Not too long ago I wrote some thoughts about the exoself. In my usage of that term, I mean incorporating other components of the world into a type of aggregate identity. A related idea, though, is curating your actual environment, not in such a way as to incorporate it into your self (although I suppose the barriers between environment and self are unavoidably permeable) but to make a pleasant place to live.
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At first I was thinking about what this would mean, physically. For instance, I'm typing this on a new keyboard that I love out of all reasonable proportion. I have other mechanical keyboards that I own out of ... appreciation, I suppose, for the craftsmanship of the thing-as-artifact, or for the passion or obsession that led to their creation. But this one I just love to type on! I literally look forward to coming home so I can type on it.
Point is, this is an environmental feature, and that got me wondering how far I could go on the quest to make my environment beautiful. I always felt hapless when it came to designing living spaces, but what if I only pursued my own flavor of beauty? According to my own personal aesthetic, unique to me?
That probably sounds idiotic, but I had never considered the idea before. My habitats have always fallen somewhere on the gradient between ascetic and cluttered with techno-junk bc I didn't know how to make things look nice by normie standards. I felt vaguely guilty, like I had failed to achieve even basic competence of something foundational.
It's funny how other people's values leach into you.
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Then I read this article and this one by Bryan Caplan about the prospect of creating your own personal bubble.
We usually talk about 'being in a bubble' pejoratively -- it's what we say about people who've lost touch with the world and who soak in their own ignorance and self-soothing. They mainline news telling them how they are awesome and how the hated out-group is stupid and corrupt. They find talking heads who amplify the same messages, but louder and with more acid.
I try really hard not to be in this type of bubble because I think it's a giant source of alpha to understand reality, and not delude myself about the fantasy world I'd prefer to be living in. But the Caplan article made me think a bit differently about the whole idea:
You might even call it my Imaginary Charter City. I’m not just surrounded by Ph.D.s; I’m surrounded by libertarian economics Ph.D.s. I’m not just unfamiliar with NASCAR; I forget the very existence of professional sports for months at a time. [...] Why put so much distance between myself and the outside world? Because despite my legendary optimism, I find my society unacceptable. It is dreary, insipid, ugly, boring, wrong, and wicked. Trying to reform it is largely futile; [...] Instead, I pursue the strategy that actually works: Making my small corner of the world beautiful in my eyes.
Just as I could curate my own physical environment to be beautiful by my standards -- a workspace with the right lighting and the right music and a keyboard that makes satisfying sounds when I press its buttons -- perhaps I could also create a bubble where instead of being depressed and miserable all the time because reality is so bleak, I could rather cultivate an enclosing reality like a gardener cultivates a plot: I could select intellectual exposures and social encounters that nourishes me, something comforting and exciting and supportive and alive.
If I want sunflowers, I plant sunflowers.
Again, you're probably saying: duh! but I never really thought about this before, not as something to do intentionally, not with the objective function of the right vibes. Whatever bubble construction I did was by accident, not design.
I never made a quest out of it.
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This morning I read this article about some ways that social media -- and modern life in general -- are changing us for the worse. Usually we broach this topic in terms of how social media is addictive; or how it manipulates your emotions for profit, or makes you feel bad about yourself with all the comparisons. This sixty year old guy has abs way better than yours!
That's all true; but this article talks about other perverse changes that fall out of the contemporary world, the ubiquitous media environment:
What did we expect when we took down the traditions? When we uprooted our communities? And allowed a generation to be raised by algorithms and the role models it generates for them? And these platforms are always just there, too, reminding us constantly, daily, hourly, that it’s okay to have so little regard for other people.
So little regard for other people. That punch landed. It's like we have honestly forgotten that having regard for other people is a thing that's important to do. Like, if I don't work at it, this isn't even a value that will surface in my mind when I'm interacting online. Instead I'm calculating the angles to eviscerate my 'opponent' with maximum elegance.
In other words: it's not just that you feel slimy and gross from doomscrolling on Twitter or whatever for hours at a shot; but that maybe it's actually making you into a shittier human being. I saw myself in this so much, as both the victim and the transgressor.
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So now I'm thinking about how to get tactical in creating my own bubble, and what the physics of that bubble should be. What inputs do I allow past the gate? What interactions do I try to have more of, what less of? Who do I delete from my mental and physical spaces?
I still have conviction that reality is a competitive advantage and that I should know it intimately and as courageously as I can manage. But I've come around to the idea that it's okay if I only visit regularly. I don't have to make my home there.