It reminds me of an idea I heard David Whyte share on the Tim Ferriss Show, about how most of us create a life we don't truly care about or close ourselves off from fully caring - because we're afraid of the inevitable heartbreak that's part of life.
I pulled it from the transcript if you're interested:
"All of us spend so much time trying to find a path, where we won’t have our heart broken. And really, the only way you can find a path where your heart won’t break is by not caring. Finding a path where you don’t care about things or other people, that’s the ultimate protection against heartbreak.
But then, you live a life in the abstract. You live a life that never makes any real sense. You live a life of loneliness. So finding out what you care about, even though we try and find a path where we won’t have our heartbreak, and you’re going to have your heart broken anyway, so we might as well get with the program, and have our heartbreak broken over something that we actually care about."
Years ago, I took a mixed martial arts class to try to spark some enthusiasm for physical exercise. But I was so embarrassed about looking stupid that I spent a ridiculous amount on a grappling dummy I called Paulo so I could practice my moves in the comfort of my own home. Three months of practicing with Paolo didn't teach me as much as a single rolling session where I repeatedly tapped out within seconds. The moat of low status is real.
Great post! I used to be part of a student live band, without being a musician. My role was being the first person dancing, preferably a little awkward to lower the bar. This was great practice for embracing embarrassment, especially on occasions where no one would join untill they were drunk. Still have some shivers thinking about it, but I can now dance in public whenever I feel like it.
This is a great piece! I especially love the emphasis on 'the world didn't turn to ash' - it's wild how prohibitive that thinking - the bias toward negative outlier 'what ifs' when the world clearly doesn't operate in power laws like that from one failed try at something - can be in stopping creativity, experimentation and a bias toward action - things we need more than ever in society!
From my own observations, I would add one additional thought to your meditation: I think people avoid this time of perceived 'low status' not only because of the potential for temporary embarrassment but also because of an unfortunate undercurrent in our society that I've noticed has been looming larger in the recent years: the surprisingly negative social cost of any divergence from 'the norm.' Sometimes that manifests as simple jealousy (even fueling that desire *to embarrass*) but sometimes it's more implicit.
Recently, I decided to take a gap year - my career in science and drug development was going well - but I wanted time to achieve life goals I thought deserved my attention now rather than later (hiking around the world, helping my family, even trying some new areas for cross pollination of my creative work). I'm so glad I did!
I feel mentally more disciplined than ever, more creative in my thinking, and frankly more open to possibilities and imagination across fields. It was also incredibly freeing to have relationships where 'what do I do for work' wasn't the top discussion point.
However, during that time I noticed a few things: as I returned to my area of expertise, there were many folks that celebrated that choice (honestly, it should be common knowledge that not all our life goals, or even potential of our full selves, be achieved in two week's leave each year) but quite a few more that viewed it with suspicion ("how will you be as sharp?" - as if one could forget years of expertise in a few months), even resentment ("I could never take a year off! I'm just too busy for that - I would get bored!").
It was a surprisingly good litmus test for me - the folks I found to be accepting and curious of a divergence from the norm were some of the best and most creative scientists I've worked with. For those latter folks, there was an intractable tie of status with not only job/title, but immediate busy-ness in that job, something I believe holds back the 'rule breaking' nature needed to make transformative advances in creative and scientific fields. I worry about this as we move toward a world where each aspect of science is more tick-box advances, planned out with low-hanging metrics of achievement, rather than the sometime-chaotic but rewarding intervals of innovation.
I hope our society transforms to be more plastic in its thinking - and to embrace these "Moats of Low Status" both as individuals (overcoming that embarrassment) but also as a larger community (overcoming that stigma of the unknown) - if we don't we sacrifice some of the best thinking as a species.
All that to say - I really enjoyed your post and I'd definitely be curious your thoughts on how we power through and accept Moats of Low Status more broadly in work and society at-large!
I love this comment -- and agree that mental slack like what you describe is often the most important thing in facilitating transformative progress. I always try to push people to take a looong time off between jobs when they can afford to, to give their minds time to breathe!
