AUTHOR: Philosophistry TITLE: Can self-help be a personality disorder? DATE: 10:34 PM ----- BODY: A friend of mine told me how he went on an all-fruit diet for 3 days. This made me really curious and I asked him all sorts of details.

I added, "I think I want to try that. I think I'm up for something like that for some reason. I feel the need to go on a fast, or try an all-fruit diet, or maybe Epsom salts or something."

My friend responded back, "Oh yeah? You itching for some life-hacking?"

I think there's a certain kind of personality for this. Maybe it will eventually be put in the DSM-V. They could call it, "Self-Help Personality Disorder," wherein the patient constantly seeks to modify themselves, by going through various rituals, such as consuming self-help books, or engaging in fanciful diets or programs.

There's always this thought lingering in the back of my mind whenever I get sucked into a self-help book. There's always the question, "Is this impulse itself a problem?" I've been aware of this possibility for years, and based on my understanding, it can be. I've certainly been overly zealous about a self-help book that has caused damage to myself, and even to those around me. But I've also been fantastically liberated by self-help books.

Labels: meta-self-help

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Gary Hillson DATE:5/25/09 9:25 AM I think the people who keep moving from self-help book to self-help book or more specifically diets often lack discipline and patience. They read the book and expect immediate results and don't have the discipline to stick with it and impatiently move on to the next book / diet. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Philosophistry TITLE: What's really happening with mid-life crises, quarterlife crises, empty-nest syndrome, and teenage ennui DATE: 1:05 PM ----- BODY: My belief is that the crux of all of those neuroses is the transition to a state where everything's optional. When your kids are all grown up and off to college, there's no need anymore for that 4-bedroom house. When you graduate from college, there's no one who's going to slap you with an F if you don't show up for Finals Week. There's no one forcing you to not live for $200/mo. by sleeping on your friend's couch. When you become a young adult, you are all of a sudden confronted with choice. It starts to hit you that you have the power to disobey your parents, your teachers, and society in general.

Handling that transition from need-based motivations to want-based motivations is probably a second rite-of-passage that many of us struggle to pass through. The first rite-of-passage is simply achieving sexual and physical maturity. The second rite-of-passage, as created by modern society, is leading a life based on self-created motivations, independent of external motivators.

Labels: like midlife crisis

----- -------- AUTHOR: Philosophistry TITLE: Do people become experts in areas of deficiency? DATE: 11:09 PM ----- BODY: Jason Kottke is spot on with this observation. In the past few days, he's read of two men in science who are experts in areas where they're personally deficient. George Vaillant's area of expertise is relationships, yet he himself has intimacy issues. And then V.S. Ramachandran has done some very fascinating research in areas related to strange brain behaviors, and yet he himself has a pathologically incapable memory (he can never remember his wife's birthday—or even birthmonth—for the life of him!).

At the end, Kottke ponders:

Beethoven was deaf. Monet had vision problems when he painted some of his most well-known work. I wonder if there's something to this beyond coincidence.

I think there definitely is. I've noticed that many self-help gurus are working out their own issues on a public platform. For example, Dr. Laura (the stern advice queen on the radio) has had a love life that would be considered a failure given her message. Also politicians seem very genuine when they expound about virtue, but I wonder if they are able to get passionate about what they're saying because they're really just talking to themselves on the stump.

Labels: meta-self-help

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Jane DATE:5/20/09 5:11 PM It does make me think of Freud's concept of "active mastery" ie., the drive to be competent or take control over that which we passively experience, especially areas in which our ego is slighted or traumatized. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

April Lies DATE:5/20/09 7:03 PM Becoming an expert requires becoming aware of the territory and making a personal connection to it. By seeking out info where I have recognized a flaw in myself.. I am letting my experience of interfacing with the world lead to the lessons I am requiring. Personal connection to a subject increases our ability to remember and use the info. I think this has a lot to do with coming from the heart, being genuine. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Philosophistry DATE:5/20/09 7:11 PM These are both good connections, thanks for this. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Philosophistry TITLE: How changing the way you socialize can change your life DATE: 10:04 PM ----- BODY: One of the most prominent things that echoes in my mind from reading What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage is in the introduction where the author, Amy Sutherland, talks about her change:

I'm an altogether different person than I was three years ago. My friends and family may not have noticed but I am almost unrecognizable to myself at times. My outlook is more optimistic. I'm less judgmental. I have vastly more patience and self-control. I'm a better observer. I get along better with people, especially my husband. I have a peace of mind that comes from the world making so much more sense to me.

First, I have to point out that it's paragraphs like these that are the primary carrot-on-the-stick with regards to self-help books. On the other hand, I believe her. I believe that unlike other skills (like learning how to program or practice medicine), getting better at social skills will directly make you happier.

