Reversion to Level Orange

[7Wannabe5]

@blink2ce:

Thanks. I feel kind of like the woman who was charged with murder because three of her infants died from SIDs. Like it is unbelievable and somehow has to be my fault that there have been so many major mental health events in my family and social circle. I'm also a tiny bit pissed at my brother-in-law, because he kicked her to the curb and is saying "let's not a put a name on it" rather than copping to the fact that his wife is currently romaing the country mentally ill. However, he is a thoroughly reliable narrator, so to the extent that I am now on the same page* with him, I am feeling less gobsmacked myself. My third sister is also a reliable narrator, although a tiny bit gullible, and she is now referring to our youngest sister as "mini-Mom", because from her current perspective she is behaving exactly like our mother did when manic and raging.

*In fact, his innate INTJ more-rigid-frugality and the fact that her spending had become an issue in their marriage is likely what caused her to totally flare out at less-rigidly-frugal me with very little provocation.

[xmj]

Coping mechanism 4) just leave (cut off all contact)

You may not want to do this, but as blink2ice says the contagion of craziness can be forcefully interrupted by creating distance.

[7Wannabe5]

@xmj:

I did remove myself from her company, and I have been avoiding communication, but I can't responsibly cut myself off completely from the situation.

I'm doing okay. Actually chuckling at the fact that I on any level believed that my extremely mild-mannered babbling tendencies towards nerdiness and frugality in any way justified behavior such as suddenly with no obvious provocation jumping up from a table at a restaurant and screaming insults at me. Especially from somebody who on a sane day would be far more likely to either enjoy debating me or feel free to good humoredly declare me "full of shit" and change the topic. Also, upon reflection, if somebody who has known me their entire life can only come up with variations on "nerdy" and "cheapskate" when all higher brain filters of social discretion are dropped, I must actually be a pretty great human.

ETA: One of the core ideas in Hanzi's Level Yellow "The Listening Society" is that all individuals should be provided with therapeutic support towards achieving their developmental potential. I may just be being grumpy, but an issue I have with "everybody needs therapy" is that severe mental illnesses do exist. It's like how everybody getting in tune with their unique food sensitivities kind of blurs out the fact that there are some humans who are going to go into anaphylactic shock if they eat a peanut.

Up to a certain point, Level Orange and bi-polar mania are well-suited. Low-level mania just makes a human seem to be energetic, charismatic, creative, and clever. It's why most workers are provided with free coffee. It has been theorized that the mental illness is a price we pay as a species for our higher level of intelligence, because so many of our most creative workers have suffered from it. For example, the fact that she is currently actively suffering from the disease can not be extricated from the fact that in her 20s she produced a documentary film that won awards at two major film festivals, and she graduated near top of class from one of the top three law schools in the U.S. and she just wrote/illustrated an extremely interesting zine on the topic of the 10,000 things humans already know when they are born and Sumerian culture. Clearly, one of the problems I have is that when you have become accustomed to the high creative energy humans spin off when they are a bit manic, normal functioning seems a bit dull.

It's actually rather scarily quite analogous to what happens when you set an AI chatbot to more creative vs. more precise or more balanced. You can see how it broadens the evolutionary possibility space, but is also more likely to lead to hallucinations.

[Sclass]

I mean, it obvious that I already don't give a rats azz for being validated as the richest human in the room, which is one reason why one might want to hang out with relatively poorer humans. …..Clearly, a good part of her annoyance was due to the fact that I am behaving like somebody who has status, when I don't in her book, UNLESS (in her mind) I am clinging to the fact that my SAT scores were higher than hers, like a "narcissist who thinks she is a genius, and doesn't have to do what other people do."

But you do right? Maybe a little? *Maybe you aren’t but a little narcissism comes through your posts about your SATs and genius IQ. A little griping comes out about some lovers who have more money than you. This time it’s a woman. A mean one. Or maybe one you just backed into a corner with your superior intellect.

