I feel a need to grow stronger in a certain way that I can't yet pinpoint. I'm very unwilling to give up my "green"-ness / earnestness / willingness to be vulnerable with people about important topics, and I feel like there's a danger of growing a hard shell in contact with The Internet (I've observed lots of terminally-online people who seem to have this kind of shell; hard to tell for sure which way the causality goes though).
The problem is that, as I am right now, it genuinely viscerally hurts to engage with "sharp" / "angry" criticism. I can manage it, but only at a rate of about two "sharp"/"angry" people per week without feeling totally overwhelmed. And the more I'm in contact with The Internet, the more of that I'll be exposed to.
My strategy so far in life has just been to avoid being the kind of person who attracts "sharp" / "angry" critics, and also to filter my social bubble to exclude them. But this doesn't scale if you're trying to do the things I'm trying to do. I've got to figure out how I can either (a) avoid reading "sharp"/"angry" tweets at a rate higher than I can handle, (b) grow some kind of "waiting room" structure, where the "sharp"/"angry" people go into a priority queue so that I can engage with the important ones, or (c) speed up my ability to process this stuff.
like this
JP Addison, Sam FM, Daniel Ziegler, PAR and kip like this.
PAR
in reply to Ben Weinstein-Raun • •As a possible 4th option, could you increase the impact on you of the people, ideas, and responses from the supportive, curious, collaborative responses that come to you and your work? I know we are quite different people, with very different circumstances—but I grapple with the people who seem to want to kill my creativity and openness (or to elevate themselves at my expense), by placing a much higher value on the people who interact in ways that are kind, vulnerable, insightful and nurturing. I also try to be those things when I am interacting with myself . . . so I don't end up adding to the unhelpful destructive criticism that might feel overwhelming.
What value do sharp and angry "tweets" have? Why do you want to include them in your exchanges?
kip
in reply to Ben Weinstein-Raun • •I feel like I'm living on the internet these days, since my health is too bad for in-person stuff. So it sucks that the internet is so much more aggro.
> My strategy so far in life has just been to avoid being the kind of person who attracts "sharp" / "angry" critics, and also to filter my social bubble to exclude them. But this doesn't scale if you're trying to do the things I'm trying to do.
What are you doing that is incompatible with filtering your social bubble?
Ben Millwood likes this.
Ben Weinstein-Raun
in reply to kip • •kip likes this.
kip
in reply to Ben Weinstein-Raun • •Re: method "c": I'm wondering if you could intentionally give yourself exposure to critics in a way that's less vulnerable. The most obvious ways to do this might be too insincere for your taste, but idk, maybe there's still something you can do?
Like if I were trying to do this, I might create an anonymous account and intentionally share my most controversial (yet unimportant) thoughts/opinions, in places where some people will probably get mad at me. (Hopefully not in a way that, like, antagonizes people? I'd want it to be net good.) Then I'd try to lean into a mindset that getting criticism is a necessary/normal part of getting noticed.
Ben Weinstein-Raun likes this.