostracism, you might be interested in Scott Alexander’s classic post Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism. Reading that a long time ago was perhaps the single biggest reason my contrarian-for-its-own-sake instinct flamed out, replaced by fact-posting (cf. Sarah Constantin’s Fact Posts: How and Why), which is less fun short-term but has ultimately been far more rewarding, including in unanticipated ways (e.g. enabling mid-career pivots).