This is great. I love your writing. I want to disagree a bit but I also want to convey that I can tell you have thought about this a lot more than me. So please see this as more of a student raising their hand than a colleague critiqueing the post.
I think concencus right now is that for an anxious person, talk therapy, Cognitive behavioral therapy, some sort of IFT approach at tackling the anxiety is best approach. I agree, anxiety often thinking the world is better than you but I don't think most professionals would approach this as "try to make everyone else seem worse". I think most professionals try to inflate your self-worth by tackling the issue.
Same for anger. Anger management, talk therapy, and all the other therapies above seem to be the prescription, not "have you considered you aren't as great as you think you are"
That being said I think your outlined approach works. It might not be healthy though. If okayness is equanimity then anywhere on the path of equanimity will feel "okay". Therefore if you are in the bottom left quadrant but dislike others as much as yourself you might feel "okay" with your place in the world. This can lead to a downward spiral where you feel okay but hate everything. So I think everything you say here is 100% true, it will work. But it's not the BEST way to get okay?
This is something really sutric, and I don't know how workable it is in more extreme real life scenarios. I have no idea how I would sell this to the homeless drug addicts that I see and do volunteer work for, I have no idea how this could be sold to the denizens of 4chan, and hell, I have a hard time applying it to me. My particular predicament is being a 35 year old virgin (long story, largely due to a very sad and outcasted childhood/adolescence/young adulthood), and I guess I have a natural tendency to narcissism, suggesting shame as the counter, but that seems like a really bad idea if you're trying to attract women (worth noting there's a couple quotes from monks in this article). Hmm.
If there's a bigotry I have, it's against normal people (I define normal as not-weird), which is very unspiritual, as all bigotries are. And I feel all 3 problems I brought up should have spiritual solutions, even if I can't quite see them.
To relieve anxiety and extinguish anger, I really recommend this last book by the creator of CBT, it saved my life, it’s like a secular nirvana really. According to a recent meta analysis the most effective thing to relieve anxiety and anger is CBT (for anger, I recommend Beck’s Prisoners of Hate book after this. Social anxiety is actually the reason we get angry) https://www.amazon.com/David-Clark/dp/1462546161/
I wonder if "The path of Equanimity" is as powerful because it makes it easy to feel like one belongs. "You are ok" is not as existentally important to me as "I am OK", but what is existentially important is the question of belonging.
Both feeling inferior as well as superior can inhibit a feeling of belonging.
Thinking of that little ritual in my church every sunday where Pastor asks the congregation if everybody was aware of their own sins and shortcomings this week (=I am not better than everybody else / Others are just as bad as me) and if we are also aware that Jesus forgives us and loves us nevertheless (=I am OK).
Bravo! It's quite an accomplishment to present such a profound principle in such concise and actionable terms. This is fantastic and I thank you for it. 🙏
Wonderful post. Such a clear exposition of something that, I think, many of us are dimly aware of. Thank you!
I absolutely love the gropings towards complexity theory here. You never actually say the word 'attractor,' but your vector fields are so suggestive.
One of my favorite online essays. Pretty old, but still useful.
http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/addiction.html
This is great. I love your writing. I want to disagree a bit but I also want to convey that I can tell you have thought about this a lot more than me. So please see this as more of a student raising their hand than a colleague critiqueing the post.
I think concencus right now is that for an anxious person, talk therapy, Cognitive behavioral therapy, some sort of IFT approach at tackling the anxiety is best approach. I agree, anxiety often thinking the world is better than you but I don't think most professionals would approach this as "try to make everyone else seem worse". I think most professionals try to inflate your self-worth by tackling the issue.
Same for anger. Anger management, talk therapy, and all the other therapies above seem to be the prescription, not "have you considered you aren't as great as you think you are"
That being said I think your outlined approach works. It might not be healthy though. If okayness is equanimity then anywhere on the path of equanimity will feel "okay". Therefore if you are in the bottom left quadrant but dislike others as much as yourself you might feel "okay" with your place in the world. This can lead to a downward spiral where you feel okay but hate everything. So I think everything you say here is 100% true, it will work. But it's not the BEST way to get okay?
Brilliant article once again!
This is something really sutric, and I don't know how workable it is in more extreme real life scenarios. I have no idea how I would sell this to the homeless drug addicts that I see and do volunteer work for, I have no idea how this could be sold to the denizens of 4chan, and hell, I have a hard time applying it to me. My particular predicament is being a 35 year old virgin (long story, largely due to a very sad and outcasted childhood/adolescence/young adulthood), and I guess I have a natural tendency to narcissism, suggesting shame as the counter, but that seems like a really bad idea if you're trying to attract women (worth noting there's a couple quotes from monks in this article). Hmm.
If there's a bigotry I have, it's against normal people (I define normal as not-weird), which is very unspiritual, as all bigotries are. And I feel all 3 problems I brought up should have spiritual solutions, even if I can't quite see them.
To relieve anxiety and extinguish anger, I really recommend this last book by the creator of CBT, it saved my life, it’s like a secular nirvana really. According to a recent meta analysis the most effective thing to relieve anxiety and anger is CBT (for anger, I recommend Beck’s Prisoners of Hate book after this. Social anxiety is actually the reason we get angry) https://www.amazon.com/David-Clark/dp/1462546161/
I wonder if "The path of Equanimity" is as powerful because it makes it easy to feel like one belongs. "You are ok" is not as existentally important to me as "I am OK", but what is existentially important is the question of belonging.
Both feeling inferior as well as superior can inhibit a feeling of belonging.
Thinking of that little ritual in my church every sunday where Pastor asks the congregation if everybody was aware of their own sins and shortcomings this week (=I am not better than everybody else / Others are just as bad as me) and if we are also aware that Jesus forgives us and loves us nevertheless (=I am OK).
And we all quietly say Yes.
Bravo! It's quite an accomplishment to present such a profound principle in such concise and actionable terms. This is fantastic and I thank you for it. 🙏
Wow! You’re elucidating something I’ve only dimly seen before. Tremendous.
Bingo