How do we fight that senseless desire to conform? I have seen young women move mountains trying to make sure that they appear "normal," but all it seemed to accomplish is to provide a vector for manipulation. I had assumed people grew out of that.
With regards to people taking time off, in my personal experience women coming back to work after taking a few years off to have children are some of the best employees imaginable. They are eager to get back into the action and their enthusiasm is infectious. I wish we could find a way to allow men to take maternity leave and not get laid off within a year of their return to work.
Thank you for this. I'm currently working on a YouTube podcast series on the history of Swaziland (where I am from) and I did all the research, but just yesterday I sat in front of the camera and spoke and was shocked to find out I'm not Dominic Sandbrook or Tom Holland! I'm nervous and lose my wits in front of the camera and sometimes there's a knot in the pit of my stomach, but by God I'll do this. Every since I found out people can do this I have secretly wanted to. Suck or no I was resolved to continue, but you've given voice to my predicament and somehow that's just made it all better. So once more, thank you!
Reminds me of that clip in which Ed Sheeran shares an audio recording of himself singing badly when just starting out, to prove he's not talented. He's developed a skill. I'd love to see a compilation of famous skilled people sucking at the thing they're eventually masters at
Great piece! A few observations that might be interesting as you reflect on this for the book.
*Cultural differences in fear of the moat.* When I was in my late 20s, I chose to leave my successful, well-paying management consultant career in order to fly and sell airplanes. My US friends all encouraged me, while my German friends were quite concerned. I was the sole woman sales person, the one with the least flying experience, one of the few who had never had a sales job before--so there was a real chance I'd fail. My American friends thought nothing of this - because they were confident that in America, it wouldn't hurt you to take a cool detour like that, while my German friends had a different perspective, with the cultural expectation that you do one type of career, for life. So I do wonder how this expression of agency ties to the culture you grew up in or that you live in now.
*Motivation as the energy to enter the moat.* I have found that when I care deeply, the moat seems much less scary. It's not a barrier that matters, because when I want something badly enough, I just don't care that I am the rookie. I've switched careers repeatedly, and each time, I asked so many questions, had to learn so much that my brain hurt and I felt exhausted for about a year just doing my new job. But it was worth it because I really wanted to learn. So maybe part of what matters isn't learning to love the moat--but really loving what's on the other side, in a vivid enough way that the embarrassment of the moat just doesn't matter that much.
Really excited about your book, Cate: I've been sharing some of the excerpts with my teenagers, and I think your book will be so helpful to young people especially. After all, they are most influenced by peers and what others think--right at the time that they need to figure out who they are to become, where trying things and failing and learning from it and not being scared away by passing embarrassment is so critical to living a fulfilled life!
What a lovely comment, Heike! Out of curiosity, what part of the US were you living in / where were your friends when you decided to make the switch? I have a perception there's also large regional variance in the US on this dimension -- Bay Area > LA/NY/Boston >>> most other places.
Oh, great question. I lived in Chicago at the time, but I had friends in a bunch of places. I think they all were very supportive, but there may be selection bias here. They were my chosen people, or at least people who were ambitious (I worked at Mckinsey) and some were hobby pilots and probably a bit jealous :)
This is so interesting. I've been thinking a lot lately about what culture actually is. What I'm leaning towards as the most basic definition is: a set of shared beliefs, which are internalised by the majority. This story demonstrates that so clearly.
When you add in memory reconsolidation, this is really exciting because now you can essentially opt out of culture where you want to. And by opting out, you're voting for a new culture too.
You could always go the Kanye route: have so much self-confidence and unwavering conviction that you never even realize that you're in the moat (see Last Call https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpbeS15sHZ0 and the jeen-yuhs Netflix doc)
Funnily enough, I think the other side of the coin, having great amounts of humility, also works quite well (being in the moat hurts less)
When I was in high school, I observed that people stop caring about pretty much every embarrassing moment that happens to someone after two weeks have passed, so I lost most of my fear of making a fool of myself in public because all I would have to do was wait for it to blow over and then everything would be back to normal.
