The Education of Axel Heyst

[Scott 2]

While this discussion centers on social impairments, deficits can manifest in other detrimental ways. As an example - I struggle with convergent thinking. It leads to decision paralysis.

In practice - that means selecting an electric toothbrush, took me an entire day. I had to fully explore the makes, models, reviews, prices, etc. Even though I know it's just a toothbrush. A week into owning it, I'm still "learning" to use the tool. I have to understand ALL the features.

It's very inconvenient.

[7Wannabe5]

Sometimes nature provides you with a mask. I have close to zero S on the S/N spectrum and I'm quite solidly P as opposed to J, but my tertiary Fe is developed enough relative to my secondary Ti that I can generally pass as "nice woman" or even "dumb blonde", because many/most normal humans equate alertness/focus/sharpness with intelligence, and I'm superficially quite "dopey." One funny thing is that my self-aware theoretical quest to become more 5/INTJ-like by hanging out on this forum is frequently psychologically blocked by the realization/feeling that if an eNTP becomes more J vs P then that is towards ENTJ = Azzhole Wall Street Player Type. I'm already quite balanced/fluid on E/I , so pushing the I further doesn't do that much for me. Trying to push towards J (which I believe would roughly mostly equate to moving my Ti towards Te) makes me feel flustered/fretful/exhausted.

IOW, I believe that the drug that would best help me overcome my very particular characteristics/faults towards achieving FI would be the bright, energy, competition, and ambition promoting hormone known as testosterone. However, as much as I admire Frida Kahlo, I am not willing to take on the negative WOG second order effect of "Grow a mustache."

[Ego]

A crude metaphor would be how tall one is. The average male US height is 5'10" or thereabouts. If you're 6'2", you're taller than average, but your height is not your defining characteristic. OTOH, if you're 7'5"....

Similarly "tall" cognitive functions is the same way except unlike height the difference is not immediately apparent. It's not like you can't figure it out, eventually. It's just that you're playing on hard-mode whereas everybody else is on easy-mode because the world was designed for them.

Height is immutable. The cognitive functions we are speaking about (MBTI) are not.

My degree of introversion is not fixed for life. If I am placed in an environment that requires me to be more outgoing - using the term du jour - I can mask it until my brain rewires and my baseline extroversion rises. It is cognitively challenging to rewire, and exhausting, but it is possible.

This actually happened to me... which is why I continue to push it.

While we may have differing degrees of flexibility, much of that difference involves the story we tell ourselves about our ability to be flexible. Telling oneself it is impossible, makes it impossible.

Which is also why I keep pushing this point.

[ertyu]

Yep as per Jung we're meant to converge to the middle of all the E/I T/J etc divides as a result of personal development. He sees personal development as developing our weaker side. At least in its original concenption, the types were a prescription for personal growth

[daylen]

The binding or coupling of cognitive functions into higher-order structures with additional explanatory material (e.g. axes of two functions, quadras of four functions) provides the bridging for continuous transformations between the sixteen discrete types.

[AnalyticalEngine]

Note that what you're masking is NOT mutable if it's an actual neurodivergence (or sexual orientation, for that matter). You can certainly learn to cope with it better and learn to communicate your needs better, but it's important not to mix the metaphor of neurodivergence and MBTI too much. Someone might find they're less introverted than they thought with practice, but the fundamental brain wiring of ADHD/Autism/dyslexia is not going anywhere.

[Ego]

@AnalyticalEngine, you say that as fact, but I know two autistic young men who have experienced incredible improvements when they worked specifically on theory-of-mind strengthening techniques, so we could argue the degree to which these are fixed. Many years ago when I coached basketball I used a situational-awareness drill I stole from my father to accomplish the same thing.

This was all kicked off by AH's Freedom-To be an odd duck post above, where he was debating whether to rearrange his world around his odd-duckiness or change his odd-duckiness to conform to the world.

A series of posts on MBTI followed that hinted at the former as the optimal solution.

I guess what I want to emphasize is that doing both may be a better idea.