There's so many different explanations for how we're social animals. For example, there's that one article on solitary confinement that talks about the cognitive decay that ensues when you're isolated from human contact. Or there's this other paper a psychologist handed to me that explains how our identities are constructed in our social relations, and therefore we have an outer-body identity that's more prominent than any inner-body identity.

Labels: socializing

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Carol Lee DATE:5/17/09 11:30 PM Hi! I agree with your analogy of the human mind as software. I've found a master at helping to change people from the subconscious. He is a network chiropractor and practices kinesiology. (sp?) He is immensely effective. It is easy and quick. If anyone would like to contact him, his name is Ray Gin, DC. He is located in SoCal. His office phone is 949.458.6728. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Philosophistry TITLE: The self-help principles behind diaries DATE: 1:32 AM ----- BODY: (1) Self-expression necessarily creates a feedback loop and echo chamber.

and

(2) Writing is commitment.

__

(1) Whenever you engage in self-expression, the output of your expression then becomes input for new expressions. For example, in the process of creating an expressionistic painting, what you see yourself doing then feeds back into your perception, affects your emotions, and then comes back out into new expressions. What happens is that your feelings are amplified and your thoughts intensified. This is one benefit of having a diary; by writing out your thoughts, you can see them, process them, and then re-output them with further distillation or modification, and so on and so forth until you have hopefully created a pearl of an understanding about yourself.

(2) You know how they say, "commit it to writing." Well that's why writing is commitment. When you write, you have to make a choice from the cloud of thoughts in your head as to what should be recorded. The act is empowering because it helps you actively define yourself. Every word is more of you staking your claim on your identity.

Labels: diaries, self-expression, writing

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Tenzin DATE:5/12/09 2:04 AM Another interesting thread Phil.. experiencing oneself through a feedback loop of one's own creation and reinforcing the ontological nature of epistemology. It's interesting.. that those things one writes down in a dairy are thoughts transformed into physical manifest.. things which were ephemeral and non-physical as an idea or thought, moved through neurons in your mind organ, to twitch your nerves in your tissue pipes of your fingers to carve out images that represent those thoughts, which through light refraction, go back through the optical nerves to make sense again, and recognize, "self-realize" in a sense, that that which it is seeing on the piece of paper hence forth is in fact the same as that which allows the mind to see and better understand what it only just knew seconds ago itself, as solely in the mind?

So it makes me think.. are not all things in the physical construct, the physical matrix, all ultimately creations of thought? Things that were purely non-physical that through it's on volition somehow became manifest to experience itself? The chair, the house, the neighborhood, the city-state, the society, all physical objects, but an extension then of some other higher octave of vibrational existence that somehow figured itself to swim down the duct of the birth canal to procreate itself so it can.. self-experience itself.. to what end? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Philosophistry DATE:5/12/09 2:14 AM For some reason the word "blood-brain barrier" popped into my mind toward the end of your comment.

I like the questions that your posture brings up. Why would all this material evolve consciousness and observe itself? Why would it create entities like us that behave and define themselves so separately from itself? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Tenzin DATE:5/12/09 3:11 AM "The blood-brain barrier".. opens up a flood gate of thoughts for me.. one thought is of the synaptic connection and dendrites that make thoughts possible, which reminded me to check where we are on the computing power singularity ascent.
I recall we're now only 2 orders of magnitude away from achieving human brain processing capabilities in computing (I believe the IBM road runner hit 1 petaflops sustained last summer).

The second thought it sparked for me was that as intricate a mechanism of nature as the blood-brain barrier is, the one interesting part of our organ that does not function behind it is the Pineal gland. Which interestingly enough floods our brains with dimenthyltriptamine at the time of both birth (when our skulls are crushed to go through the birth canal), and death (when our mind is flooded with what many experience in NDEs as "the tunnel of light"). Oh, and happens to also occur naturally when psilocybin metabolizes in our system through ingestion as psilocin, found in certain strains of naturally spawning mushrooms around the world.

You pose a very deep and possibly unanswerable (from this state of being) question: "why would -it- create entities like us that behave and define ourselves so separately from itself?". Again, this reminds me of one's definition of "itself", or "self" as in self-actualization. If I assume the "itself" or "self" is a non-physical, non-thinking, yet self-aware and self-conscious "something", out of which super strings wiggle and supernovas explode, it would seem that like the poet who self reflects with his own words on a personal journal, perhaps existential creation is the "being-ness" self reflecting and self-recognizing itself, that it itself is. Maybe creation itself, the entire universe, is a feedback loop, and through it, it can experience and grow itself, and become even more "itself" than it already is? ----- -------- AUTHOR: Philosophistry TITLE: What I think about self-actualization DATE: 12:15 AM ----- BODY: I once was obsessed with the concept of self-actualization. This is a state of being that figures at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs:

Around Fall of 2006, I delved into self-actualization theory, and became convinced that it would be my path to work-life fulfillment. I kept making inventories of my skills and potentials and would then try to push myself into careers that would satisfy that.

