Great post, I find this very relatable, finding my people, where I'm wanted/liked/appreciated/feel I belong (and towards whom I feel the same), is one of the most alive challenges for me, though I suspect I'm behind you on this path. Being unabashedly liked is a great feeling, as is being appreciated for expressing the gifts that I most want to be appreciated for by people I trust to have a good taste in this.
I'm also pleasantly surprised with your turning a bit towards "what do others want from me", as I disliked you a bit in our brief encounter in NYC perceiving you as too self-focused for my taste for more other-focused and considerate people. There's still a bit too much *I*-ness even in this post for my sense of ideal balance on this (which is likely different from yours), but it's cool to see more overlap now with your pondering more belonging/community/*we*-ness themes here.
I enjoyed your "work" post as well, though to me it came off even more *I*-focused than this one, I wonder if that's a well-founded perception reflecting your evolution between then and now.
>“Where is Johnson’s place in the circle of life? Where do I most belong, where am I most called to serve?”
"Commitment" is the word that this brought up to me that connects to what I perceived as your limited attunement to issues of identity in the "work" post. To me "fluid identity" sounds like "I'm not yet sure of who I am, where is my place in the world, what tradition I'm part of, what causes and values are dearest to me, what people share (some of) them that I choose to be around and commit to, what path I'm choosing to devote myself to". From these posts, I don't really perceive you as identity-less: being a "vagrant", "fucking around", "doing what I want" are quite specific choices implying quite specific values and identity to me, as are your apparent interests and involvement in alt-community-building and alt-healing of self and others. I understand you might not be committed to them yet to own them as an "identity", yet imo making those choices and spending years pursuing them will be a layer of who you are/who you become regardless.
I was a bit confused by your section on “work as a source of meaning and purpose". Sure meaning is subjective and internally made, but that doesn't imply "whatever goes". In my read you find some things more meaningful (community-building, intimate relationships, giving ifs/coaching sessions) and some less ("writing code"). For many people the key tradeoff to resolve with career choice is between doing something they like and/or find meaningful, and the rewards society offers for it. I guess you're privileged enough to not face that tradeoff (which also might make the choice harder, "too much freedom with too few constraints"), but might still be facing other ones: accessing good options, finding a community of like-minded comrades.
I appreciate the thoughtful comment <3 thanks for taking the time to reply.
That all makes sense to me, particularly the distaste towards the self-centeredness, and the perception of rejecting the identities that I have. I also appreciated the perceptiveness and empathy around how it's challenging to find like-minded and like-constrained comrades.
I'm quite proud of and bullish towards my slow turn towards service from what I would call a place of wholeness. I inch towards "I don't NEED to help others" - I don't NEED to serve to boost my ego, to avoid nihilism, to avoid my own feelings/pain, to meet material needs, etc. I'm quite suspicious of these impulses within myself, because of how deeply my impulses run, to try and fix others and their problems, a lifetimes worth, which I imagine you understand given our circling overlap. I inch towards helping others because I simply and selfishly WANT to, because I want to be loved more.
On identity, I perhaps have different associations with the word. I think of "identity politics", where identity to me connotes a box that explains and governs my past, present, and future. I don't resonate with that. A word that captures "important aspects of who I've been and how I've behaved that will continue to influence me", could be identity, and that I'm certainly on board with. E.g. - my family is from Taiwan and I grew up with customs from that culture ("I'm Taiwanese" for short). I've moved around a lot the last 5 years ("I've been a nomad" for short). But they may or may not be alive for me today, and I may or may not continue those things in the future
I don't think one can choose one's core impulses, but there's certainly a difference between finding adaptive gratifications that leave one full and satisfied, and using less adaptive psychic compromises with compulsive feel to them. Think it's more or less what you're saying, feeling like one does it coz they want to leaving one fulfilled vs having remaining angst/frustration around it.
putting CARE among primary drives along with LUST and PLAY and SEEKING (curiosity/exploration/excitement/goal pursuit, mesolimbic dopamine system driven).
So guess I'm not sure it's quite reducible to "I care coz I want to be loved more", though it is compatible with "I care coz I want to".
On identity, it feels like the root of our disagreement might be related to my belief "you can't choose your past and always carry it with you", and related sensibilities regarding the "limits of choice/control", over how others see us in particular, but also over how we feel around various sorts of people. Ime time-worn identifications run strong, and there is a degree of automatic ease and sense of belonging for me among my country of birth crowd, or anime nerds, or rationalists, coming from some identity layers, even if those identifications are now largely disowned and are dysphoric to my more recent identity layers. I think our backgrounds are similar in a sense of us both having "jumped crowds" a number of times, but I view the result not as being identity-less, and more like, unfortunately, this https://www.pinterest.com/pin/531002612327234696/
not being a good fit for many more easily available boxes.
For me this is alive as I have a community in mind I want to be part of and probably will be committing to for life, and I'm painfully aware it will take quite a bit of "putting in the time" to truly belong, and that I do have unconventional background for it that would make the fit less easy and clean than it is for some, and that would probably always cause a degree of friction.
Anyhow, looking forward to your future posts, curious to find out where you'll end up.
