Mind my words
& Word my mind
Category: Life skills, mood management
Epistemic status: Personal ideas
For a long time, I’ve leaned towards action & high energy as my preferred mode of being. I’m getting increasingly good at the opposite, navigating low-energy modes.
This is something I’ve struggled with a lot. I’ve been to events where I’ve consciously decided to “try to be passive”, closing down and stopping impulses that arise. This was very much not fun and led to dullness and anxiety.
I decided to bring up this conundrum in a philosophical coaching call with Peter. He listened attentively and then suggested a re-framing: practising “being receptive” rather than “being passive”.
I tried it out, and everything became way easier. When I’m acting from a receptive place, my attention is on the situation rather than focused inwards, at un-met action impulses. If I’m tired, being receptive is an easy way to stay attuned to what’s going on. If I’m tired and tell myself that I’m passive, I start getting urges to “man up” and coerce myself into action.
Substituting words in this way was very powerful. I got curious about other impactful word substitutions. So I did what any eccentric would do: I started interviewing my friends.
The Interviews
For some weeks after the realization, I started telling my friends about the passive→receptive substitution. I then asked them if they had any similar word substitutions they did in order to shift their perspective on things.
This question was a real goldmine. One of the first examples I got has served me very well: “Being with myself” rather than “being alone”.1
For me “being alone” has a lot of negative connotations. It sounds sad, being very close to “being lonely”.2 “Being with myself”, on the other hand, is loaded with power. This way of framing things makes it clear that I’m great company for myself. It makes it clear that going solo is a conscious choice rather than an unlucky accident.
Another friend3 brought up a classic:4 thinking about hurdles as "challenges" rather than "problems". This reframing echoes a Marcus Aurelius quote:
The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."
This substitution is a classic for a reason; it’s much easier to find solutions once you start thinking about possibilities rather than problems. Most people agree with this in the abstract. But when shit hits the fan, most people habitually judge obstacles as "bad".5
Handling life
I was pleasantly surprised by how powerful word substitution was for me. I started tinkering with some mental models for this, and (re?)developed6 some perspectives on how words work.
The starting point is this: The way I use words is connected to the way I think. In this view, language is an extension of thought, a tangible part of my cognitive processing. The tip of the mental iceberg,7 if you will.
Since thoughts and words are connected, affecting one will affect the other. Substituting the word is not about the word in itself, but rather about the thoughts and perspectives that are attached to/constrained by the word.
When I spoke of myself as “passive”, the word choice was the mirror of a perspective choice. Perspectives are subtle, words are tangible. By focusing on the wording, Peter set my attention on the tangible & manageable, giving me a handle on the underlying thought pattern. Using this handle, I’ve been able to shift my perspective around, resolving the stuck thought patterns.
I’ve been exploring similar perspective shifts a lot in this blog, in posts like “the rainforest and the desert”, “virtue is the sole cool” and “a self-love insight”. But as far as I can recall, I haven’t written that much on the nature of the shifts themselves.
To explore this territory, I want to introduce the idea of virtualism, a metaphysics8 which makes a distinction between external reality9, and the inner/subjective world.10 I'm fairly confident that perspective shifts can't affect reality.11 I'm also pretty darn sure they can drastically alter the experience of my subjective world.
The difference between a tormented life and a heavenly life lies in the interpretation of existence.12 The way I relate to existing is a product of the perspectives I hold, my value judgements, and my habitual patterns of being.
All of these are connected to the words I use. Words are pretty damned important.
Can’t remember who said this, unfortunately. :(
When I’ve brought this up to people, non-parents agree. Parents seem to think of “being alone” as akin to nirvana.
this was Daniel :D
Being a classic, this idea is rather watered-out. I’ve been thinking a lot about the “profanization” of things, where mindful experiences turn into habitual ruts. This is exacerbated by commercialization which is extrinsic and extractive in nature.
There is a difference between agreeing with propositions and embodying the consequence of the reasoning. Agreeing to the claim “candy is bad for my health, I should stop eating it”, is very different from actually stopping.
One of the most profound insights of my life reads as obvious, almost too simple to write down. It goes like this: “it’s important to be kind”. Agreeing with this statement on a propositional level is unlikely to affect someone’s behaviour. My felt sense of a strong existential urgency towards kindness is something completely different.
I want to recapture the profoundness in things like “carpe diem” and the problem→challenge reframing. We can’t let motivational poster people succeed in their desecration.
Or remembered.
“Berg” is Swedish for “mountain”. So I find it funny that “Isberg” is translated into “Iceberg” rather than “Icemountain”.
There are some huge icebergs :o
metaphysics = framework for explaining the relationship between oneself and existence, and how these are related. I picked up this one from Evan McMullen:
Natural invariants we explore through physics
What many people naively think of as “reality”: our highly biased/function-adapted interpretation/experience of reality. This falls straight out if you accept the basic ideas of predictive processing: the idea that cognition operates as a prediction machinery; with your subjective experience being the outcome of a process that generates a model highly suited for predicting incoming stimuli.
More info: https://www.amazon.com/Surfing-Uncertainty-Prediction-Action-Embodied/dp/0190217014
Contrary to people who’re into the law of attraction, serendipity etc. I think both of these frameworks can open one up for opportunities by directing one’s attention, but I don’t think they affect reality directly.
For sure it’s easier when you aren’t tortured for instance. But it’s possible. It’s also possible to succumb to nihilism and despair, even if you are privileged (as seen from a global perspective.)
”If you suffer distress because of some external cause, it is not the thing itself that troubles you but your judgement about it, and it is within your power to cancel that judgement at any moment.” - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.47
Rephrasing is very powerful. Love it! An extension of seeing hurdles as challenges is phrasing the challenge with How Might We (HMW), or if you're running solo - How Might I (HMI). Simply follow the HMI statement with targeting the challenge. This will automatically give it a positive connotation.
Example. Problem: I feel to tired to work. HMI: How might I make myself feel more energized.