[AxelHeyst]

I wouldn't say I was debating whether or not to conform or be conformed, I was having a realization that perhaps I've been nearly 100% conforming (masking) in ways that've been painful and uncomfortable in an unconscious "this is just what normal is, right?" as evidenced by the sensation of lightness and freedom I experienced when merely imagining *not* masking. And so I'm interested in exploring what it'd be like to not mask, to have some intentional control over masking vs. authentic self-expression, whatever I decide that means or looks like in my own life.

I don't suffer much these days, thanks to being in a privileged position as well as having done a lot of inner work, very much including EK, which has unlocked the ability to get off (sooner or later) to all kinds of sensations that I used to choose to experience as suffering. The day before yesterday, life was good. And then I did a little thought experiment based on a comment a friend made, and I experienced a sensation of extra freedom and lightness and a sense that I was getting previously repressed insight into my nature. Neat!

But not just neat. Also important. This discussion is relevant to me in terms of the following perspective (bolds mine):

Second, a focus on the individual is not the problem in contemporary society. Rather, the problem is what we mean by an individual. A human being is not in truth an isolated monad who can shape themselves, authentically, into anyone or anything they want. Rather, a human being is an interdependent participant in a vast and complex web of more-than-human life who was born to fulfill a particular place, role, or niche in that web, who, when psychospiritually prepared, must go through a formidable initiatory journey to discover and be capable of consciously choosing, inhabiting, and fulfilling that niche, and whose primary creative choices in life are the specific ways they will embody that niche (given their particular time, bioregion, and society and their particular personal strengths and weaknesses) so that they can best contribute to the enhancement of the life of the greater Earth community of which they are an essential and immutable part. We don’t get to choose the true card we play in life, but it is possible to discover what that card is, and it is very much up to us how we play it.

From Who's Up for Building A Cathedral

I choose to buy in to the idea that Plotkin expresses so well that I've got a soul niche and a role to play in the process of unfucking society, and this process of self inquiry, discovery, and expression is all part of it.

[jacob]

Height is immutable. The cognitive functions we are speaking about (MBTI) are not.

My degree of introversion is not fixed for life. If I am placed in an environment that requires me to be more outgoing - using the term du jour - I can mask it until my brain rewires and my baseline extroversion rises. It is cognitively challenging to rewire, and exhausting, but it is possible.

I agree on the neuroplasticity. Your temperament is essentially just the cognitive functions that your brain have built up the neuronal networks for and is in the habit of using---basically the cognitive functions the brain prefers to use. However, while neuroplasticity is mutable, DNA is not. I picked height as an example, because height is obvious, but perhaps a better analogy is muscularity. Anyone can become more muscular, but very few have the DNA to become Arnold Schwarzenegger or Eddie Hall. It is a lot easier for Arnold to put on mass than it is for the average person. The average person (mesomorph) even has it easier than the below average person (ectomorph). You can take a pencil neck geek and send them to the gym. They'll get wiry strong, alright, but never buff.

People's set-levels for their neurochemistry determines which kind of cognitive functions are easier to build and which are harder to build. For example, intelligent people have greater metabolic brain efficiency. They use less energy when thinking than normal people. Can a normal person "think themselves smarter". Yes, they can, it's called studying. Can people [neuroplastically] think themselves to a higher metabolic brain efficiency? Not they can't, because that's set by DNA (as far as I know). Studying is, therefore, harder---it literally takes more energy---for an average person than it does for an intelligent person and while they can do a decent job at it, they'll never become as smart as someone who is naturally talented in that department.

Some people have more acetylcholine receptors in the brain than others. Let's call them A-people. Acetylcholine makes people feel good when they're quiet and introspective. The more A-receptors, the better one feels from quiet and introspective behavior. A-people would naturally tend towards becoming introverts because developing and using their introverted cognitive functions makes them feel good. The brain DNA essentially rewards them for introverted behavior and so they start preferring it and become good at it as they grow up. As a result, introverts tend to have thicker levels of grey matter wiring in their frontal cortex simply because they used that part of the brain a lot, neuroplasticity in action. Conversely, some people have more dopamine receptors. Let's call them D-people. Dopamine makes people feel good when they're engaged with other humans and so they tend to develop their extroverted functions resulting in an extroverted temperament. Their frontal cortex is thinner and more atrophied/never built up as much in the first place.

