I went on a 4-month Buddhist retreat, and one week covered “Self-images”. We received homework that week to journal our self-images—all of them. Every time I felt some sense of self, like “The self that prides itself on being clean” or “The self that’s playful and giggly”, I’d write it down in my journal. I ended up filling 20 pages over a month period, and learning so much about the many selves my mind/body were trying to convey to the world. I also discovered how often two self-images would compete with each other. Observing the self-images helped them to be less strongly attached.
It sounds like you discovered that yourself this week. You might find such an exercise useful for discovering more of that.
Very interesting! You’ve captured a big reason why I do not myself participate much in the EA/Rationalist community, despite being a SSC addict. Much of the meetups seem to be around conversation, and I grow anxious in conversation-only settings. I want to *do*, and yes, sometimes that means I *do* the non-optimal thing, because I simply must express my doing energy somehow. If more meetups had promises of actions (as major as hackathons or as minor as results documentation), I might find myself participating more in the community.
Alternatively, I could learn to be comfortable with the lack of action in settings. It would be a useful skill to allow me more time to reflect before taking action. I would like to grow that skill, but at the same time, my orientation towards action is very much a part of me, so I appreciate settings where that orientation can be utilized and beneficial.