Translating this to the mental script that works for me: If I picture myself in the role of the astronauts on the Columbia as it was falling apart, or a football team in the last few minutes of a game where they’re twenty points behind, I know the script calls for just keeping up your best effort (as you know it) until after the shuttle explodes or the buzzer sounds. So I can just do that.
Why is there an alternative script that calls to go insane? I think because there’s a version that equates that with a heroic effort, that thinks that if I dramatize and just try harder (as shown by visible effort signalling), that equates with making a true desperate effort that might actually work in a way that just calmly doing my best to the end won’t. But since I know that script is wrong, I can just not play it.
(Why does that script exist? I think for signalling reasons—going insane over something is a good way to shallowly signal I think it’s significant. But it’s not a good way to solve the underlying problem when it’s the underlying problem that needs solving, so I just choose not to do it when that’s the case. A similar example: If I imagine seeing a news article about a child going missing, it’s easy for me to picture myself remarking “oh that’s terrible, I’m crying just imagining the parents”. If I imagine a child of mine or of a close friend going missing, my mental script’s next step is “okay track down where he was, call the police, think of more action steps”. Because there I care more about finding the child than about signalling that I care about finding the child).
I thought the “going insane” thing would have been about showing everyone around you that you need help and/or are not a person able to give help to anyone else.
An example: near the end of “Saving Private Ryan”, the squad led by Tom Hanks gets into a pitched battle with some German soldiers. One of the members of the squad spends the entire battle hiding behind a building and crying.
Translating this to the mental script that works for me:
If I picture myself in the role of the astronauts on the Columbia as it was falling apart, or a football team in the last few minutes of a game where they’re twenty points behind, I know the script calls for just keeping up your best effort (as you know it) until after the shuttle explodes or the buzzer sounds. So I can just do that.
Why is there an alternative script that calls to go insane? I think because there’s a version that equates that with a heroic effort, that thinks that if I dramatize and just try harder (as shown by visible effort signalling), that equates with making a true desperate effort that might actually work in a way that just calmly doing my best to the end won’t. But since I know that script is wrong, I can just not play it.
(Why does that script exist? I think for signalling reasons—going insane over something is a good way to shallowly signal I think it’s significant. But it’s not a good way to solve the underlying problem when it’s the underlying problem that needs solving, so I just choose not to do it when that’s the case.
A similar example: If I imagine seeing a news article about a child going missing, it’s easy for me to picture myself remarking “oh that’s terrible, I’m crying just imagining the parents”. If I imagine a child of mine or of a close friend going missing, my mental script’s next step is “okay track down where he was, call the police, think of more action steps”. Because there I care more about finding the child than about signalling that I care about finding the child).
I thought the “going insane” thing would have been about showing everyone around you that you need help and/or are not a person able to give help to anyone else.
An example: near the end of “Saving Private Ryan”, the squad led by Tom Hanks gets into a pitched battle with some German soldiers. One of the members of the squad spends the entire battle hiding behind a building and crying.