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> I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people’s emotions and respond appropriately. Wow. Torvalds going to a therapy. I ser

by d33 8y ago

> I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people’s emotions and respond appropriately. Wow. Torvalds going to a therapy. I seriously couldn't be more impressed about him, because he always seemed too much of a narcissist to me. I understand how difficult it might be to decide to admit that you have a problem at this stage. And for doing that, he has my deep respect. Which kind of brings me to the other point - would Torvalds be Torvalds if he was treated before? Is the same piece of his personality that made him a truly unpleasant person also the one that made him super motivated? That's the second BFDL stepping down (this one claims to go just for a while), after Guido. And note that this is one is also about psychology.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
cthalupa 8y ago
>That's the second BFDL stepping down (this one claims to go just for a while), after Guido. And note that this is one is also about psychology. It's not the first and is unlikely to be the last time Linus takes a break - it's not really stepping down. Everyone needs some time away from something when they've spent decades working on it.
ufo 8y ago
> Which kind of brings me to the other point - would Torvalds be Torvalds if he was treated before? Some years ago I had to go to therapy for some issues of my own and back then I was afraid that it would fundamentally change who I am in some way. In retrospect that was a foolish thought. It made me wait longer to seek help than I should and in the end I was still like my old self (but better).
- agumonkey 8y ago
  probably a very common fear, at least I felt it, at times being to willing to accept different viewpoints and renouncing your own emotions was like death.
- tomjakubowski 8y ago
  > Some years ago I had to go to therapy for some issues of my own and back then I was afraid that it would fundamentally change who I am in some way. In retrospect that was a foolish thought. It made me wait longer to seek help than I should and in the end I was still like my old self (but better). I've been in therapy off and on most of my post-adolescent life. In the beginning, it felt like its only use was to have a place to vent about life to an agent who is largely external to it (i.e., my therapist doesn't know my family or my friends), but who has your back and is interested in helping you succeed. That certainly had value, but it didn't especially change how I lived. There was a point where my attitude towards therapy changed completely, when I started really listening and paying attention to what my therapist was doing. I might describe to him an incident which made me feel some unusually bad (or good!) emotion, and the therapist would ask just the right questions (and follow-ups) to get at the root cause of why I really felt that way. Eventually, I started to experience these internal dialogues which resemble a therapy session when I felt angry or sad or upset for some other reason. I might ask myself, "Why is this trivial argument with Person X making me so angry?", then examine my relationship with Person X, and then other recent incidents with this person, etc. etc. These internal "therapy sessions" not only help to calm me down, but also tend to point in the right direction to improve the overall relationship with Person X. I think it's been an amazing turn in how I interact with other people and helps me enjoy life. So, in conclusion, I think that's one way to really benefit from therapy: deducing, by observation, the system or process your therapist is using to help you, and applying that same system to yourself. In other words, good therapy helps you learn to be your own therapist.
  - tomp 8y ago
    That's a really interesting perspective. I wonder if you/we could learn this without going to therapy... Maybe we should/could teach this in school?
    - remar 8y ago
      From what I understood of OP's description of the process, it sounds a lot like the sort of awareness that's cultivated through long-term and consistent practice of meditation (implicitly or explicitly depending on the school of practice). I noticed after a couple months of initially starting daily zazen practice (just 10-15 minutes every night), that I went from reacting in a way that was originally: event -> (usually 'extreme') reaction, to something more like: event -> stepping back/observing what would've originally been my reaction -> choosing to engage with it or not. After a year of practice, this new pattern of reacting basically became muscle memory and would happen _even when_ I sometimes wanted to strongly react to things (i.e. music/art/social situations with friends/etc ). After about 4 or 5 years of consistent practice I caved into what I had even read was a common pitfall for most practitioners in thinking that I had "achieved" most of the "benefits" I could from meditation and just stopped practicing all together. It took about a year for most of these benefits to even start decaying, but after about that 2 year mark, my pattern of thought/reacting had almost entirely gone back to how it was before I had ever started practicing. I'm thinking there has to be some happy medium where you have the ability to observe as well as engage, but I'm not sure what the original philosophies of the practice actually "advocate" for as I never really delved too deep into the literature on this. I think this was actually one of the main reasons I stopped practicing, because I was wondering if my 'artistic side' was being 'dulled' by meditation. This is still a question I want answered and have been wondering if it may be worth doing a deeper dive into the literature/having a teacher guide me through the rest of this journey.
chimeracoder 8y ago
> would Torvalds be Torvalds if he was treated before? Is the same piece of his personality that made him a truly unpleasant person also the one that made him super motivated? This is a common trope in psychology known as the "ideology of creativity." According to the overwhelming body of research, the answer is "yes, he would still be Torvalds, and no, the same piece of his personality that makes him an unpleasant person is not also responsible for making him super motivated/successful/etc." Success and intelligence are oftentimes cited as reasons to excuse bad behavior, but the evidence is clearly against that.
- zechs 8y ago
  Can you provide sources for this evidence? Seems interesting.
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > Can you provide sources for this evidence? Seems interesting. I'd recommend reading the book "Worldmaking: Psychology and the Ideology of Creativity". It investigates this topic and a lot more. https://smile.amazon.com/Worldmaking-Psychology-Ideology-Creativity-Palgrave-ebook/dp/B017KUPT0I https://smile.amazon.com/Worldmaking-Psychology-Ideology-Cre...
HaoZeke 8y ago
> Wow. Torvalds going to a therapy. I seriously couldn't be more impressed about him, because he always seemed too much of a narcissist to me. I understand how difficult it might be to decide to admit that you have a problem at this stage. And for doing that, he has my deep respect. Neat, so now we're trolling on Linus.
killjoywashere 8y ago
Guido's letter for reference: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-committers/2018-July/005664.html https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-committers/2018-Jul...