For me, I think that it's not really a "moat of low status" so much as a "moat of wasted time"; I feel as though I could cross a lot of moats but the results won't be worth the time and effort I'd need to put in in order to become good. For example, it would be nice to play video games in the original Japanese, but I don't want to dedicate four years of my life to studying and mastering the language in order to be able to do it. If the studying itself isn't intrinsically rewarding, there seems like there would be a lot of things I could theoretically learn to do - such as read Japanese - that won't provide any practical benefits until I put in much more effort than the foreseeable benefits are actually worth.
Or maybe I'm just fooling myself and using a perceived lack of benefits as an excuse not to do things.
Thanks, Cate. I'm currently in the Substack Moat of Low Status and far from loving it, lol. Love this:
"And then there’s the real thing that gets me to do a lot of things I don’t want to do: Imagine the advantage you’ll have over all the people who let shame slow them down."
I feel like a reduced sense of self and less total ego addresses the root cause of the embarrassments of being bad at new things.
A less and less strongly held identity is probably optimal, although not without its tradeoffs, but if that’s too hard, choosing a different (better) identity I think is still an improvement. For example replacing, “I’m pretty good at everything I do” vs “I know how to get good at anything because I can wade through the moat of low status.” I see this article as closer to this second strategy.
But I think being just less self conscious overall and letting go of the story/identity tied to being good at things is a more robust fix. For me the learning to love the most of low status strategy feels like white knuckling a problem, and requires constant upkeep. Maybe the let go identity though that’s the next step after? Or maybe we should just go for that now. 🤷
Really like the personal examples in the post. And I’m excited for the book!
Just curious - what would you consider the tradeoffs of a less strongly held identity? I’ve personally found that in periods where I’m engaging more heavily in meditation/going to temples/other ego shedding esque activities, I end up losing my desire for trying out new things to begin with.
Oh interesting. I think a less strongly held identity could sometimes take away motivation for good actions. If I had to guess I used to eat healthier because I was more tied to a “I’m a healthy person” identity. Default becomes choosing healthy option, and eating sugary foods would be incongruent with that identity.
But honestly it’s hard to say whether or not it was an identity thing or it was just a goal/phase of life I was more into at the time. Well maybe phases are like trying on identities for times. Like an emo phase. That’s definitely an identity lol.
The more strongly held the identity the more enduring and stable it is. Which has a sort of anchoring effect in that you return to the actions taken by a person of said identity (e.g., entrepreneur -> work). Less strongly held identities, actions are more flexible (which is good I think from agency perspective because you’re not locked into the narrow set of actions of whatever X identity). But it also opens up to bad actions being playable, like eating junk. Oh but it also feels less bad to eat junk with looser held identity because there’s less of a story of uh yk the self-help don’t eat junk food type of story. So win there?
I haven’t experienced/aren’t aware of the having less of a desire to try new things tho. Why do you think that happens?
Oh wow I 100% agree with the flexibility/stability dichotomy, but I’ve personally never connected it to strongly/weakly held identity before. I’ve always personally thought of it as a personality trait, where the benefits of flexibility weans as your life gets better, but the identity stuff makes so much sense. Really insightful stuff!
And I’ve just personally found trying new things to be an ego thing for me, maybe more so than other people. I realized that I’ll usually imagine what it’ll be like to tell stories about experiences or be good at instruments/languages/hobbies, and that’s usually the thing motivating me to do new things. When I realized I was doing that, I tried a lot of reflection/meditation/buddhism adjacent stuff to be less controlled by my ego, but I just ended up having less desires overall. I guess it should’ve been obvious that doing Buddhism things will lead to less desire, but it felt way more nihilistic than freeing than what I originally guessed. Idk if any of that lines up with any of your experiences.
Super post—one that definitely represents a missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of my understanding of the human condition. Thanks!