Now, an A-person can certainly learn how to host a party, but thanks to their DNA, they're not going to be nearly as stimulated as a D-person would be. I've hosted meetups and social events and I might even appear to be friendly, mingly, and outgoing, at least for a few hours, but I can tell you that the hours or days running up to it feel dreadful. While I can do it---put on a mask---I'm absolutely not excited or energized by the prospect. Even things I've become good at, such as public speaking, is certainly not something I look forward to. I can take some pleasure in the fact that I did a good job, but it's not an activity I'm running towards, because it's simply not rewarding to my brain circuits. The odds of me ever choosing to host a podcast where I get to talk to "interesting people" are zero-negative. Even appearing on a podcast as an interviewee, which I can obviously do, takes a lot out of me.

Likewise, a D-person would not be excited if I suggest a trip to the library where we each pick one of the many wonderful books and proceed to read it, no talking! Reading is not something D-people enjoy very much. They only do it because they have to. They can probably count themselves blessed that social events revolve around talking rather than reading... otherwise, they'd probably dread the event as much.

So, there's a choice as to whether to work with your immutable neurochemistry or against it. The "introverted salesman" is a thing. He might even be better at sales than the regular extrovert, but when he comes home from work, he's exhausted. He does not want to go out with friends for even more stimulation. Likewise, when the "extroverted student" is done with their homework, they're exhausted. They are not going to pick up another book to read just for fun.

So yeah, it's possible to rewire the brain against the underlying neurochemistry. Some rewiring is necessary in order to fit in and do what you have to do. The question is how much. Doing both does have some cost over prioritizing one or the other. It's not a freebie but a sacrifice. You could argue that "we live in an extroverted world" so the sacrifice is worth it. This is the pro-conformity argument. However, would I want/prefer to use my frontal cortex less in favor of prioritizing my more outgoing brain circuits and in the process lose the ability to sustain deep thoughts on complex matters as the Ni circuits atrophy from less use. I think not!

The counter-argument is that you likely get more out of people (or yourself) if you go where your talents are even if that means changing your environment. It is easier and more rewarding to the brain (even if society doesn't reward it) to wire the brain according to its underlying neurochemistry. This is why that is the most likely outcome.

Obviously, this is all on a spectrum. If I have 100 A-receptors and 50 D-receptors, I have the talent for an introverted temperament. This does not mean I'm going to develop in that direction if I'm in an extroverted environment. However, if I develop an extroverted temperament with 50 D-receptors in order to conform to the environment, I'm not going to find life as satisfying as someone who was born with 150 D-receptors.

I think this is perhaps the crux of the matter in your case and maybe also @AH. Could it be that you're a natural extrovert (D-person) who happened to grow up and/or get into a very introverted field (accounting) which basically stunted the extroverted development of your D-oriented reward centers until much later. That is definitely a possibility if not for you guys but in general. This is why so many struggle with doubt of not feeling like they fit in/why they're not enjoying what other people in their environment appear to be enjoying. Most people are not making a deliberate choice when it comes to their neural networks. Instead the brain does what it can to survive. If it's left free, it's likely to develop along its DNA reward profile. If not, it'll develop according to the dictates of its environment, but living will not feel rewarding. ("Why does everyone else seem to be enjoying this when I don't") Sexual orientation is probably the most blatant example of how cultural expectations can and will override natural preferences. But similar issues exist with other "orientations".

[7Wannabe5]

@Ego:

Serious lack of situational awareness (extreme lack of Se) is what I suffer from which is exactly why I too frequently find myself in relationship with overly assertive basketball player types or taking the wrong exit on the expressway or the hapless victim of practical jokes. It has little to do with the inability to intuit/interpret social cues that those on the autism spectrum suffer from. I (and all otherwise functional ENTPs) interpret social cues very easily (ENTP is actually the type most able to determine if somebody else is lying or pick-up on subtle sub-text), although I sometimes choose to ignore them because I am becoming increasingly obnoxious with age.

@Jacob:

It's not the case that all introverts spend their quiet time in intellectual engagement. Many of them spend quiet time engaged with their emotions or engaged in basic routine tasks such as detailing their car or skill-sets that combine emotional engagement and basic practice such as playing the guitar. For example, my first husband was an extremely introverted The Artist (IXFp) and he had no strategic planning ability whatsoever, whereas "planning/mapping" or literally getting back in touch with my spread-sheets or metaphorically getting back in touch with my map of reality so that I can update it is my most introverted drive.

