In the spirit of incremental progress, there is an interpersonal reality-masking pattern I observe.
Perhaps I’m meeting someone I don’t know too well, and we’re sort of feeling each other out. It becomes clear that they’re sort of hoping for me to be shaped a certain way. To take the concrete example at hand, perhaps they’re hoping that I reliably avoid reality-masking puzzles. Unless I’m quite diligent, then I will shape my self-presentation to match that desire.
This has two larger consequences. The first is if that person is trying to tell if they want to have more regular contact with me, we’re starting to build a relationship with a rotten plank that will spawn many more reality-masking puzzles.
The second is that I might buy my own bullshit, and identify with avoiding reality-masking puzzles. And I might try to proselytize for this behavior. But I don’t really understand it. So when talking to people, I’ll be playing with the puzzle of how to mask my lack of understanding / actually holding the virtue. And if I’m fairly confident about the goodness of this virtue, then I’ll also be pushing those around me to play with the puzzle of how they can feel they have this virtue without knowing what it really is
In the spirit of incremental progress, there is an interpersonal reality-masking pattern I observe.
Perhaps I’m meeting someone I don’t know too well, and we’re sort of feeling each other out. It becomes clear that they’re sort of hoping for me to be shaped a certain way. To take the concrete example at hand, perhaps they’re hoping that I reliably avoid reality-masking puzzles. Unless I’m quite diligent, then I will shape my self-presentation to match that desire.
This has two larger consequences. The first is if that person is trying to tell if they want to have more regular contact with me, we’re starting to build a relationship with a rotten plank that will spawn many more reality-masking puzzles.
The second is that I might buy my own bullshit, and identify with avoiding reality-masking puzzles. And I might try to proselytize for this behavior. But I don’t really understand it. So when talking to people, I’ll be playing with the puzzle of how to mask my lack of understanding / actually holding the virtue. And if I’m fairly confident about the goodness of this virtue, then I’ll also be pushing those around me to play with the puzzle of how they can feel they have this virtue without knowing what it really is