GabrielDuquette comments on Useful maxims - Less Wrong

26 Post author: ciphergoth 11 July 2012 11:56AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 15 July 2012 07:05:01PM *  2 points [-]
  • Pulsed attention is still attention.

This is the one I most wish I could impress on my younger self. So many years wasted defaulting to "I can't concentrate continuously on [slightly hard thing]; I guess that means I'm not authentically interested."

  • If you're rounding, you're rushing.

For relationships. If I notice myself rationalizing insufficient attraction or general lack of spark ("rounding" up), I stop and pay attention to why that might be.

  • Be an asshole until you don't feel like being an asshole anymore.

This is the only de-assholing strategy that has actually worked for me. Most of the time it means doing nothing when I could do something nice, but sometimes it means being actively unkind. The negative experiences accumulate and the assholish behaviors decrease.