As a human who is fairly intellectual and also quite balanced in E/I, I do kind of see the spectrum as People. Books, Math/Spreadsheets in terms of what I'm likely to be doing when drained of one chemical/energy or the other in the moment, but I can also mix it up and/or work the situation. I would say that the dopamine inherent in Ne actually drives me to books somewhat more frequently than humans, because it's usually deemed socially inappropriate to skim through a New and Notable Shelf full of humans looking for an "interesting" fix (although online dating comes pretty close to providing this for me.) However, in a situation in which I allowed my N to be somewhat blunted towards S, for instance if I drank enough alcohol to make boring things seem interesting, then I would be more like a non-bookish ESTP like Donald Trump, which is one of the reasons why I almost never drink alcohol.

IOW, it seems to me that you are profoundly confounding E/I with N/S and T/F in your post above.

[jacob]

IOW, it seems to me that you are profoundly confounding E/I with N/S and T/F in your post above.

I am, for the sake of the argument, trying to keep it simple without losing generality here. Adding more neurotransmitters (GABA, serotonin,... complete list) or exceptions to the argument would only serve to obfuscate the point I'm making. That is... humans are born with a biochemical neurotransmitter system that constitutes their own personal hardware that they can not change because DNA. Individuals can certainly install different temperamental software onto that hardware. (That's the neuroplasticity argument.) For example, windows can be emulated on a linux system and games can be played on a office computer. It is possible to run different software on less than optimal hardware for that software. The crux of the argument is to which degree you'd want to strive for compatibility running all the popular software ... or strive for optimizing the software you have the best hardware for running. The majority of humans have hardware optimized for allround software (see the math above). Some don't. Those who don't might well get frustrated when the available software is underutilizing their hardware... [and this is pretty much how ERE came to be and was in the early years.]. I can draw maps of the territory or various combinations if need be...

ETA: I also think that there's a difference in kind between being "fairly" preferential and "strongly" preferential along any given dimension. Fairly intellectual NEQ strongly intellectual, say. I suspect that there's a preference beyond "strong" to the point where the opposite is practically lost. This is where society currently pathologizes people. For example, extreme INTJ/INTP/ISTJ tend to display similar symptoms to Asperger. Extreme ENTP tend to display ADHD symptoms. Extreme ESFP/ESFJs are histrionic. And so on.

As it is... I highly suspect that the source of all these endless debates is that people haven't grokked that preferences exist a spectrum. Instead language still makes it sound like any dimension is an either-or thing. Perhaps, this is why the pomos object to binary labels. In reality we're talking variables.

[Jean]

I'de go further than plotkin.
Our niche might not exist. The way life prepares for changes is mostly by generating semi random variations among individual, so that some of them could be able to fill ecological niches that might arrise in the future, and of course also for the niche that are allready here.
But we might not all have a niche to fill, and filling our niche could also even be detrimental to other life.
Thats how i cope with achieving nothing, i might have proven very usefull in an other set of circonstances, or those circonstances might arrise later.

[Scott 2]

I know two autistic young men who have experienced incredible improvements when they worked specifically on theory-of-mind strengthening techniques, so we could argue the degree to which these are fixed

They may have experienced developmental delay, because their brains are wired to learn differently. It's possible with appropriate scaffolding, there was genuine growth.


The challenge, is figuring out if someone undergoes skills progression, or simply gets better at hiding problems. The latter can look and feel like winning, for a very long time. In my own case, the negative impacts manifested in two ways.


1. First - it was career related autistic burnout: https://neurodivergentinsights.com/misd ... depression

Recovery took about a year, fully removed from the source of burnout.


2. Second - Exercising freedom to, making myself uncomfortable to remove weakness, created a somatic expression of anxiety. My mind was blind to it, but physical symptoms manifested anyways. Tremors, sleep disruption, reduced motivation, etc. - all the symptoms of depression. Chasing this down, with the help of half a dozen doctors, took the better part of two years. I confidently answered "no anxiety" to all surveys, which understandably confused the process.