Would you say what is often termed ‘fear of failure’ could in essence fit this description too—failure would be seen as a loss of status, even if only in one’s own eyes, kind of ‘self-status’? For example, (not) sending a piece of your own work (writing, a composition, a work of craft or art etc) to an admired practitioner because you’d rather entertain the idea of a *possible* positive response than a *certain* disappointment (no, or a negative, response)? In such a case, any loss of status would be pretty much private.
I think this self-image/self-status thing may be underrated as a behavioural influence. One reason for this is a powerful self-serving bias, our tendency to interpret and bend facts to ensure we are put in the best possible light (typical example: failures are due to external circumstances, successes to our superior skill and ability!), which shields USA quite well from dents in our self-image. It’s when that is less likely to protect us—eg because we know all too well we’d be trying to fool ourselves otherwise—that we will tend to opt for playing safe, “better safe than sorry”, etc.
This would seem to offer prime opportunities to alter our behaviour to our advantage. Instead of worrying about a loss of status in other people’s eyes (about which we can but speculate), loss of status in our own eyes is much more within our control.
I’m going to try and explicitly put this into practice—thanks for the inspiration!
Do people really avoid new things that strongly? I have been told I am a strange man, but reading this everyone must be right. I love learning new things. One is supposed to suck at new things. You work at it until you figure it out or get so frustrated that you move on to better pastures. Humiliation to me mean something stronger, like guys pinning you to your locker and yanking your pants and underwear down to your ankles in school, or your wife sleeping with everyone you know.
Now that I think about it, my father was always embarrassing our family, and yet again, despite trying my hardest, I have still become my father. Luckily my wife does not mind my silly curiosities. Her opinion is one of the few I care about.
Love the idea of "path of least embarrassment."
It reminds me of an idea I heard David Whyte share on the Tim Ferriss Show, about how most of us create a life we don't truly care about or close ourselves off from fully caring - because we're afraid of the inevitable heartbreak that's part of life.
I pulled it from the transcript if you're interested:
"All of us spend so much time trying to find a path, where we won’t have our heart broken. And really, the only way you can find a path where your heart won’t break is by not caring. Finding a path where you don’t care about things or other people, that’s the ultimate protection against heartbreak.
But then, you live a life in the abstract. You live a life that never makes any real sense. You live a life of loneliness. So finding out what you care about, even though we try and find a path where we won’t have our heartbreak, and you’re going to have your heart broken anyway, so we might as well get with the program, and have our heartbreak broken over something that we actually care about."
this is so true!
Years ago, I took a mixed martial arts class to try to spark some enthusiasm for physical exercise. But I was so embarrassed about looking stupid that I spent a ridiculous amount on a grappling dummy I called Paulo so I could practice my moves in the comfort of my own home. Three months of practicing with Paolo didn't teach me as much as a single rolling session where I repeatedly tapped out within seconds. The moat of low status is real.
oh wow I love this example!!
Great post! I used to be part of a student live band, without being a musician. My role was being the first person dancing, preferably a little awkward to lower the bar. This was great practice for embracing embarrassment, especially on occasions where no one would join untill they were drunk. Still have some shivers thinking about it, but I can now dance in public whenever I feel like it.
oh I love that!
This is a great piece! I especially love the emphasis on 'the world didn't turn to ash' - it's wild how prohibitive that thinking - the bias toward negative outlier 'what ifs' when the world clearly doesn't operate in power laws like that from one failed try at something - can be in stopping creativity, experimentation and a bias toward action - things we need more than ever in society!
From my own observations, I would add one additional thought to your meditation: I think people avoid this time of perceived 'low status' not only because of the potential for temporary embarrassment but also because of an unfortunate undercurrent in our society that I've noticed has been looming larger in the recent years: the surprisingly negative social cost of any divergence from 'the norm.' Sometimes that manifests as simple jealousy (even fueling that desire *to embarrass*) but sometimes it's more implicit.