Great post, I find this very relatable, finding my people, where I'm wanted/liked/appreciated/feel I belong (and towards whom I feel the same), is one of the most alive challenges for me, though I suspect I'm behind you on this path. Being unabashedly liked is a great feeling, as is being appreciated for expressing the gifts that I most want to be appreciated for by people I trust to have a good taste in this.
I'm also pleasantly surprised with your turning a bit towards "what do others want from me", as I disliked you a bit in our brief encounter in NYC perceiving you as too self-focused for my taste for more other-focused and considerate people. There's still a bit too much *I*-ness even in this post for my sense of ideal balance on this (which is likely different from yours), but it's cool to see more overlap now with your pondering more belonging/community/*we*-ness themes here.
I enjoyed your "work" post as well, though to me it came off even more *I*-focused than this one, I wonder if that's a well-founded perception reflecting your evolution between then and now.
>“Where is Johnson’s place in the circle of life? Where do I most belong, where am I most called to serve?”
"Commitment" is the word that this brought up to me that connects to what I perceived as your limited attunement to issues of identity in the "work" post. To me "fluid identity" sounds like "I'm not yet sure of who I am, where is my place in the world, what tradition I'm part of, what causes and values are dearest to me, what people share (some of) them that I choose to be around and commit to, what path I'm choosing to devote myself to". From these posts, I don't really perceive you as identity-less: being a "vagrant", "fucking around", "doing what I want" are quite specific choices implying quite specific values and identity to me, as are your apparent interests and involvement in alt-community-building and alt-healing of self and others. I understand you might not be committed to them yet to own them as an "identity", yet imo making those choices and spending years pursuing them will be a layer of who you are/who you become regardless.
I was a bit confused by your section on “work as a source of meaning and purpose". Sure meaning is subjective and internally made, but that doesn't imply "whatever goes". In my read you find some things more meaningful (community-building, intimate relationships, giving ifs/coaching sessions) and some less ("writing code"). For many people the key tradeoff to resolve with career choice is between doing something they like and/or find meaningful, and the rewards society offers for it. I guess you're privileged enough to not face that tradeoff (which also might make the choice harder, "too much freedom with too few constraints"), but might still be facing other ones: accessing good options, finding a community of like-minded comrades.
I appreciate the thoughtful comment <3 thanks for taking the time to reply.
That all makes sense to me, particularly the distaste towards the self-centeredness, and the perception of rejecting the identities that I have. I also appreciated the perceptiveness and empathy around how it's challenging to find like-minded and like-constrained comrades.
I'm quite proud of and bullish towards my slow turn towards service from what I would call a place of wholeness. I inch towards "I don't NEED to help others" - I don't NEED to serve to boost my ego, to avoid nihilism, to avoid my own feelings/pain, to meet material needs, etc. I'm quite suspicious of these impulses within myself, because of how deeply my impulses run, to try and fix others and their problems, a lifetimes worth, which I imagine you understand given our circling overlap. I inch towards helping others because I simply and selfishly WANT to, because I want to be loved more.
On identity, I perhaps have different associations with the word. I think of "identity politics", where identity to me connotes a box that explains and governs my past, present, and future. I don't resonate with that. A word that captures "important aspects of who I've been and how I've behaved that will continue to influence me", could be identity, and that I'm certainly on board with. E.g. - my family is from Taiwan and I grew up with customs from that culture ("I'm Taiwanese" for short). I've moved around a lot the last 5 years ("I've been a nomad" for short). But they may or may not be alive for me today, and I may or may not continue those things in the future
Cheers.
Mhm, need vs want is quite tricky.
>suspicious of these impulses within myself
I don't think one can choose one's core impulses, but there's certainly a difference between finding adaptive gratifications that leave one full and satisfied, and using less adaptive psychic compromises with compulsive feel to them. Think it's more or less what you're saying, feeling like one does it coz they want to leaving one fulfilled vs having remaining angst/frustration around it.
I am informed here in part by Solms' formulation
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00030651211057041
putting CARE among primary drives along with LUST and PLAY and SEEKING (curiosity/exploration/excitement/goal pursuit, mesolimbic dopamine system driven).
So guess I'm not sure it's quite reducible to "I care coz I want to be loved more", though it is compatible with "I care coz I want to".
On identity, it feels like the root of our disagreement might be related to my belief "you can't choose your past and always carry it with you", and related sensibilities regarding the "limits of choice/control", over how others see us in particular, but also over how we feel around various sorts of people. Ime time-worn identifications run strong, and there is a degree of automatic ease and sense of belonging for me among my country of birth crowd, or anime nerds, or rationalists, coming from some identity layers, even if those identifications are now largely disowned and are dysphoric to my more recent identity layers. I think our backgrounds are similar in a sense of us both having "jumped crowds" a number of times, but I view the result not as being identity-less, and more like, unfortunately, this https://www.pinterest.com/pin/531002612327234696/
not being a good fit for many more easily available boxes.
For me this is alive as I have a community in mind I want to be part of and probably will be committing to for life, and I'm painfully aware it will take quite a bit of "putting in the time" to truly belong, and that I do have unconventional background for it that would make the fit less easy and clean than it is for some, and that would probably always cause a degree of friction.
Anyhow, looking forward to your future posts, curious to find out where you'll end up.