Nothing too exciting happened today. I woke up pretty comfortably, then stood up and experienced sharp, gasping pain. I shuffled lethargically around, made myself breakfast, worked for a while. But my condition quickly improved from the pain of waking. After I had a lentil lunch, I took a long walk, which actually made me feel even better, oddly enough. It was very pretty outside. I took to thinking about why I like dating, and tried to separate the pure enjoyment of a particular kind of experience, not so different from sunbathing or playing catch, from the part that seemed more personal, that feels like having vulnerabilities exposed but unattacked. Like a cat lying on its back. Of course, we can’t forget the part that feels like fencing, opportunity and action. But I think the “exposed but unattacked” paradigm breaks the fencing analogy. Figurative fencing is great as a model of dynamics, but not as a model of statics, of what it feels like when vulnerabilities have been traded and the situation is momentarily settled. This never happens in fencing, at least in a single bout. It sometimes happens in chess, but feels qualitatively different in relationships (possibly the non-zero-sum-ness makes the difference).
I actually think the enjoyment of experience makes the static “exposed but unattacked” state possible, by overriding the normal negative affect of vulnerability. “Exposed but unattacked” is possible with normal friends (and certainly with family). Examples for me are usually hanging out after sports or on a run, or, say, drinking bubble tea–you have to do someting fun in the meantime to soften the reality of vulnerability and give yourself space to show it. Relationships just naturally provide the positive experience and the proximity necessary (as well as requiring trading of vulnerability).
Anyway, I took that nice walk. When I came back I saw the sunset on the roof and played a game of foosball with Kevin. Then I went back to work. I made more decent progress on the quantum homework, things falling into place. In the interstices, I upped my chess.com tactics rating above 2000 for the first time :) I also made plans with Muriel :D She said she was going to the spa tomorrow and invited me to come–what better with my injured back?!
Ate curry for dinner, felt kind of bla. Fell out of flow. I spent a gritty half an hour looking back over the OpenAI essay. Then I went on another walk. Found myself pondering that old koan, the connection between System 2 and cognitive dissonance. I found myself thinking, that it might be a spurious, noncausal connection, owing to a mutual dependence on the discomfort with the situation. Yes, being knocked into an uncomfortable situation does trigger System 2, and certainly causes cognitive dissonance. But I really disagree with the notion that every use of System 2 creates cognitive dissonance, or that “flow” is necessarily a System 1 activity. I think System 2 activity that has healthy System 1 support (for example, me doing math, using my System 2 based precise analogy approach, or writing about philosophical ideas, with my comfortable, well-worn writing style) feels flowy. System 2 activity that is not so System 1 supported is not so flowy. This makes me think of one of the recent Breaking Smart newsletters, How to Ride your Brain Bicycle which speaks to both the idea of healthy System 1 support, and to the class of “failures” owing to thinking you don’t know what you’re doing. This class of failures corresponds to nearly all my struggles.
The walk was nice and I came back, put in some laundry, and wrote this log.