by d33 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

cthalupa 8y ago

>That's the second BFDL stepping down (this one claims to go just for a while), after Guido. And note that this is one is also about psychology. It's not the first and is unlikely to be the last time Linus takes a break - it's not really stepping down. Everyone needs some time away from something when they've spent decades working on it.

ufo 8y ago

> Which kind of brings me to the other point - would Torvalds be Torvalds if he was treated before? Some years ago I had to go to therapy for some issues of my own and back then I was afraid that it would fundamentally change who I am in some way. In retrospect that was a foolish thought. It made me wait longer to seek help than I should and in the end I was still like my old self (but better).

agumonkey 8y ago
probably a very common fear, at least I felt it, at times being to willing to accept different viewpoints and renouncing your own emotions was like death.
tomjakubowski 8y ago
> Some years ago I had to go to therapy for some issues of my own and back then I was afraid that it would fundamentally change who I am in some way. In retrospect that was a foolish thought. It made me wait longer to seek help than I should and in the end I was still like my old self (but better). I've been in therapy off and on most of my post-adolescent life. In the beginning, it felt like its only use was to have a place to vent about life to an agent who is largely external to it (i.e., my therapist doesn't know my family or my friends), but who has your back and is interested in helping you succeed. That certainly had value, but it didn't especially change how I lived. There was a point where my attitude towards therapy changed completely, when I started really listening and paying attention to what my therapist was doing. I might describe to him an incident which made me feel some unusually bad (or good!) emotion, and the therapist would ask just the right questions (and follow-ups) to get at the root cause of why I really felt that way. Eventually, I started to experience these internal dialogues which resemble a therapy session when I felt angry or sad or upset for some other reason. I might ask myself, "Why is this trivial argument with Person X making me so angry?", then examine my relationship with Person X, and then other recent incidents with this person, etc. etc. These internal "therapy sessions" not only help to calm me down, but also tend to point in the right direction to improve the overall relationship with Person X. I think it's been an amazing turn in how I interact with other people and helps me enjoy life. So, in conclusion, I think that's one way to really benefit from therapy: deducing, by observation, the system or process your therapist is using to help you, and applying that same system to yourself. In other words, good therapy helps you learn to be your own therapist.
- tomp 8y ago
  That's a really interesting perspective. I wonder if you/we could learn this without going to therapy... Maybe we should/could teach this in school?
  - remar 8y ago
    From what I understood of OP's description of the process, it sounds a lot like the sort of awareness that's cultivated through long-term and consistent practice of meditation (implicitly or explicitly depending on the school of practice). I noticed after a couple months of initially starting daily zazen practice (just 10-15 minutes every night), that I went from reacting in a way that was originally: event -> (usually 'extreme') reaction, to something more like: event -> stepping back/observing what would've originally been my reaction -> choosing to engage with it or not. After a year of practice, this new pattern of reacting basically became muscle memory and would happen _even when_ I sometimes wanted to strongly react to things (i.e. music/art/social situations with friends/etc ). After about 4 or 5 years of consistent practice I caved into what I had even read was a common pitfall for most practitioners in thinking that I had "achieved" most of the "benefits" I could from meditation and just stopped practicing all together. It took about a year for most of these benefits to even start decaying, but after about that 2 year mark, my pattern of thought/reacting had almost entirely gone back to how it was before I had ever started practicing. I'm thinking there has to be some happy medium where you have the ability to observe as well as engage, but I'm not sure what the original philosophies of the practice actually "advocate" for as I never really delved too deep into the literature on this. I think this was actually one of the main reasons I stopped practicing, because I was wondering if my 'artistic side' was being 'dulled' by meditation. This is still a question I want answered and have been wondering if it may be worth doing a deeper dive into the literature/having a teacher guide me through the rest of this journey.

chimeracoder 8y ago

> would Torvalds be Torvalds if he was treated before? Is the same piece of his personality that made him a truly unpleasant person also the one that made him super motivated? This is a common trope in psychology known as the "ideology of creativity." According to the overwhelming body of research, the answer is "yes, he would still be Torvalds, and no, the same piece of his personality that makes him an unpleasant person is not also responsible for making him super motivated/successful/etc." Success and intelligence are oftentimes cited as reasons to excuse bad behavior, but the evidence is clearly against that.

zechs 8y ago
Can you provide sources for this evidence? Seems interesting.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > Can you provide sources for this evidence? Seems interesting. I'd recommend reading the book "Worldmaking: Psychology and the Ideology of Creativity". It investigates this topic and a lot more. https://smile.amazon.com/Worldmaking-Psychology-Ideology-Creativity-Palgrave-ebook/dp/B017KUPT0I https://smile.amazon.com/Worldmaking-Psychology-Ideology-Cre...

HaoZeke 8y ago

> Wow. Torvalds going to a therapy. I seriously couldn't be more impressed about him, because he always seemed too much of a narcissist to me. I understand how difficult it might be to decide to admit that you have a problem at this stage. And for doing that, he has my deep respect. Neat, so now we're trolling on Linus.

killjoywashere 8y ago

Guido's letter for reference: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-committers/2018-July/005664.html https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-committers/2018-Jul...