Recently, I decided to take a gap year - my career in science and drug development was going well - but I wanted time to achieve life goals I thought deserved my attention now rather than later (hiking around the world, helping my family, even trying some new areas for cross pollination of my creative work). I'm so glad I did!
I feel mentally more disciplined than ever, more creative in my thinking, and frankly more open to possibilities and imagination across fields. It was also incredibly freeing to have relationships where 'what do I do for work' wasn't the top discussion point.
However, during that time I noticed a few things: as I returned to my area of expertise, there were many folks that celebrated that choice (honestly, it should be common knowledge that not all our life goals, or even potential of our full selves, be achieved in two week's leave each year) but quite a few more that viewed it with suspicion ("how will you be as sharp?" - as if one could forget years of expertise in a few months), even resentment ("I could never take a year off! I'm just too busy for that - I would get bored!").
It was a surprisingly good litmus test for me - the folks I found to be accepting and curious of a divergence from the norm were some of the best and most creative scientists I've worked with. For those latter folks, there was an intractable tie of status with not only job/title, but immediate busy-ness in that job, something I believe holds back the 'rule breaking' nature needed to make transformative advances in creative and scientific fields. I worry about this as we move toward a world where each aspect of science is more tick-box advances, planned out with low-hanging metrics of achievement, rather than the sometime-chaotic but rewarding intervals of innovation.
I hope our society transforms to be more plastic in its thinking - and to embrace these "Moats of Low Status" both as individuals (overcoming that embarrassment) but also as a larger community (overcoming that stigma of the unknown) - if we don't we sacrifice some of the best thinking as a species.
All that to say - I really enjoyed your post and I'd definitely be curious your thoughts on how we power through and accept Moats of Low Status more broadly in work and society at-large!
I love this comment -- and agree that mental slack like what you describe is often the most important thing in facilitating transformative progress. I always try to push people to take a looong time off between jobs when they can afford to, to give their minds time to breathe!
How do we fight that senseless desire to conform? I have seen young women move mountains trying to make sure that they appear "normal," but all it seemed to accomplish is to provide a vector for manipulation. I had assumed people grew out of that.
With regards to people taking time off, in my personal experience women coming back to work after taking a few years off to have children are some of the best employees imaginable. They are eager to get back into the action and their enthusiasm is infectious. I wish we could find a way to allow men to take maternity leave and not get laid off within a year of their return to work.
Thank you for this. I'm currently working on a YouTube podcast series on the history of Swaziland (where I am from) and I did all the research, but just yesterday I sat in front of the camera and spoke and was shocked to find out I'm not Dominic Sandbrook or Tom Holland! I'm nervous and lose my wits in front of the camera and sometimes there's a knot in the pit of my stomach, but by God I'll do this. Every since I found out people can do this I have secretly wanted to. Suck or no I was resolved to continue, but you've given voice to my predicament and somehow that's just made it all better. So once more, thank you!
oh, that's so nice to hear!
Reminds me of that clip in which Ed Sheeran shares an audio recording of himself singing badly when just starting out, to prove he's not talented. He's developed a skill. I'd love to see a compilation of famous skilled people sucking at the thing they're eventually masters at
Edit: turns out he did this much more than once: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-m&q=YouTube%20ed%20Sheeran%20not%20talented%20young
love this!!
Skateboarding videos have this, and it is fun to watch.
Great piece! A few observations that might be interesting as you reflect on this for the book.
*Cultural differences in fear of the moat.* When I was in my late 20s, I chose to leave my successful, well-paying management consultant career in order to fly and sell airplanes. My US friends all encouraged me, while my German friends were quite concerned. I was the sole woman sales person, the one with the least flying experience, one of the few who had never had a sales job before--so there was a real chance I'd fail. My American friends thought nothing of this - because they were confident that in America, it wouldn't hurt you to take a cool detour like that, while my German friends had a different perspective, with the cultural expectation that you do one type of career, for life. So I do wonder how this expression of agency ties to the culture you grew up in or that you live in now.