Money. Sexual conquests. SATs. They’re just scores. You’re just down on a couple of them right now. Money seems to be a chink in your armor and it sounds like you do care about it. (Just a guess by reading your posts about sex and money). Maybe you got in her face with the 7W “Yes…But…” routine. Maybe you made her feel weak and she swung back. Mean girl then escorted you into her arena with you and knocked you out with her only shot. It was a cheap shot but it was a KO. Maybe she was drunk on the expensive bottle of wine she brought to your girl gang meeting.

I may be wrong. I’m not too good with these things but I’ve been reading your posts for a decade now. I keep hearing these things you don’t care about that seem to hurt you.

My little world is full of these score bouts. I’ve got friends and relatives swinging their big sticks all over. Education. Class background. Athletics. Musical talent. Culture. Money. Wins. Access. Eventually somebody gets it square on the chin if they hang inside the arena long enough.

*see I’m doing it the “Yes…But” thing.

I think you should go back to the mean girl and apologize. You may be surprised what happens.

[Frita]

I am sorry to hear about your current family challenges superimposing themselves (again) on your life. From personal experience and observation, family dysfunction is challenging because we’re born into something and experience it as normal during formative years. Suddenly, there is an imprint that unacceptable behavior is acceptable. At some later point, some people select a different path but the programming of tolerating shady behavior is trickier.

No judgment as I am a poster child of this BS! My son is definitely healthier and more skilled though he also is more tolerate than I would prefer. I am hoping he will select a more functional partner and his children, if they choose to have them, have less intergenerational trauma.

[7Wannabe5]

a little narcissism comes through your posts about your SATs and genius IQ

I don't have a genius IQ. My SAT places me around 147 or 99.84*th percentile. My GRE places me somewhat higher, but my 800 Verbal should probably be downwards adjusted due to very well read. If I did care about being validated for being "the smartest human in the room", I certainly wouldn't choose to hang around on this forum I don't see how being nerdily transparent about IQ is any different than being nerdily tranparent about net worth, height, BMI, number of sexual partners, attractiveness rating on OkayCupid, blood lipid levels, or maximum hotdogs consumed in one sitting. Although, it is true that the meritocracy at Level Orange supposes more or less agency assigned to various "scores." We all know that the rules of Level Blue mid-previous-century etiquette forbade discussing these matters in polite company, and also that at Level Green "everybody gets a trophy."

*Which means that there are millions of humans on the planet who have higher IQ than me, and they all should be thinking/working very hard to get us out of this resource depletion predicament we find ourselves in.

This time it’s a woman. A mean one.

You must have missed my last few posts. It's not just "a mean woman." It's my usually-just-a-bit-of-a-brat ENTx youngest sister who is currently clearly in a bi-polar manic state. She is in the process of obliterating all of her large fund of social capital on a mad tornado-like spree of vicious spontaneous verbal outbursts.

That said, I am a strong believer that anytime anybody manages to push one of my buttons (even if they are currently cuckoo-bananas), that is a clue towards possible direction of personal growth. So, I am totally open to taking what you are communicating under consideration.

I think you should go back to the mean girl and apologize. You may be surprised what happens.

First off, this is definitely not at issue. I didn't fully grok that she was in a bi-polar state at the time she flared out at me, but I was mostly very calm, loving, and supportive in my response. I told her that I had no idea she felt that way about my nerdiness, because she was also obviously very intelligent, and also much more successful in terms of bringing the creative products of her intelligence to market. I am ten years older than her and our mother totally went off the cliff shortly after she was born, so part of what was going on was that she was venting at me in terms of the semi-maternal role I have played in her life as much as some degree of previously never expressed sibling rivalry. I think we were too far apart in age to be rivals as children. I taught her how to read, frequently took responsibility for feeding and bathing her, hostessed her birthday parties, and also took her out on fun outings to the beach and video arcades, etc. On a better mental health day, I was one of the people she thanked for their support when she earned her law degree.

That's also why I can't just totally cut myself off from this situation. Since her husband has clearly abdicated and she doesn't have any children, there is nobody else available to be her advocate.

Money seems to be a chink in your armor and it sounds like you do care about it. (Just a guess by reading your posts about sex and money).

