I cannot tell if you writing this is actually helpful or not. Nonetheless I personally appreciate the attempt. I’m inspired to try to speak a little about how I see it.
I live in a community where ‘going insane’ is seen as a volitional act (volitional does not imply self-consciously aware; the vast majority of intentions or volitional actions are not in self-conscious awareness). So if someone acts in an insane way, it’s seen as a mistake on their part, and we offer support as it seems appropriate. We don’t bother blaming people. People != Their patterns of behavior or choices. And agreeing with you above, People != Personalities, on any level.
When we talk about how to avoid insanity, we speak about taking “adult” responsibility, where “adult” is a technical term. Being an ‘adult’ is a stage of life; it’s not where everyone needs to be. But we do see that lots of people who are ‘of age’ (18+) have been stuck in the ‘adolescent’ stage. (For instance, I am still working through this in my late 30s.) Another word we might use is ‘parent’. Who’s a parent? Versus a baby or child or teenager, which are also valid life stages.
A properly responsible parental adult does not go insane (in this case, “going insane” could mean something like—have a psychotic break, get too depressed to get out of bed and feed the kids, throw a temper tantrum, or intentionally harm themselves such that they can’t take care of their kids). “does not go insane” here means these things are NOT on the table; it’s not in the conversation; it’s not an option; it’s not a possibility. This is importantly NOT some form of denial or active forcing. It’s just gone from the picture. The whole world has moved such that this cannot happen. It’s a clean cut. It’s so clean that no one even remembers what the problem might have been. No one even considers it. What are we talking about? It’s not worth wasting even one second on it.
Note: We acknowledge that nowadays, lots of literal parents with children aren’t responsible adults in this sense. And this might be sounding harsh and unforgiving or something, but again, we don’t blame anybody here. But yes, it’s a choice. We observe that society has been degrading people’s ability to initiate into proper adulthood, but we should also acknowledge that we have been complicit in giving up our right to become an adult, to be initiated, and there’s no comfortable way to deflect.
So there’s a lot more aged adolescents in the world, and the global machine mind wants that, for reasons that are pretty nefarious and evil imo, but that’s another topic.
So the mechanism I’m speaking to is: Grow Up
There’s a lot of parts to this, and it has taken me years to even work this out for myself, but that sums it up.
Some of the parts:
Everything I do matters and has consequences
I care. I have compassion for myself and others and, in fact, all life.
It’s not about me (as Eliezer says above).
One step for ‘it’s not about me’ (which is a step out of adolescence and into adulthood) is to act for something larger than me. To live for something larger than myself. This can be as simple as living for one’s family or children. But it can be as big as living for all of planet earth or for all beings through space and time. But I’d suggest starting with the smaller stuff, because for most people, ‘planet earth’ or “all of humanity” is conceptual, and that’s not gonna cut it for actually making the shift.
Making concrete, tangible sacrifices for something greater than myself is a pathway. In fact, it’s good to train doing this all the time, so that nothing I do is for the sake of maintaining the character of my own story.
I cannot tell if you writing this is actually helpful or not. Nonetheless I personally appreciate the attempt. I’m inspired to try to speak a little about how I see it.
I live in a community where ‘going insane’ is seen as a volitional act (volitional does not imply self-consciously aware; the vast majority of intentions or volitional actions are not in self-conscious awareness). So if someone acts in an insane way, it’s seen as a mistake on their part, and we offer support as it seems appropriate. We don’t bother blaming people. People != Their patterns of behavior or choices. And agreeing with you above, People != Personalities, on any level.
When we talk about how to avoid insanity, we speak about taking “adult” responsibility, where “adult” is a technical term. Being an ‘adult’ is a stage of life; it’s not where everyone needs to be. But we do see that lots of people who are ‘of age’ (18+) have been stuck in the ‘adolescent’ stage. (For instance, I am still working through this in my late 30s.) Another word we might use is ‘parent’. Who’s a parent? Versus a baby or child or teenager, which are also valid life stages.
A properly responsible parental adult does not go insane (in this case, “going insane” could mean something like—have a psychotic break, get too depressed to get out of bed and feed the kids, throw a temper tantrum, or intentionally harm themselves such that they can’t take care of their kids). “does not go insane” here means these things are NOT on the table; it’s not in the conversation; it’s not an option; it’s not a possibility. This is importantly NOT some form of denial or active forcing. It’s just gone from the picture. The whole world has moved such that this cannot happen. It’s a clean cut. It’s so clean that no one even remembers what the problem might have been. No one even considers it. What are we talking about? It’s not worth wasting even one second on it.
Note: We acknowledge that nowadays, lots of literal parents with children aren’t responsible adults in this sense. And this might be sounding harsh and unforgiving or something, but again, we don’t blame anybody here. But yes, it’s a choice. We observe that society has been degrading people’s ability to initiate into proper adulthood, but we should also acknowledge that we have been complicit in giving up our right to become an adult, to be initiated, and there’s no comfortable way to deflect.
So there’s a lot more aged adolescents in the world, and the global machine mind wants that, for reasons that are pretty nefarious and evil imo, but that’s another topic.
So the mechanism I’m speaking to is: Grow Up
There’s a lot of parts to this, and it has taken me years to even work this out for myself, but that sums it up.
Some of the parts:
Everything I do matters and has consequences
I care. I have compassion for myself and others and, in fact, all life.
It’s not about me (as Eliezer says above).
One step for ‘it’s not about me’ (which is a step out of adolescence and into adulthood) is to act for something larger than me. To live for something larger than myself. This can be as simple as living for one’s family or children. But it can be as big as living for all of planet earth or for all beings through space and time. But I’d suggest starting with the smaller stuff, because for most people, ‘planet earth’ or “all of humanity” is conceptual, and that’s not gonna cut it for actually making the shift.
Making concrete, tangible sacrifices for something greater than myself is a pathway. In fact, it’s good to train doing this all the time, so that nothing I do is for the sake of maintaining the character of my own story.