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The discussion at hand is about the effects of “Perseverance towards life goals” when somebody has depression, anxiety, or what have you. The article mentions i

The discussion at hand is about the effects of “Perseverance towards life goals” when somebody has depression, anxiety, or what have you. The article mentions it is useful, and I can no doubt agree with that. It can be meditative, having a mission and all (perhaps one that you do not 100% agree with). It is satisfying, and can keep life afloat. But this “fake mission” trick should be just that — a trick. A placeholder in life for when things get real tough. A patch on your wound that helps the wound heal. The patch isn’t healing the wound, your body is. But people (e.g. self-help aficionados) become thoroughly entranced with this idea (among other bad ideas like growth mindset) that they lose sight of the fact that a patch is a patch, a bandage a bandage. It has outlived its usefulness, but people keep treating it as a real solution. Most often when people observe their mind they can dig up a lot of content. Depression, anxiety, and what have you are real things that you can explore and navigate. How to navigate and what to do with them is extremely difficult because we have never been taught how. We sort of induct what our parents and teachers do without explicitly categorizing/identifying what is going on in out minds. Most times we are running the same damn loop for the, what, millionth time in a row. The same situation, the same psychological response, the same result. Without even going into replication crisis, there are a lot of psychological theories and therapies that are sold, to others and even to the theorizer him/herself. The mind is a value-seeking machine that will not deter itself from using fiction to understand the world and get what it wants. Interestingly, the fiction of the mind acts as a patch itself, but it is never recognized by the self because the mind (most of the time) does it under the rug. So the patch sticks around and causes problems. The solution is to recognize that the mind can employ fiction and slowly but surely the mind will start doing these things overtly visibly to you (simply because it doesn’t have to hide it anymore). Stay on track with what the mind provides to you and be free about it (sometimes ignore it, hate it, listen to it, coddle it, be depressed, be anxious — to the mind emotions are generated and should be accepted without scores attached to them). Then the implicit goals will become explicit. But this hijacking of explicit goals without respecting implicit goals is pure whack.

kerkeslager 6y ago
Jesus dude, I'm really not sure whose post you're responding to, because you didn't address anything I said in my post. > The discussion at hand is about the effects of “Perseverance towards life goals” when somebody has depression, anxiety, or what have you. The article mentions it is useful, and I can no doubt agree with that. It can be meditative, having a mission and all (perhaps one that you do not 100% agree with). It is satisfying, and can keep life afloat. > But this “fake mission” trick should be just that — a trick. A placeholder in life for when things get real tough. A patch on your wound that helps the wound heal. The patch isn’t healing the wound, your body is. There's nothing "fake" about life goals, and it's not a trick. When I say I want to have close, honest relationships, or when I say I want a contributing role in my community, I really want those things. These aren't placeholders, patches, or bandages for anything. They're actually what I want, and it's arrogant of you to think you know what I want better than I know what I want. > Stay on track with what the mind provides to you and be free about it (sometimes ignore it, hate it, listen to it, coddle it, be depressed, be anxious — to the mind emotions are generated and should be accepted without scores attached to them). Then the implicit goals will become explicit. But this hijacking of explicit goals without respecting implicit goals is pure whack. This implicit versus explicit goals dichotomy is something you made up, and then started accusing people of choosing one over the other. Nobody is suggesting choosing explicit goals over implicit goals. In fact, nobody even was talking about these things before you invented them. This is just a straw man argument. The entirety of your post could have been reduced to around five sentences--this would be a great increase in clarity with no loss in meaning. Throwing in random parentheticals and clauses might fool dumb people into thinking what you're saying is smart, but smart people are going to suspect that you're hiding a bogus argument under layers of words.
- avindroth 6y ago
  You are taking this way more personally than you should be. You should probably check yourself and see if you aren’t being an asshole to other people with your supposed “intelligence”. Ad hominem aside, is it so hard to understand the words “implicit” and “explicit”? They are English words, and implicit vs. explicit goals really isn’t all that hard to understand. Maybe people around you don’t use this language, but implicit vs. explicit models is a dichotomy I hear all the time among pretty smart people. And very useful distinction. I don’t think you are capable of ingesting in new information or original thought. Your response to what I said about “fake mission” clearly demonstrates this. I also never said you don’t know your desires. I don’t even know you. Do you have so much time that you feel personally attacked by some (you would call) random assortment of words on the internet? Jeez. I am seeing your other comments and you are just not that positive overall. Being skeptical and negative and doubtful isn’t a hallmark of intelligence, mind you. Please take your matters elsewhere.
  - kerkeslager 6y ago
    > They are English words, and implicit vs. explicit goals really isn’t all that hard to understand. The problem isn't that they are hard to understand, the problem is that they have nothing to do with what anyone was talking about. When someone says, "Persevering in goals can alleviate negative feelings", saying "Explicit goals can distract from implicit goals" isn't a response, it's a non-sequitur. > Being skeptical and negative and doubtful isn’t a hallmark of intelligence, mind you. Being skeptical and doubtful are definitely hallmarks of intelligence. The alternative to skepticism is blind faith. The alternative to doubt is unjustified confidence. In the rest of your post you've decided to attack me personally, to which my only response is going to be: you're accusing me of ad hominem attacks?
    - britr 6y ago
      Why do you think faith has to be "blind" and confidence "unjustified"?
      - 6y ago