At the time, I had what could have been considered a dream job as a video game designer, a job I felt actualized my skills in design, programming, and the arts. And yet I still wasn't happy. Somehow I was applying the model too narrowly. Only with further introspection did I realize that I really just wanted to be independent.

But I still have always clung to the self-actualization ideal, even before I read about Maslow. I keep thinking, "man, if I could just figure out the proper switch and somehow turn all this inward potential outward, I'd find work-life bliss."

But then I had a thought a few days ago that sort of threw a curve into this thinking:
Your meta-potential is part of your potential
By "meta-potential" I'm referring to the skills you have to actualize your skills. For example, let's say you were born of a really good physical stock, and in middle school, everybody kept saying you could an Olympic athlete. According to Maslow's theory, then, your highest goal should be to fully manifest that potential. However, let's say you don't have the discipline to do all the work-outs. Or let's say your resources are limited because you have to work extra jobs to pay your bills. Or let's say you seem to have trouble working with authority, and therefore always have bad relationships with coaches. So while on some level you do have the potential to be an Olympic athlete, you don't necessarily have the potential to turn that potential into a reality.

I've struggled for so long to turn what I perceive as being my intellectual potential into a reality, and I just can't seem to figure out the best way to do so. And that's always frustrated me, and I think I'm very unhappy because I mythologize self-actualization. For example, some people have what it takes to turn their music talent into pop hits, other people just don't have that sense. Who can blame them. Should one be unhappy and the other happy?

Labels: self-actualization

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Tenzin DATE:5/12/09 1:19 AM It's a very interesting stream of thought Phil. The concept of self-actualization.. makes me think.. do we not first need understand what the "self" is, so you know what it is you are actualizing? I suppose by your post, the "self" is the personality self, or the self that you think of as the collection of your thoughts, your memories, your preferences, your creativities and so forth. Both your mention of the athlete example and your own creative example seem to point to this construct. But.. there is a "self" that exists that can observe oneself having those thoughts.. or even just experience the moment of stillness without any thoughts.. the space or field of the "now" as Echkart Tolle describes. If this was in fact one's definition of "self", this being-ness that is an awareness outside of thought, what could actualization of such a "self" be? Is it not unlike Aristotle's concept of "potentia" then, the field from which all creative existence manifests from, and from where there is endless potential? Perhaps when we reach that level of self-actualization.. we would be so at peace with outselves, that therein we will "be" the potential of all things? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

amymwright DATE:5/12/09 9:52 AM My vote is that any conception of yourself that tries to fix you as an actualized self is probably going to make you unhappy because it's either based on the past or the future, when we're all different every day. We are actualiz*ing* selves really, and sometimes that means we need to be a webmaster for two years, or quit that job to paint dorms or teach sunday school or something. Freedom IS free. And so are our many selves. At some point, the career becomes less a way of identifying that than how you speak to your neighbor in the grocery store. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Philosophistry DATE:5/12/09 10:01 AM Yeah. A mind trap I often get into when thinking about self-actualization is obsessing too much over my past successes, when so much of living the good life is jumping into unknowns and discovering new potentials. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Jane DATE:5/20/09 5:07 PM Read Maslow's posthumous book "Beyond the reaches of ..." to learn that achievement and talents are not the "self" of actualization, but rather one becomes the best human possible, actualizing meta-values like Plato's truth, goodness, beauty OR "learning for learning's sake", one of Maslow's favorites. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Philosophistry DATE:5/20/09 5:11 PM Thanks for that recommendation Jane. Added to my reading list! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

Jane DATE:5/20/09 5:18 PM u are welcome--I got the title slightly wrong, so note the correction please: "The farther reaches of human nature"
ISBN 0140194703 ----- -------- AUTHOR: Philosophistry TITLE: Self-Help Reality Show DATE: 3:04 PM ----- BODY: I really want to see a show that accomplishes this:

Labels: meta-self-help

----- -------- AUTHOR: Philosophistry TITLE: Listen to Your Dreams DATE: 7:48 AM ----- BODY: Here's a Creative Whack Pack card for you: Listen to Your Dreams.

I woke up with a strange image in my mind, wherein Wired Magazine had a cover article titled "What if the Segway was upside down?" I don't know what that actually accomplishes, but it did lead me to the idea of having easy-to-push shopping carts built on the segway.

