Small note that is probably pretty simple by the standards of this excellent comment section, but strong emotion is, itself a problem that needs to be solved, often first. It’s like snowfall on the driveway. Some people get a little with the vagaries of life, others get a lot. Sometimes it melts quickly, sometimes you have to shovel it.
To be less metaphorical, people need to feel believed, cared for, and like they’d be listened to. Nail-in-head woman might be a bit silly to not take the nail out of her head, and I used to believe something closer to that in the general case. These days, though, when someone is having trouble with something and their head is clouded to obvious solutions, I might like to:
Hug them if they’re willing
Listen for awhile, and hold in mind that my initial advice might be wrong, insufficient, and that they’ve probably already tried some of my ideas early on
Ask questions and iterate to try to find what the underlying problems is (LessWrong and Rationality helped me a ton in trying to debug my own mind and find better ways to formulate the problems I face)
Feeling seen, feeling heard, believed—it seems pretty important for a lot of people in ways that I may not fully understand yet. I know politics is the mindkiller, so I won’t dive too deep, but I will say that it seems a lot of online political discussion doesn’t get past the “this issue is real and mostly like we say it is, your lack of belief hurts” stage.
Small note that is probably pretty simple by the standards of this excellent comment section, but strong emotion is, itself a problem that needs to be solved, often first. It’s like snowfall on the driveway. Some people get a little with the vagaries of life, others get a lot. Sometimes it melts quickly, sometimes you have to shovel it.
To be less metaphorical, people need to feel believed, cared for, and like they’d be listened to. Nail-in-head woman might be a bit silly to not take the nail out of her head, and I used to believe something closer to that in the general case. These days, though, when someone is having trouble with something and their head is clouded to obvious solutions, I might like to:
Hug them if they’re willing
Listen for awhile, and hold in mind that my initial advice might be wrong, insufficient, and that they’ve probably already tried some of my ideas early on
Ask questions and iterate to try to find what the underlying problems is (LessWrong and Rationality helped me a ton in trying to debug my own mind and find better ways to formulate the problems I face)
Feeling seen, feeling heard, believed—it seems pretty important for a lot of people in ways that I may not fully understand yet. I know politics is the mindkiller, so I won’t dive too deep, but I will say that it seems a lot of online political discussion doesn’t get past the “this issue is real and mostly like we say it is, your lack of belief hurts” stage.
That first, and then we can talk solutions.