kerkeslager 6y ago

Jesus dude, I'm really not sure whose post you're responding to, because you didn't address anything I said in my post. > The discussion at hand is about the effects of “Perseverance towards life goals” when somebody has depression, anxiety, or what have you. The article mentions it is useful, and I can no doubt agree with that. It can be meditative, having a mission and all (perhaps one that you do not 100% agree with). It is satisfying, and can keep life afloat. > But this “fake mission” trick should be just that — a trick. A placeholder in life for when things get real tough. A patch on your wound that helps the wound heal. The patch isn’t healing the wound, your body is. There's nothing "fake" about life goals, and it's not a trick. When I say I want to have close, honest relationships, or when I say I want a contributing role in my community, I really want those things. These aren't placeholders, patches, or bandages for anything. They're actually what I want, and it's arrogant of you to think you know what I want better than I know what I want. > Stay on track with what the mind provides to you and be free about it (sometimes ignore it, hate it, listen to it, coddle it, be depressed, be anxious — to the mind emotions are generated and should be accepted without scores attached to them). Then the implicit goals will become explicit. But this hijacking of explicit goals without respecting implicit goals is pure whack. This implicit versus explicit goals dichotomy is something you made up, and then started accusing people of choosing one over the other. Nobody is suggesting choosing explicit goals over implicit goals. In fact, nobody even was talking about these things before you invented them. This is just a straw man argument. The entirety of your post could have been reduced to around five sentences--this would be a great increase in clarity with no loss in meaning. Throwing in random parentheticals and clauses might fool dumb people into thinking what you're saying is smart, but smart people are going to suspect that you're hiding a bogus argument under layers of words.

avindroth 6y ago
You are taking this way more personally than you should be. You should probably check yourself and see if you aren’t being an asshole to other people with your supposed “intelligence”. Ad hominem aside, is it so hard to understand the words “implicit” and “explicit”? They are English words, and implicit vs. explicit goals really isn’t all that hard to understand. Maybe people around you don’t use this language, but implicit vs. explicit models is a dichotomy I hear all the time among pretty smart people. And very useful distinction. I don’t think you are capable of ingesting in new information or original thought. Your response to what I said about “fake mission” clearly demonstrates this. I also never said you don’t know your desires. I don’t even know you. Do you have so much time that you feel personally attacked by some (you would call) random assortment of words on the internet? Jeez. I am seeing your other comments and you are just not that positive overall. Being skeptical and negative and doubtful isn’t a hallmark of intelligence, mind you. Please take your matters elsewhere.
- kerkeslager 6y ago
  > They are English words, and implicit vs. explicit goals really isn’t all that hard to understand. The problem isn't that they are hard to understand, the problem is that they have nothing to do with what anyone was talking about. When someone says, "Persevering in goals can alleviate negative feelings", saying "Explicit goals can distract from implicit goals" isn't a response, it's a non-sequitur. > Being skeptical and negative and doubtful isn’t a hallmark of intelligence, mind you. Being skeptical and doubtful are definitely hallmarks of intelligence. The alternative to skepticism is blind faith. The alternative to doubt is unjustified confidence. In the rest of your post you've decided to attack me personally, to which my only response is going to be: you're accusing me of ad hominem attacks?
  - britr 6y ago
    Why do you think faith has to be "blind" and confidence "unjustified"?
    - 6y ago