Month: June 2021

There’s a lot to be said for moving slowly… you just don’t hear it much.

We live in history’s fastest time – too fast. But on top of that (maybe because of it) it’s also the age of YOLO. Most of what’s shoved in our faces compels us to go faster and do more for fear of missing out.

But YOLO + FOMO = a whole lotta UH-OH.

Exhibit 1: The way shit generally is.

Always hard charging and getting shit done’s great on paper and looks cool from the outside, but actually living it’s pretty much the opposite. It’s demanding, stressful and draining. It puts the focus on getting to the next thing rather than being in the moment… which is isolating. It’s fine in short bursts, and can be good for getting shit done, but as a lifestyle it’s a psyche shredder. People going too fast and doing too much makes for general crankiness and life lived in physical, social and spiritual burnout.

On the other hand, going slowly’s awesome… in lots of ways.

It projects strength and control of one’s frame. Rather than having to be hyper-alert and constantly pivoting, you’re able to just relax and be in the moment. You’re focusing on the fun, purpose-oriented stuff – doing what you want to do, as you want to do it. You’re centered and cool, which puts others at ease and makes them want to be around and engage you.

And for good reason.

Engaging with over-busy, fast-moving people tends to be the opposite. They’re chronically distracted so you’re forced to compete with all of their other obligations for their time, energy and attention. Plus their focus tends to default to their business… which is cool for them but boring for you (and everyone else). They’re almost always stressed, either outwardly or inwardly. It’s a lower quality of interaction – you’re not getting their best, you’re getting their selfish, their leftover… their meh.

This is fine and can work if the fast-mover is just a means to an end (business partner, co-worker, gatekeeper, etc.) and all you’re doing is handling logistics and strategy. But it’s garbage for social connection and real enjoyment.

Think about it: most of our best memories are made when the world slows down and we’re living by feeling – unpressured, uninhibited, unburdened. Lying on a beach sipping Mai Tais, EDM concerts where you were felt reality breathe and temporarily achieved oneness, dates so good the rest of the world melts away, backyard BBQs playing cornhole and swimming, bottomless mimosas on Sunday Fundays, the kind of all-in sex where you feel each pulse of the other’s being.

…All the moments where you go “Aaaaaaah… fuck yes. This is it.”

Moving slowly also lets you think about and process things more. Instant exposure and reaction to everything isn’t a great life approach… as we’ve been aggressively learning over the last ~20 years. It’s the right move for certain things, sure… but really not for a whole bunch of others. Good reaction needs calibration, and calibration needs consideration.

Moving slowly rules – let’s value it more and do more of it. We’ll all feel better.

Emotional privilege is the greatest power on Earth.

It means being able to freely indulge your feelings in the moment – getting to fully react and emote to what’s shown, when it’s shown, without having to worry (or at least worry less) about how your reaction affects others.

In many relationships, especially the romantic and professional, someone has emotional privilege – a pre-existing right to be more reactive and less controlled than others. In romance it’s the more-pursued, and in business it’s the boss or investor.

This privilege is ultimate. It’s the difference between true freedom and self-restriction. It means not having to exert emotional discipline… which is arguably the hardest thing in human being. Having to control or suppress feelings you’re feeling in the moment, especially the really strong ones (like arousal, anger or loss), is brutal. It forces you to internalize uncertainty, frustration, stress and pain, rather than healthily venting them as they’re felt. It’s like swallowing acid.

And internalized feelings don’t just disappear once suppressed – they graft themselves onto psyches and become part of people. They directly and deeply shape emotional well-being and character (and, I think, even physical health). The more someone’s on the wrong end of emotional privilege, the more emotional acid they swallow and the more psychic poison they’re forced to carry.

With emotional privilege also (usually) comes privilege of reactivity. Instead of having to lead the interaction, the privileged get to simply react to what’s presented them. It means getting to make less effort while also being a kind of social judge, evaluating how they treat the presenter as they take in what’s said and what’s demonstrated. Having to lead an interaction is much harder and more demanding than simply reacting in one.

Emotional privilege and privilege of reactivity are the observable, ground-level revealers of real power – and the real definers of social inequality in action.

The world’s a rough place… getting rougher.

Most of the blame usually goes to shitty behavior. The bad feed on good, exploiting trust and generosity, making themselves stronger while leaving the better worse.

Don’t get me wrong: this fucking sucks. The once open-and-honest closing themselves after being burned is high tragedy. It hardens hearts and darkens souls. It makes life less.

But there’s something else. Something worse.

Something more subtle but way more poisonous.

…

Doing good’s usually not great.

It tends to be rewarded badly… if it’s rewarded at all.

It goes unacknowledged at scary rates. A lot of good acts are met with… nothing. Not even a quick “thank you.” Just… whatever.

A lot of times it’s worse than nothing. A lot of times people become aggressively entitled – once shown kindness they expect more and better of it. “You did this for me, now you should be willing to do that because c’mon you’re a good person right?”

…WTF? No. Wrong reaction.

But that’s not the worst thing.

The worst thing is minding the social power gap. Having to carefully meter out just how much good you give to others to maintain attention and balance in a relationship.

The sad truth’s that doing for others is socially dangerous. Making more effort signals you feel you need to do more to be worthy of the relationship. Calibrated good is great, but too much is seen as weak and supplicating… it doesn’t take much before respect is lost, boredom arises and entitlement ensues. Whoever makes less effort in a relationship has more control.

In the professional world, too much goodness means becoming a work dumpster, handling the overflow other less-agreeable employees aren’t willing to do (and contrary to popular belief rarely leads to raises or promotions). In the friendship world it means making more effort while getting worse treatment. In the romantic world, too much goodness (especially too soon) means the other person gets bored and either disappears or pays the wrong kind of attention.

In other words, good’s a slippery, booby-trapped slope. You don’t wanna be a dick… but you definitely don’t wanna be a chump.

Sad.

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Let me get out in front of it:

“…But you don’t do good things for reward! You do them because it’s the right thing to do and trust fate to pay it forward!”

…I mean, really?

Telling this to people whose good has gone unacknowledged or badly-rewarded is essentially telling them to just deal with it and blindly hope for better. It’s cold comfort that rightfully makes people think twice about future sacrifice for others. It’s not wisdom – it’s insanity.

You don’t do good things for reward, no… but they should be rewarded. Validating and rewarding good is the best way to encourage more of it – not fake pats on the emotional back.

And obviously you can’t always expect perfect one-for-one reciprocity… but you should expect equivalent reciprocity over time. Not having that’s a toxic relationship dynamic that socially poisons the person on the wrong end of the power balance. On net it puts more bad than good into the world.

FINALLY: The REAL Problem…

Let’s be honest:

It looks good and feels great to have others do for you without doing for them in return. It’s a pillar of ego and baller culture – “It-just-came-to-me-cuz-I’m-awesome.” The more others do for you without you doing for them, the more power and influence you show, which impresses more people, which increases your power and influence. There’s a reason subjects come to and bow before royalty…

…and this is the primitively dirty, dark psychological motivation behind a lot of fucked-up behavior that passive-aggressively bleeds others for the power position.

So let’s go ahead and spend some time pondering the wisdom of this… maybe try to grow out of being impressed by or rewarding it.