The impact of aligning to my wiring, has been dramatic and immediate. I can't recommend it enough.

[ertyu]

+1 on diagnoses are useful because they hook you up with the right coping strategies. Even 30 years ago, the thinking around neurodivergence and the availability of support were very different. In my experience, among millenials and younger, neurodivergence is not stigmatized or pathologized and people freely talk about what adhd/autism/etc is like for them and what has been helpful. Many millenials and younger are processing the harm they've been done by parents who hid their diagnoses from them, leaving them to berate themselves for not being able to do what the other "normal" kids can do and to wonder why they can't make themselves do the thing when they -should- be able to make themselves do the thing, etcetera. Getting a diagnosis as an adult comes with a mix of relief, but also intense grief: imagine if i knew i didn't have to blame myself. Imagine what my outcomes would've been like if I had the help or medication I needed instead of rough-knuckling it and struggling so hard through life, constantly blaming myself. Please diagnose and assess yourself and your children and get the help you and they need. Not doing so is medical neglect.

[Jin+Guice]

I have two objections to the rise of neurodivergent conditions.

1) IME, it does lead to pathologization and identification with that pathologization. It leads to limiting beliefs about oneself which often do not correspond to my concept of reality. This is a generalization and is of course not true for everyone. It is my observed experience of the many professionally or self diagnosed neurodivergent people in my personal social circle.

2) Mass psychotropic drug prescription.


I think it's positive if a neurodivergent diagnosis helps you feel better about yourself and understand yourself better.



Based purely on statistics, I don't think it's possible for such a high percentage of people to suffer from mental health disorders that need to be medicated. Imo, this is an obvious cultural failure, not an individual problem that should be pathologized and medicated.


I very much dislike that this discussion centers around indicators of normalcy and upholds it as a standard to aspire to. I don't particularly like our culture nor do I feel it was built for "people like me." I don't believe it is healthy nor do I aspire to conform to its concept of success or well-being. I don't need this culture to give me a brain diagnosis to tell me if I'm different or not. I'm not sure when or where these normal people exist. My concept of a normal person is an anxiety riddled, emotionally immature conformist. I don't know anyone who uses "normal" to describe someone in a positive sense that I want to spend time around, much less medicate myself to emulate.

[jacob]

@J+G - Thank you. I didn't disagree with a single sentence there. Well put too.

If I may put it in math terms. The human population exists on Bell curves (many variables, mostly all Gaussian). Within that population, samples exist on other Bell Curves (different averages and standard deviations). (For example, college students have a higher IQ than the general population. The "book club" likely has a higher degree of introverts than the general population. And so on. Now, within these local environments, there's tension between who you and where the group is. We call this "fit". The worse the fit between the individual and their local environment, the harder living life is. A lot of times, this tension can be resolved by changing the environment(*). Sometimes, though, changing the environment is impossible or at least impractical. Here (self-)medication may help. Imagine a world where you had size 18 feet and no shoes were available. In this case, taking pain medication to cope with size 16---the largest size available---is a good solution. The converse is if you have size 15 feet and size 15 shoes are simply hard to find. In that case, taking painkillers just because the only locally available shoes are size 13 might not be the best solution despite the fact that painkillers are readily available.

(*) FIRE is one way of changing the environment. ERE City would be another way. ERE meetups are a temporary change in environment. Note how most participants are amazed how much they enjoy it. Imagine if that environmental fit was available all the time. It is for average people.

Actually, I have a better example. Allergies! Lets say you're a child who've been diagnosed with allergies. Congratulations, normal living and especially nature now sucks. What do you do? The pathological approach is to eat Claritin et al like candy. If the ads on TV are true, all you need is to pop a pill and you too can enjoy cat dander and grass pollen. It's also just possible to "headbutt the wall" and suffer through. Accept a stuffy nose as your lifetime normal. Or maybe you can find an indoor environment without cats and grass and come to enjoy that instead. Only if such environments are exasperatingly hard to find (hyperallergy) does drugs make sense to me. This is clearly a matter of degree though in terms of the tension between you and the environments available to you.

However, I think it's worthwhile to consider that maybe it's the environment that's the problem rather than the individual.

