I’ve found it difficult to imagine being in a romantic relationship I appreciate since becoming hardcore about worldsavey stuff. there are just too many things that would have to match. intense motivation is definitely one of them.
However, I’m finding your posts on this to be uncomfortable to read too closely, like my brain intuitively thinks there’s an injured thinking pattern that I’m inclined to generate and am not yet improved on, something like a brain fragment demanding agency in ways that don’t pay for themselves, demanding I already have solved a problem that isn’t being solved easily. people helping me render my agency properly would be quite welcome but this sort of self-demand, a conditional self-disgust that labels some states “you aren’t even worth defending as a worth-carrying hollow husk if you can’t provide what’s needed to win”, feels horrible and I want it gone. I want to get rid of the thing that tells me I am terrible when there is terrible out there that I haven’t solved and replace it with something that tells me the map of how to get rid of the terrible out there, and rates my current action gently but consistently in terms of how well I’m doing at fixing problems in the world. if I have to feel underwater in states of failure, as if I’ve lost the right to love myself and should make arbitrarily large sacrifices until back in the loved state, then there are brain parts that want to get in internal fights demanding the self-valuation be turned back on.
and this is definitely not a well calibrated state of mind to be in, the one that I am in in recent years; the current pattern is resulting in me doing far less than I could because I feel bad for being imperfect as soon as I think about something hard.
...perhaps we should clarify though. by “love” you mean something like “value the existence and presence of the person, in a way where you’d put part of your growth energy and strategizing towards consequentialism that results in the person ending up in a situation where their wants and needs are satisfied, and feel an internal sensation of value satisfaction when knowing the person’s values (wants, needs, etc) are satisfied”? because having that for myself is what I mean that I am often lacking when I say my self-love is iffy. That’s the thing I would also want a partner to have for me.
I will say though. you say you want intense power-couple type partner, if any partner; that resonates. I’d want to date someone on or above my level, interested in dating me and sees me as a valuable investment despite my not having reached maximum level yet. that’s how I’d phrase the thing jacob was talking about. they’d accept me into their value function despite my not being perfect yet—they’d have growth mindset about me and be able to appreciate my trajectory without seeing me as unworthy of connection because of fixed-mindset evaluation. also, this would need to be the same in reverse; I would value them as a person, and value our connection, because of how they already are, such that they’d be fun, nice, and most importantly, augmenting, to be around, even without additional growth. I would also find them not additionally growing and working hard at it to be a deal breaker, and would expect them to feel the same in return. but if they can’t see me as an already-nonzero-valuable fixer-upper[1], I’d find that upsetting. (not least because I think it’s objectively false.)
then there’s the whole different problem that I’d think anyone who wants to date me in my current circumstances, with the amount of energy I’d want to spend on connection, probably doesn’t have high enough standards to be someone I’d want to date. I could start finding someone intrinsically-valued by the standards above, and I’d probably just get sad and keep caring about them but not form a relationship or spend my time on them. I’d want to save goodness from cancer, and anyone capable of doing that wouldn’t match up with the particular set of tradeoffs I’m making to do it.
[1] (where flaws include, eg, not being a planetary mind yet, and also sometimes sleeping too much, or avoiding doing hard math I really need to get around to so I can maybe push work like yours forward ever at all dammit)
I’ve found it difficult to imagine being in a romantic relationship I appreciate since becoming hardcore about worldsavey stuff. there are just too many things that would have to match. intense motivation is definitely one of them.
However, I’m finding your posts on this to be uncomfortable to read too closely, like my brain intuitively thinks there’s an injured thinking pattern that I’m inclined to generate and am not yet improved on, something like a brain fragment demanding agency in ways that don’t pay for themselves, demanding I already have solved a problem that isn’t being solved easily. people helping me render my agency properly would be quite welcome but this sort of self-demand, a conditional self-disgust that labels some states “you aren’t even worth defending as a worth-carrying hollow husk if you can’t provide what’s needed to win”, feels horrible and I want it gone. I want to get rid of the thing that tells me I am terrible when there is terrible out there that I haven’t solved and replace it with something that tells me the map of how to get rid of the terrible out there, and rates my current action gently but consistently in terms of how well I’m doing at fixing problems in the world. if I have to feel underwater in states of failure, as if I’ve lost the right to love myself and should make arbitrarily large sacrifices until back in the loved state, then there are brain parts that want to get in internal fights demanding the self-valuation be turned back on.
and this is definitely not a well calibrated state of mind to be in, the one that I am in in recent years; the current pattern is resulting in me doing far less than I could because I feel bad for being imperfect as soon as I think about something hard.
...perhaps we should clarify though. by “love” you mean something like “value the existence and presence of the person, in a way where you’d put part of your growth energy and strategizing towards consequentialism that results in the person ending up in a situation where their wants and needs are satisfied, and feel an internal sensation of value satisfaction when knowing the person’s values (wants, needs, etc) are satisfied”? because having that for myself is what I mean that I am often lacking when I say my self-love is iffy. That’s the thing I would also want a partner to have for me.
I will say though. you say you want intense power-couple type partner, if any partner; that resonates. I’d want to date someone on or above my level, interested in dating me and sees me as a valuable investment despite my not having reached maximum level yet. that’s how I’d phrase the thing jacob was talking about. they’d accept me into their value function despite my not being perfect yet—they’d have growth mindset about me and be able to appreciate my trajectory without seeing me as unworthy of connection because of fixed-mindset evaluation. also, this would need to be the same in reverse; I would value them as a person, and value our connection, because of how they already are, such that they’d be fun, nice, and most importantly, augmenting, to be around, even without additional growth. I would also find them not additionally growing and working hard at it to be a deal breaker, and would expect them to feel the same in return. but if they can’t see me as an already-nonzero-valuable fixer-upper[1], I’d find that upsetting. (not least because I think it’s objectively false.)
then there’s the whole different problem that I’d think anyone who wants to date me in my current circumstances, with the amount of energy I’d want to spend on connection, probably doesn’t have high enough standards to be someone I’d want to date. I could start finding someone intrinsically-valued by the standards above, and I’d probably just get sad and keep caring about them but not form a relationship or spend my time on them. I’d want to save goodness from cancer, and anyone capable of doing that wouldn’t match up with the particular set of tradeoffs I’m making to do it.
[1] (where flaws include, eg, not being a planetary mind yet, and also sometimes sleeping too much, or avoiding doing hard math I really need to get around to so I can maybe push work like yours forward ever at all dammit)