Well, it is the case that one of the reasons I joined this forum is that a financially successful member of my marriage/sexuality forum told me that if I applied the same focus/energy/??? to money that I applied to sexuality, I would totally make bank. However, I would say that my frequent posts about sex and money are mostly due to the fact that I find the topics of sexuality and economics to be very interesting and also overlapping. I find the topic of finance to be much less interesting than the topic of economics.

OTOH, when I was primarily engaged in running my own little micro-business, I did find the hands-on process of making money to be fun and interesting. I was highly competitive within the context of bidding at a rare book auction. And it is also the case that there was some small extent to which maybe I was taking myself seriously when I challenged myself to be the only aging female to attempt the Wall Street Playboys "Efficiency' program. Also, I did sometimes choose to read Richie Rich comic books when I was a child.

In conclusion, I would agree that "money" is not yet as thoroughly a "solved problem" for me as sexuality. However, as with sexuality, I believe the feeling of abundance will come with skill and perspective rather than "notches" or "scores", although it is also the case that it is difficult to discount some degree of experience. I think for me, as an eNTP, a feeling of financial abundance would be most associated with being more broadly or fluidly successful as an entrepreneur. IOW, I would like the skill of "making money" more than the fact of having money. In fact, I would even feel more secure with the skill than the stock, because the stock can always be taken away from you. All the fretting about 4% vs. 3% withdrawal rates that goes on here seems to be missing a large critical part of the picture from my perspective. This is likely not unrelated to the fact that due to my mother's bi-polar disease combined with my father's upper-middle-class background, I grew up in a financially chaotic environment. There is no amount of money that will keep you safe in the eventuality of poor mental health.

Suddenly, there is an imprint that unacceptable behavior is acceptable.

Yes, it's like I simultaneously hate it when people go into irrational rages, but can't seem to see the warning signs. I know that my writing voice is a bit (Ne/Ti) obnoxious/provocative/transgressive, but IRL, for better or worse, I am very much Fe (social harmony) forward, so I truly don't believe that I am goading such behavior. And it very much is the case that all the hotheads with whom I find myself in association are also hotheaded with other humans. I don't know why I can't learn the lesson that the guy who is today yelling at all the other drivers on the highway is going to be someday yelling at me. When I am not employed at teaching junior high in a rough district, I naturally only yell myself maybe once per year. And with the rough junior high kids, it's not that I'm actually angry, it's just what I sometimes have to resort to in order to get them back in line.

ETA: One of the reasons why I do feel free to express myself in an intellectually provocative manner on this forum is that I respect you guys in the sense that I believe that you are both smart and tough and willing/able to examine your own hot-button-reactivity. I tread much lighter in most other venues.

[black_son_of_gray]

Well, the sad truth is that I generalized, simplified, digested and semi-anonymized the situation in my original post. I wish what happened (is happening) was just a clash of ideologies with a workaholic-spendaholic friend I could readily cut from my circle. It has now become very clear that what is going on is that yet another member of my immediate family* has been stricken with severe mental illness.

ETA: This event is also making me feel like I am living in the sort of novel in which you don't know which character is the reliable narrator.

ETA: One of the reasons why I do feel free to express myself in an intellectually provocative manner on this forum is that I respect you guys in the sense that I believe that you are both smart and tough and willing/able to examine your own hot-button-reactivity.

To be fair, this whole thread, posted under the forum topic of Emergence Renaissance Ecology, began with a false premise that was only revealed some 40 posts later as just being a highly specific, deeply personal issue. Which makes the whole "unreliable narrator" comment pretty ironic, right? Was that the intention?

Look, I do wish you the best in sorting all of this out. It sounds like a difficult, stressful situation. But...really?

[7Wannabe5]

@black_son_of_gray:

Yes, I agree. Unfortunately, the irony was not intended. My narration was unreliable because I attempted to apply a complex model when a simpler one could do, was not yet privy to full range of information, and was initially disinclined to personalize it for similar reason that humans often might ask for advice along the lines of "I have a friend who told me that he has a weeping red rash speading across his scrotum." Also, see my list of my Top 3 go-to coping mechanisms listed above.