*Motivation as the energy to enter the moat.* I have found that when I care deeply, the moat seems much less scary. It's not a barrier that matters, because when I want something badly enough, I just don't care that I am the rookie. I've switched careers repeatedly, and each time, I asked so many questions, had to learn so much that my brain hurt and I felt exhausted for about a year just doing my new job. But it was worth it because I really wanted to learn. So maybe part of what matters isn't learning to love the moat--but really loving what's on the other side, in a vivid enough way that the embarrassment of the moat just doesn't matter that much.
Really excited about your book, Cate: I've been sharing some of the excerpts with my teenagers, and I think your book will be so helpful to young people especially. After all, they are most influenced by peers and what others think--right at the time that they need to figure out who they are to become, where trying things and failing and learning from it and not being scared away by passing embarrassment is so critical to living a fulfilled life!
What a lovely comment, Heike! Out of curiosity, what part of the US were you living in / where were your friends when you decided to make the switch? I have a perception there's also large regional variance in the US on this dimension -- Bay Area > LA/NY/Boston >>> most other places.
Oh, great question. I lived in Chicago at the time, but I had friends in a bunch of places. I think they all were very supportive, but there may be selection bias here. They were my chosen people, or at least people who were ambitious (I worked at Mckinsey) and some were hobby pilots and probably a bit jealous :)
There are a surprising number of private plane brokers in Chicago.
This is so interesting. I've been thinking a lot lately about what culture actually is. What I'm leaning towards as the most basic definition is: a set of shared beliefs, which are internalised by the majority. This story demonstrates that so clearly.
When you add in memory reconsolidation, this is really exciting because now you can essentially opt out of culture where you want to. And by opting out, you're voting for a new culture too.
Good length. This unpacked the concept for me in a way the short part in "how to be more agentic" wouldn't. Thanks for writing this!
thank you! that's really nice feedback to hear :)
Awesome post!
You could always go the Kanye route: have so much self-confidence and unwavering conviction that you never even realize that you're in the moat (see Last Call https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpbeS15sHZ0 and the jeen-yuhs Netflix doc)
Funnily enough, I think the other side of the coin, having great amounts of humility, also works quite well (being in the moat hurts less)
I like that idea
When I was in high school, I observed that people stop caring about pretty much every embarrassing moment that happens to someone after two weeks have passed, so I lost most of my fear of making a fool of myself in public because all I would have to do was wait for it to blow over and then everything would be back to normal.
For me, I think that it's not really a "moat of low status" so much as a "moat of wasted time"; I feel as though I could cross a lot of moats but the results won't be worth the time and effort I'd need to put in in order to become good. For example, it would be nice to play video games in the original Japanese, but I don't want to dedicate four years of my life to studying and mastering the language in order to be able to do it. If the studying itself isn't intrinsically rewarding, there seems like there would be a lot of things I could theoretically learn to do - such as read Japanese - that won't provide any practical benefits until I put in much more effort than the foreseeable benefits are actually worth.
Or maybe I'm just fooling myself and using a perceived lack of benefits as an excuse not to do things.
Thanks, Cate. I'm currently in the Substack Moat of Low Status and far from loving it, lol. Love this:
"And then there’s the real thing that gets me to do a lot of things I don’t want to do: Imagine the advantage you’ll have over all the people who let shame slow them down."
I feel like a reduced sense of self and less total ego addresses the root cause of the embarrassments of being bad at new things.
A less and less strongly held identity is probably optimal, although not without its tradeoffs, but if that’s too hard, choosing a different (better) identity I think is still an improvement. For example replacing, “I’m pretty good at everything I do” vs “I know how to get good at anything because I can wade through the moat of low status.” I see this article as closer to this second strategy.
But I think being just less self conscious overall and letting go of the story/identity tied to being good at things is a more robust fix. For me the learning to love the most of low status strategy feels like white knuckling a problem, and requires constant upkeep. Maybe the let go identity though that’s the next step after? Or maybe we should just go for that now. 🤷
Really like the personal examples in the post. And I’m excited for the book!
