by erikerikson | 2025-11-28 22:34:56+00:00
> Do you think there's something that you are intentionally hiding from your therapists that might make you vulnerable? Or it's just, that you don't have enough time to give full overview into yourself?

Nothing hidden. Hiding from anyone feels pointless and would leave me even more alone. I would need to live in a shell/shadow of myself and have to do a bunch of work to keep track of the boundaries - exhausting waste! Part of it is that I am a very odd primate. I had life circumstances that had me separated from most people followed by an existential crisis at 8 with no adults that could even start to discuss or support me through it. That led me off into lots of weird spaces and problems (and problem definitions) that I've been working on since then. My struggles mostly have to do with how humanity undermines and underperforms while dragging those attempting better down. I often try to enlist therapist's creativity to help solve subproblems but having a forum to discuss these things is itself relieving.

I'm with you about being able to just speak one's mind. Living your values and in a positive economic outcomes oriented manner is a pretty bullet proof strategy but it assumes a certain amount of physical and economic safety. A lot of people get stuck in the "social intrigue" pattern/asynchronous information building suboptimal strategy. I spend a lot of time trying to invite people to join and give them the tools and supports that make it plausible.

> e.g. corporate environments

Yeah, I've kinda washed out of all the horsecarp that happens in those. After 20 years and lots of success I still enjoy the work but the people ruin it for me. I'm planing a transition to farming. These social patterns destroy industry performance but it seems locked in on them.

> What does giving up control exactly means?

One always, outside of dystopic electrode or mind control ray scenarios, retains exclusive control over their connected neutral infrastructure but in having attachment to values we can feel induced into tradeoffs we would otherwise reject. Becoming attached to a life partner can cause shifts in your priorities and gives up control of priority updates, at least partially, to an uncontrolled entity. Lies told, being stuck in abuse patterns, and many other factors can create adverse dynamics and all these are risked. Similar risks can manifest in a business or investment decision. Even the accumulated knowledge, increase communications efficiency, and shared experience of any long term relationship becomes an asset that can exert control. Usually a worthwhile risk and trade-off.

The problem isn't gendered, that's just a distraction to keep us distracted warring against ourselves. Not to ignore the gender associated norms that lead to gender correlated adverse outcomes inside of a societal system that reflects and countersolves these. The problem is the distributed defection status and the challenges of social coordination coupled with social knowing not scaling.

However, I kinda ignore your last bit. I think you are saying "isn't the submission to satisfying the external the problem?" I believe it is a problem but it's paired with the collaboration can lead to far better outcomes factor. Society puts a lot of effort to make us dependent and through it dependence subservient. On the platform of society some attempt to get us to enslave ourselves (and others) to the whims of those same. Through such tangles, we all lose and pay dearly, living underperforming lives in an underperforming existence.