Of course, it is also the case that at Level Green we learn that we are all irredeemably unreliable narrators. Although, that does not imply that, for instance, it is remotely possible that human activity is not currently contributing to atmospheric warming.

[Sclass]

@7W - got the mean girls mixed up in your story. Sorry. Good luck with sorting this all out.

I think I’ll go and break something so I can fix it and post it in the fixit log now.

[xmj]

To be fair, this whole thread, posted under the forum topic of Emergence Renaissance Ecology, began with a false premise that was only revealed some 40 posts later as just being a highly specific, deeply personal issue. Which makes the whole "unreliable narrator" comment pretty ironic, right? Was that the intention?

Look, I do wish you the best in sorting all of this out. It sounds like a difficult, stressful situation. But...really?

That's the problem with trying to make Every Little Thing about Spiral Dynamics, MBTI, or whatever classification framework seems useful to you to communicate shorthand:

You use it to obscure the underlying issues, and then wonder why oh why nothing useful comes out of your enquiries.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks

[7Wannabe5]

I apologize for wasting the brain cycles of the forum. I should have addressed the issue/event more transparently in my own journal, but I guess I was too upset to face it head on.

You use it to obscure the underlying issues, and then wonder why oh why nothing useful comes out of your enquiries.

The shock jock on a rock radio station in my region used to say, "If you are a girl and you can't get a date, start jogging. If you are a guy and you can't get a date, get a better job." What I hear you saying to me is that I would be best served by similar return to fundamentalism in the realm of finance, because whatever other models may apply to myself and other humans, this would be where I possess most agency and/or freedom to exploit the evolutionary space. For example, I might benefit from the Wall Street Playboys rule of thumb that limits reading to 2 hours per week, business titles preferred, given that I have clearly already read myself into a state of idiocy. Is there a useful program/forum other than Wallstreet Playboys "Efficiency" that primarily focuses on earning money rather than frugality that you might recommend?

[zbigi]

Is there a useful program/forum other than Wallstreet Playboys "Efficiency" that primarily focuses on earning money rather than frugality that you might recommend?

IMO just see what you can get out of your DS degree. It's an obvious path to quickly getting a six figures income.

[mathiverse]

+1 to what zbigi said. If you want a big income, focus on finding an opportunity using your data science degree and related skills. Your degree program can probably help you find a job. Your former classmates with jobs can refer you to their companies and so on.

On the other hand, I think xmj was no longer talking about the idea you should earn more when he wrote that quote. Wasn't he implying that the problem wasn't SD/MBTI, money, or even friendship dynamics at all (and by implication neither earning nor spending), but rather something else altogether that was obscured by those red herrings? That seems like an accurate observation on xmj's part. I'm surprised you appear to not have understood it and that you asked for advice on earning more in response to it. Not trying to be harsh or to judge, but I'm genuinely surprised at your response to xmj because it seems to be so off the mark.

[7Wannabe5]

@zbigi:

Gotcha. Working on the degree is my obvious nod to Level Orange and continued acquisition of Technological capital. I will graduate in early October.

something else altogether that was obscured by those red herrings? That seems like an accurate observation on xmj's part. I'm surprised you appear to not have understood it and that you asked for advice on earning more in response to it. Not trying to be harsh or to judge, but I'm genuinely surprised at your response to xmj because it seems to be so off the mark.

Hmmm, I guess xmj will have to clarify. I did think he was still on that track. However, my first guess at what else you think the red herrings might be hiding would be my own tendencies towards inattentive ADD/mild cyclothymia. I just read a new study out of Sweden that indicates that bi-polar disorder much more heritable than I previously believed and also much more genetically linked to major depression and schizophrenia than previously known. So, this makes me feel less like it's just a matter of extreme bad luck.

I also had a very good conversation with my sister and we're warm-fuzzy again. Also, the super-cool fish-net artisan guy I met at the flea market invited me to attend a primitive camp-out. Finally, somebody with whom I am actually maybe lifestyle compatible!

