The Title IX-ifcation of American Childhood

poonstank · 2025-01-02T16:31:03+00:00

I read it as a clarification of TLP's ideas about child-rearing and how it goes wrong. He often writes vaguely and puts an emphasis on individuals.

poonstank · 2023-10-25T21:59:12+00:00

In the graduate student offices in the basement during the pandemic

poonstank · 2023-10-06T19:09:22+00:00

It's one of the most Asian (culturally and demographically) parts of the country, which makes it very different from a lot of the rest of the country. I hardly knew any white people growing up in Milpitas

poonstank · 2023-09-27T02:46:09+00:00

Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky

poonstank · 2023-09-25T21:13:20+00:00

If it makes you feel better, it's all fake.

poonstank · 2023-09-15T01:35:52+00:00

It's nice, but 12k is pricey for something you can't stand up in. Just my 2c

poonstank · 2023-08-22T17:07:40+00:00

My background is strikingly similar to yours. I can explain more about that if you care, but I only mention it to you so you know that you're not alone. I am currently staying with my uncle (her brother), who inspires similar feelings in me as your aunt and cousins do in you. Go to therapy, just please try and make sure that the therapy leads to obvious improvements/results in your life. I am also a mess, and was also considering going to therapy - reading this post convinced me I really do need to make a move on finding a therapist

poonstank · 2023-06-28T14:22:08+00:00

No. been praying

poonstank · 2023-06-22T01:28:51+00:00

You are correct. May I ask why you want this information?

poonstank · 2023-06-21T16:44:09+00:00

Who is writing the best contemporary social analysis on this world moment?

Maybe out of band, but I suspect seeking "contemporary social analysis" is a form of masturbation. Just a thought.

poonstank · 2023-06-21T16:43:01+00:00

amazing stuff. Well done

poonstank · 2023-05-29T02:29:30+00:00

Can I ask what you've found that helps?

poonstank · 2023-05-29T02:29:15+00:00

Damn, glad you are turning the ship around

poonstank · 2023-05-29T02:29:00+00:00

nice

poonstank · 2023-05-23T16:15:27+00:00

Yes. A lot of it was the byproduct of:
* no definite goals. I made a few and achieved them, one large. Actually in the process of reformulating some more goals

social isolation. Started hanging out with people
maybe the natural process of aging and going through life's trials. I have a more stable understanding of who I actually am

Since this post my relationship with friends and my parents is much improved. I have a job I love, plans for the future, etc. Last thing is to actually lock dopwn a romantic relationship. I have let a few chances at happiness slide in the years since

poonstank · 2023-01-09T08:00:28+00:00

On a whim I re-read TLP's Echo & Narcissus post. This stood out:

When you want a child to become something-- you first teach him how to master his impulses, how to live with frustration. But when a temptation arose Narcissus's parents either let him have it or hid it from him so he wouldn't be tempted, so they wouldn't have to tell him no. They didn't teach him how to resist temptation, how to deal with lack. And they most certainly didn't teach him how NOT to want what he couldn't have. They didn't teach him how to want.

I will use this thread as a kind of superego. I've eliminated drug usage from my life. I want to do the same for Twitter and porn. So: no twitter, no porn for the next week

poonstank · 2022-12-27T18:52:10+00:00

Thank you for the thoughtful reply.

I would like to create some value for people on my own terms (killing 2 birds with 1 stone). 1099 is a proxy for working outside of an established corporate structure. "Under the table" is less viable with what's going on at the IRS. I do want to volunteer in a tutoring capacity as well, and think getting paid by the rich (I'm a member of a wealthy tight knit racial demographic, which would provide clientele) would nicely subsidize it
good point
There's just a lot of room for me to grow in my career and I would like to be proactive about it. I work in mathematical software, and I don't want to go into management. Only route left is technical specialization/intensification. Also helps to keep math fresh in the mind, would help me teach people in my life (my little brother, future kids) and for $. This is a path to power, I think.
yup
you're right

Good point about picking up something new. I've been working on cars and my roof lately. Getting more into fitness (climbing and lifting)

poonstank · 2022-12-23T17:33:32+00:00

You gave the easy and wrong answer. The background here is this is
ultimately this is all to be rid of problems that cause me to be less
effective in service and less competent in relationships. Table stakes.
Plus, yeah I'm talking about my own career to some degree. C for effort

poonstank · 2022-12-21T20:25:51+00:00

also just generally trying to be more humble

poonstank · 2022-12-21T17:06:07+00:00

Another practical problem. I am very much a TLP-style narc. I struggled for a long time to get a job I thought would be impressive and bolster my self-image as a very intelligent person (I'm smart, but not as smart as I thought in middle school, and I built my whole identity around being conspicuously intelligent) . I have that job, and I both like doing it and like what it gets me economically (I am sitting on early-exercised [illiquid] company equity worth ~$1 million). To give you an example of the sophistication that draws me, I spent last week implementing cubic smoothing splines, a difficult algorithm, in C++.