Just curious - what would you consider the tradeoffs of a less strongly held identity? I’ve personally found that in periods where I’m engaging more heavily in meditation/going to temples/other ego shedding esque activities, I end up losing my desire for trying out new things to begin with.
Oh interesting. I think a less strongly held identity could sometimes take away motivation for good actions. If I had to guess I used to eat healthier because I was more tied to a “I’m a healthy person” identity. Default becomes choosing healthy option, and eating sugary foods would be incongruent with that identity.
But honestly it’s hard to say whether or not it was an identity thing or it was just a goal/phase of life I was more into at the time. Well maybe phases are like trying on identities for times. Like an emo phase. That’s definitely an identity lol.
The more strongly held the identity the more enduring and stable it is. Which has a sort of anchoring effect in that you return to the actions taken by a person of said identity (e.g., entrepreneur -> work). Less strongly held identities, actions are more flexible (which is good I think from agency perspective because you’re not locked into the narrow set of actions of whatever X identity). But it also opens up to bad actions being playable, like eating junk. Oh but it also feels less bad to eat junk with looser held identity because there’s less of a story of uh yk the self-help don’t eat junk food type of story. So win there?
I haven’t experienced/aren’t aware of the having less of a desire to try new things tho. Why do you think that happens?
Oh wow I 100% agree with the flexibility/stability dichotomy, but I’ve personally never connected it to strongly/weakly held identity before. I’ve always personally thought of it as a personality trait, where the benefits of flexibility weans as your life gets better, but the identity stuff makes so much sense. Really insightful stuff!
And I’ve just personally found trying new things to be an ego thing for me, maybe more so than other people. I realized that I’ll usually imagine what it’ll be like to tell stories about experiences or be good at instruments/languages/hobbies, and that’s usually the thing motivating me to do new things. When I realized I was doing that, I tried a lot of reflection/meditation/buddhism adjacent stuff to be less controlled by my ego, but I just ended up having less desires overall. I guess it should’ve been obvious that doing Buddhism things will lead to less desire, but it felt way more nihilistic than freeing than what I originally guessed. Idk if any of that lines up with any of your experiences.
“splashing around in the moat of low status” = my new favorite way to think about practice
Super post—one that definitely represents a missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of my understanding of the human condition. Thanks!
Would you say what is often termed ‘fear of failure’ could in essence fit this description too—failure would be seen as a loss of status, even if only in one’s own eyes, kind of ‘self-status’? For example, (not) sending a piece of your own work (writing, a composition, a work of craft or art etc) to an admired practitioner because you’d rather entertain the idea of a *possible* positive response than a *certain* disappointment (no, or a negative, response)? In such a case, any loss of status would be pretty much private.
Yes, very closely related!
I think this self-image/self-status thing may be underrated as a behavioural influence. One reason for this is a powerful self-serving bias, our tendency to interpret and bend facts to ensure we are put in the best possible light (typical example: failures are due to external circumstances, successes to our superior skill and ability!), which shields USA quite well from dents in our self-image. It’s when that is less likely to protect us—eg because we know all too well we’d be trying to fool ourselves otherwise—that we will tend to opt for playing safe, “better safe than sorry”, etc.
This would seem to offer prime opportunities to alter our behaviour to our advantage. Instead of worrying about a loss of status in other people’s eyes (about which we can but speculate), loss of status in our own eyes is much more within our control.
I’m going to try and explicitly put this into practice—thanks for the inspiration!
Do people really avoid new things that strongly? I have been told I am a strange man, but reading this everyone must be right. I love learning new things. One is supposed to suck at new things. You work at it until you figure it out or get so frustrated that you move on to better pastures. Humiliation to me mean something stronger, like guys pinning you to your locker and yanking your pants and underwear down to your ankles in school, or your wife sleeping with everyone you know.
Now that I think about it, my father was always embarrassing our family, and yet again, despite trying my hardest, I have still become my father. Luckily my wife does not mind my silly curiosities. Her opinion is one of the few I care about.