So much of creativity is just letting yourself ask a series of "what-if" questions.

Labels: creativity

----- -------- AUTHOR: Philosophistry TITLE: Instant-contentment perspectives DATE: 9:33 AM ----- BODY: I've been thinking about instant-contentment perspectives lately. I was first introduced to these by my dad. He's 67 years old, and he tells me this kind of story:

If you were 87 years old, and an angel offered to return you back to 67 in exchange for 90% of your wealth, wouldn't you do it? I try to imagine that I've made that deal, that I'm 87 returning back to 67, and appreciating life anew.

I came up with my own, sci-fi/philosophy style version of this. It goes like this:

Imagine you've been dead for 1,000 years and an angel returned you back to this life right at this moment. And this angel stitched in your old memories together to this present moment such that you feel like you've lived continuously up to this point. There's no way to know the difference between that series of events vs. the one we usually believe is happening now.

Labels: contentment

----- -------- AUTHOR: Philosophistry TITLE: More on "The opposite of love is not hate. It's indifference." DATE: 11:57 PM ----- BODY: I've been going through What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage and one of the lasting ideas I got from it is to ignore the behaviors you don't want. For example, if your husband leaves smelly socks around, don't throw a storm or nag. Instead ignore the behavior, and then use positive reinforcement to praise him when he's considerate or tidy at other times.

This is really powerful I think, and it relates to what I remember Marianne Williamson said: "The opposite of love is not hate. It's indifference." The reason why ignoring a behavior works is because what humans want more than anything is a connection. Being connected is the reward. Being disconnected is the punishment.

Labels: socializing

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:

begreen401@yahoo.com DATE:5/21/09 10:52 PM apathy sucks ----- -------- AUTHOR: Philosophistry TITLE: The ironic subtext of What Shamu Taught Me About Love, Life, and Marriage DATE: 9:01 PM ----- BODY: So I had an interesting thought about Amy Sutherland's What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage. Isn't the subtext that by the husband increasing his spousal deafness and leaving his smelly bike shorts all over the place, didn't he train Amy to be less nagging and find better ways of getting what she wants? In a strange way, her husband trained her to become a better trainer, right?

That's, of course, a little tongue-in-cheek, because it's not guaranteed that Amy would've innovated. And it's not like her husband set out in his mind to incrementally reward her ability to train him. (Or did he?)

Labels: creative thinking about self-help

----- -------- AUTHOR: Philosophistry TITLE: Prediction: 50 years from now, a secular self-help book will compete in popularity and influence with the Bible. DATE: 2:04 AM ----- BODY: This was inspired by this passage by Micki McGee's Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life.

The solution Dr. Covey [author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People] proposes—that women who are rearing children ought to cede (or at least postpone their ambitions for self-determination—is legitimized through a robust sort of nostalgia that appeals to scriptural wisdom, traditional metaphors, and American myths. Although he substitutes "under the sun" for "under the heavens"—perhaps a turn of phrase to appeal to his more secular readers—Covey's paraphrase of Ecclesiastes ("to every thing there is a season") aligns his advice with centuries of biblical wisdom. The reference might also remind the close reader that Covey writes in a tradition that goes back to the introduction of Johannes Gutenberg's Bible in 1456, when the development of mass printing techniques made possible, for the first time, not only widespread literacy but also the codification of manners and the emergence of the genres of advice manuals or self-improvement books. Some social observers have suggested that the Bible is perhaps the first and most significant of self-help books. Others have argued that the success of self-improvement literature, whether secular or religious, is contingent on its ability to function as inspirational literature.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People makes little mention of God. And the New Age hit The Secret speaks about the Universe conspiring to get you what you really want.

These are all just preludes and prototypes for the killer self-help book that will take the people by storm in 50 or so years. Another prelude is that a religious self-help book, The Purpose-Driven Life, is already competing with the Bible as far as influence. You hear of Church groups organizing themselves around Purpose-Driven workbooks more so than the Bible itself.

Labels: meta-self-help

----- -------- AUTHOR: Philosophistry TITLE: The Empowerment Paradox DATE: 11:24 PM ----- BODY: I'm trying to figure out a principle or some understanding about the concept of "wanting to want."

A large part of self-help is simply empowerment. Self-help fans seems to be into getting pumped up to do something they already intend to do. Why do we need that? When we "psych" ourselves up, what we're doing is essentially intensifying our desire, thereby allowing us to milk the benefits of being more motivated.

But that seems to have an inherent contradiction that I haven't completely grasped yet. If you say, "Well, I want to win, so I'm going to want it more, to make it more likely to win," then... ? not sure actually, seems kind of weird.

But I think unraveling the paradox may tell us something about the way humans effect change in themselves.

Labels: empowerment, philosophy

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