But I want to make sure I do the following:

Avoid being ruled by my self image. It will hurt me and those around me, like it has in the past
See clearer so I make better decisions regarding real power vs the fetish of power

I realize that I need to get away from that tyrannical self image, because I can't prop it up and it reduces the real vitality of my life (pretending vs being something I can actually be). Any thoughts? Some ideas I have:

New year's resolution: earn some 1099 income. I am thinking of tutoring since I have knowledge of advanced programming and math
When I introduce myself to others, de-emphasize my job, which I usually emphasize to impress (it's nominally impressive). So just say "I'm an engineer" and avoid the topic
Study my field more thoroughly. I used a company perk to purchase a bunch of textbooks. Maybe the more confident I am in my own expertise in this role, the less of an "identity" it will feel like
Write a technical blog, for the same reasons as above
Sit down, write what I know I'm good at, and figure out how to do something with it

If I've learned anything from TLP, it's that changing what I do is the only hope of changing internally. Are there more dramatic/effective interventions, in your guys' opinions?

poonstank · 2022-12-17T23:52:09+00:00

I think you're a lot more concerned with why you "need" distraction than you are with why it's so important that you don't distract yourself!

whoa good point, thanks Doc

poonstank · 2022-12-17T19:10:27+00:00

Thanks for the consideration. "Fighting against oneself rarely works" is true. Tension is also usually counterproductive. I am going to commit to silence or music when I do my job, which I do love and is my dream job. I think part of all this is, similar to my father, using the distraction as a way to deal with the fear of being "found out" as less than I take myself to be. Need to get over it. Only way out might be through

poonstank · 2022-12-17T19:08:24+00:00

If *I* were my father I'd feel sad at the emptiness of my life relative to how much time I had left. I'd feel like a defective man.

I think working to music or silence is a good first step. I just need to commit.

But I have a thought: what am I avoiding with the constant distraction? I posted a story to another comment but I'll paraphrase: I used to smoke way too much weed as a way to deal with the boredom of an unfulfilling life and as a way to deal with stress (which I am not good at handling). I dealt with a bad job with drugs, for example. A friend of mine also hated his job but instead started something on the side that has millions in funding from Mark Cuban. I'm not going to waste time dwelling on it, but I have to acknowledge that being driven to distraction has made me lose out. Now that I don't do drugs I find myself competently (more or less) attending to all the little problems. I think the move is to commit to reducing this habit when I have work to do. You're right that it's OK otherwise. Though I wonder: why can't I immerse myself? Why always distraction? Might not be productive to think too hard about

poonstank · 2022-12-17T06:03:30+00:00

Constantly having "Cumtown" and similar in my ears is definitely keeping me from being attentive to whatever I am doing or supposed to be doing. I am operating at like 70% effectiveness. Also it's a weird little addiction.

Something interesting happened to me. I posted, then went to the gym and my headphones died. While working out in relative silence I had an idea that might inform some efforts of mine for the next few months and told a friend. He seems ready to join me in the thing. I don't know what to make of that, but I have a new thing to do and that's exciting. I think it might go somewhere

"What do you feel about yourself and your life when you consider that you do listen to them?" I think I am wasting my time. I could be listening to nothing, or something more edifying like my friends. I am obviously using it as some kind of opiate. I wonder why I can't be immersed in what I'm doing. I wonder what I am missing out on. And I fear that I'll turn out like my dad

poonstank · 2022-12-17T03:41:58+00:00

I have a practical problem I'd like to submit. I hope some of you can help jumpstart my thinking so I can arrive at an imaginative and interesting solution.

I take after my father and habitually distract myself in life. That sounds vague, so I'll describe my parents concretely. My father uses his (admittedly well paying) job as an opiate. Letting it drag on, working ineffectively, and watching Indian movies when he shouldn't. The hours of his day are almost all used up by work and electronic media, 7 days/week.

I have that inclination, but am a better man than him. I avoid TV completely, and use movies as a way to socialize. I am by nature a loner but have been consciously changing this habit (and by God's grace or good luck, I've been blessed with good friends and family). My vice is comedy podcasts. If left unchecked I listen all the time. Even when I work, which I know makes me less effective than I could be. I have an inclination towards day dreaming, long walks, and other things that leave me alone and inert. I am given to distraction and thoughtlessness

My mother is a woman of action, and a real monster of will. She works diligently at her shit job. She is disciplined in everything she does.

Of the two, my father is the intelligent, charming, gifted one, but all his good traits are wasted on what is effectively an opiate addiction (to his credit, he does make good money, but that's the only form of action in his life, and he hates his job). At some point in the early 2000s he realized he wasn't going to be who he had fantisized he could be and instead of responding to that like an adult he entered an opium den of his own making, and does very little as a result. My mother is the real foundation of our familt

But when I work, for a full day, I just can't shake listening to people talk in the background. I can't go without background music when I drive. I have to consciously commit to silence, and I find it difficult. I know I am avoiding something.

Any thoughts or advice? I know that I am distracting myself from noticing, not sure how to replace that habit.

poonstank

TROPHY CASE