Loved this, perfect for a Monday! "It is a piece of information, made by our bodies and for our bodies." 100%. I saw an Instagram post where the guy said the difference between easy and hard is that easy is something we understand, hard is something we don't. Negative feelings are "just" information we don't understand, so they're hard, and it's uncomfortable. But, it's also ripe for learning from because we (our bodies you put it) picked up on it. Having the presence of mind to look at it that way and actually learn from it...is the tricky part.
Fantastic work, and timely. We had a discussion with friends last night who moved because they felt so out of place where they lived (in Silicon Valley). After a couple of decades and raising kids, and always feeling like they were "behind" in a place where the social conversations almost always centered on someone's work success, startup or latest fundraising, they hit the escape hatch and moved. They've been their new town now, living in a small community where they've made friends with people from a wide variety of backgrounds and are visibly happier. The comparisons that drive envy are harder, I'd think, depending on the social context in which they're delivered?
Really enjoyed this. Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart is a lot like this imo, if readers would like a longer version that covers a lot more emotional territory. As someone else said, this also has a Buddhist flavor.
Thank you for sharing your reflections on envy. Definitely makes me think. In case you weren’t aware, Dr. Stacy Kim has a new book coming out next month on how to think about envy differently and use it constructively.
Envy: Why Wanting What They Have is the Key to Getting What You Want.
I am alway so happy when I hear that a friend of mine has accomplished personal or professional success. It's great when someone I know marries or is part of a successful IPO. If nothing else, their joy and success translates to more in my life.
But the important thing is to have the empathy that allows you to share in their happiness.
This piece echoes centuries of Buddhist, Stoic, and Existentialist thought, which serve as a bedrock for modern frameworks like Acceptance and Commitment and Dialectical Behavioral therapies.
Still, durable ideas persist because they are true. They just require periodic contemporary repackaging for ongoing digestibility.
“Rather than see yourself as a single unified individual, it might be more helpful—and, indeed, more scientifically defensible—to think of yourself, along with every other individual, as a crowd of people existing within a single thread of memory and experience.”
Scientifically defensible? That the mind is inhabited by a crowd of homunculi? I don’t buy it.
In fact, I doubt it’s even helpful to see yourself as a collective—what better way to set up your rational deliberations for collective action problems? (“Don’t blame me, it was the other Daniel.”)
It’s fine to say that we undergo qualitative changes when we change moods, but to say that this constitutes a change in numerical identity is a huge leap! Are we to say that mood changes are akin to ceasing to exist (and being replaced by another person)?
Loved this, perfect for a Monday! "It is a piece of information, made by our bodies and for our bodies." 100%. I saw an Instagram post where the guy said the difference between easy and hard is that easy is something we understand, hard is something we don't. Negative feelings are "just" information we don't understand, so they're hard, and it's uncomfortable. But, it's also ripe for learning from because we (our bodies you put it) picked up on it. Having the presence of mind to look at it that way and actually learn from it...is the tricky part.
Fantastic work, and timely. We had a discussion with friends last night who moved because they felt so out of place where they lived (in Silicon Valley). After a couple of decades and raising kids, and always feeling like they were "behind" in a place where the social conversations almost always centered on someone's work success, startup or latest fundraising, they hit the escape hatch and moved. They've been their new town now, living in a small community where they've made friends with people from a wide variety of backgrounds and are visibly happier. The comparisons that drive envy are harder, I'd think, depending on the social context in which they're delivered?
As the inimitable Tom Waits said in COME ON UP TO THE HOUSE:
"Well, the moon is broken and the sky is cracked
Come on up to the house
The only things that you can see is all that you lack
Come on up to the house"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GugzLSbOQE
Really enjoyed this. Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart is a lot like this imo, if readers would like a longer version that covers a lot more emotional territory. As someone else said, this also has a Buddhist flavor.
100%
Love this essay and would be delighted to see more like it. Thanks for sharing!
Enjoyed this!
Trying to place Envy in the original 5 characters of the movie "Inside Out". Would this be Fear + Disgust?
Thank you for sharing your reflections on envy. Definitely makes me think. In case you weren’t aware, Dr. Stacy Kim has a new book coming out next month on how to think about envy differently and use it constructively.
Envy: Why Wanting What They Have is the Key to Getting What You Want.
So zen
I am alway so happy when I hear that a friend of mine has accomplished personal or professional success. It's great when someone I know marries or is part of a successful IPO. If nothing else, their joy and success translates to more in my life.
But the important thing is to have the empathy that allows you to share in their happiness.
Have you read about split brain theory?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain
Ecclesiastes 1:9 holds true here.
This piece echoes centuries of Buddhist, Stoic, and Existentialist thought, which serve as a bedrock for modern frameworks like Acceptance and Commitment and Dialectical Behavioral therapies.
Still, durable ideas persist because they are true. They just require periodic contemporary repackaging for ongoing digestibility.
This was interesting, but the text of the post doesn’t seem to reflect the title/subtitle.
This part rubbed me the wrong way:
“Rather than see yourself as a single unified individual, it might be more helpful—and, indeed, more scientifically defensible—to think of yourself, along with every other individual, as a crowd of people existing within a single thread of memory and experience.”
Scientifically defensible? That the mind is inhabited by a crowd of homunculi? I don’t buy it.
In fact, I doubt it’s even helpful to see yourself as a collective—what better way to set up your rational deliberations for collective action problems? (“Don’t blame me, it was the other Daniel.”)
It’s fine to say that we undergo qualitative changes when we change moods, but to say that this constitutes a change in numerical identity is a huge leap! Are we to say that mood changes are akin to ceasing to exist (and being replaced by another person)?