[xmj]

On the other hand, I think xmj was no longer talking about the idea you should earn more when he wrote that quote. Wasn't he implying that the problem wasn't SD/MBTI, money, or even friendship dynamics at all (and by implication neither earning nor spending), but rather something else altogether that was obscured by those red herrings? That seems like an accurate observation on xmj's part. I'm surprised you appear to not have understood it and that you asked for advice on earning more in response to it. Not trying to be harsh or to judge, but I'm genuinely surprised at your response to xmj because it seems to be so off the mark.

Yes. Whereas my points before ("rich people hate taking advice from broke people"; "repressed desires should be pursued until some success is achieved"; "go where you have an edge, i.e. to poorer, less materialist, or transcended people") were about how you might want to behave if in fact this was about "Reversion to Level Orange",

my point has evolved to "radically honest problem inventories would have saved everyone a lot of time here"

I do wish you well, but none of the mental health issues describe later on have much to do with the original premise in any which way.

[Frita]

@7W5 And both/all could be true at the same time.

[7Wannabe5]

my point has evolved to "radically honest problem inventories would have saved everyone a lot of time here"

Yes, I already apologized to the group for wasting brain cycles. I also recognize/empathize that humans who particulary focus on competency and efficiency, greatly dislike incomplete or fuzzy data.

none of the mental health issues describe later on have much to do with the original premise in any which way.

Maybe, maybe not. Social problems are systems problems and they have many overlapping moving parts and can be viewed from many perspectives.

By analogy, consider this sentence:

Sheila, one of my rough neighborhood lifelong best friends who used to play clarinet in the marching band and is still in the chess club, suddenly shoved me up hard against the lockers today, yelling "You think you're so great with your Chess Champion ribbon pinned on your locker, but your marching band uniform means that you are a total loser."


and this sentence:

Some of my other rough neighborhood lifelong best friends have become addicted to drugs.


Obviously, at least in retrospect, it would be an error to mostly focus on the message yelled and bring this problem in highly generalized form to Other Members of the Marching Band and ask whether anybody else had noticed a trend of Former Marching Band Members picking on Current Marching Band Members. This would likely result in many erroneous theories such as "It's not Marching Band Members who deserve to be shoved against lockers. It is obnoxious humans who pin their Chess Champion Ribbon to their locker who are crusing for a bruising."

This becomes more much more clear when I talk to Sheila's long-term boyfriend who informs me that Sheila has also been shoving him around, and , in fact, he just broke up with her due to this behavior. He also believes that "the message" Sheila is yelling at him is relevant.

FACT SINKS IN: Sheila's longterm boyfriend and I are very different humans, with only a small overlap in the realm of Marching Band membership. He is definitely not somebody who blatantly pins his Chess Champion ribbon to his locker.

CONCLUSION: The particularities of the yelled insults were more noise to the signal of "the shoving" and "the yelling" behavior. Sheila has become another one of my rough neighborhood lifelong friends to succomb to drug addiction and associated behaviors.

RESULT: This greatly upsets me. I knew people in my rough neighborhood were much more likely to become drug addicted, but mostly that happened when they were in middle school. I didn't expect it to happen to my good friend Sheila who was already a junior in high school. I also somewhat inappropriately express my emotional distress to the Other Members of the Marching Band.

************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Really, the greater tragedy revealed here is that very few of us humans, clearly including me, actually possess the wherewithal to go beyond "me" and "us" problems to the more critical "all of us" problems. I'm currently feeling a bit like Mrs. Jellyby, the character in "Great Expectations" who focused all her energies on an African mission while her own house and family are a mess. It may very well be the case that at the "us" level, I can't afford to be extremely frugal. But if that is true for all or most of us, what's to become of "all of us? "

Anyways, another perspective would be that maybe hanging around here too much has had the effect of transforming frugality from something I have towards something I am. So, I am going to take a break from posting for a bit. I wish you all smashing success, exciting adventures, and passionate bliss.