I don't know if the allergy analogy is helpful. I'm definitely allergic to the "anxiety riddled, emotionally immature conformist" that is the typical/normal person. They make me sneeze. If only there was a drug I could give them to make them more like me...

[7Wannabe5]

I don't know if allergies is a good analogy. I have allergies, asthma, and may go into anaphylactic shock if stung by a wasp or a bee, but I love nature and gardening, so I pack my drugs and just attempt to make limited use of them. OTOH, I hate calesthenics, running, sports, and gym class, so I have attempted to use asthma as an excuse for not engaging in aerobic exercise on occasion. I have also even made use of the excuse that I am menstruating in order to avoid playing dodge ball. When that excuse failed, I organized an anti-dodge-ball strike in which we all purposefully allowed/attempted to get ourselves hit by a ball as soon as possible, leaving the testosterone-ridden primary Se types to wreak havoc upon themselves alone.

[AxelHeyst]

Berrytwo and Bicycle7 stayed at QH for almost a week before b7 and I pedaled off into the desert. It was a treat to get to spend time with them as I barely was able to connect with them during fest23. As it was I was all over the place wrapping up w*rk projects and getting my own kit prepped. As is to be expected with ERE guests they were gracious and self sufficient even when I was squirreled away on the computer all day.

My bikepacking setup this year is almost exactly the strategy Tristan Ridley runs - a full frame bag (myog, rolltop), a 35L backpack on the rear rack, handlebar bag. I also have a ~15L food pack attached as a high pannier. The weight distribution is night and day better than my rig last year, as well as lighter. I can easily carry 5-6L in my frame bag alone.

We got two days 90miles of riding to get to the bus>train which will take us to Grand Junction. From there we’re doing classic bikepacking routes through Utah generally headed back west.

—Random ERE thought of the day:
To go from a high COL to a low COL, ~20k, you have to think about money a lot more than normies do. To go from a low cost of living to a very low cost of living, ~10k, you have to think about money a lot less than normies do.

You have to think about other things. There are no more thoughts to think about money that will get you to VLCOL, at least not in the ERE way.

If you extrapolate the amount of thinking about money it took to get to WL5 spending to WL7 spending, you will be wrong.

[jacob]

—Random ERE thought of the day:
To go from a high COL to a low COL, ~20k, you have to think about money a lot more than normies do. To go from a low cost of living to a very low cost of living, ~10k, you have to think about money a lot less than normies do.

You have to think about other things. There are no more thoughts to think about money that will get you to VLCOL, at least not in the ERE way.

If you extrapolate the amount of thinking about money it took to get to WL5 spending to WL7 spending, you will be wrong.

Unconscious incompetence: Struggling and "never getting ahead". Wasting money left and right.

Conscious incompetence: Learning personal finance 101. Getting in the habit of budgeting. Reading Ramit Sethi. Funding an IRA. Buying one's first stock.

Conscious competence: Making spreadsheets. Doing portfolio projections. Calculating the FIRE date. Following the markets. Having an opinion on the capital gains tax.

Unconscious competence: Money is on autopilot. Money is abundant. Liebig's law of the minimum, where the scarcest resource is no longer money.

Also see, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig%27 ... he_minimum

[7Wannabe5]

To go from a low cost of living to a very low cost of living, ~10k, you have to think about money a lot less than normies do.

Yes, this is because thinking about and developing any other form of capital will more than likely lead to decreased expenses or osmotic cash flow as secondary effect. HOWEVER, you also have to consider how hard you are riding on your other forms of capital. For example, from the armchair perspective of a semi-disabled older human, your current lifestyle is riding very hard on physical vigor and modestly hard on social connections. How will you maintain your current VLCOL if your parents decide to sell the ranch and buy a house in Jimmy Buffett inspired Margaritaville Senior Community in Florida (true sad story in my extended family circle) and you break your leg? Obviously, continuing to support yourself financially will not be an issue, because your intellectual skills are solid and your savings are robust, but keeping your spending level below $10,000 without taking a significant hit to overall Quality of Life might be difficult.

Liebig's law of the minimum, where the scarcest resource is no longer money.

The scarcest resource is never money. It's always creativity.