I havent gotten any novel suggestions yet from the choose a new challenge project, but watching myself respond to anonymous criticism, and especially going through the process enough times in a row to recognize the pattern, is astonishing. I definitely dont recommend it for everyone, but for me this particular part is turning out to be more useful than I ever expected the content of the suggestions to be. It goes something like this. I read a piece of criticism. I suddenly feel wounded and then defensive, and I immediately boot up my distancing software so I can observe without identifying. My brain: *searches around for a particular person to be mad at, finds nobody, gets frustrated* Me: Well what did you expect? Its *anonymous*. Brain: This criticism is almost certainly from one of the people we already dont like. Look at the non-empty results of the search I just did for evidence supporting that hypothesis! Its probably from Doodoo Head. Hes dumb. You should just dismiss it. Me: *sighs* No, brain. If the criticism is accurate, its accurate regardless of who made it. Brain: Look, were not the Kind Of Person who would care about that particular criticism. Were *better than that*. Therefore, ignore it. Me: Now wait just a cotton pickin minute. The whole point of this exercise is to change. We can only dismiss criticisms after honestly and certainly predicting that things would be worse overall if we changed in the suggested way. When has trying to be a Kind of Person ever done anything but get in our way? Existentialism! Brain: *stamps its feet and pouts for a while, pretty quickly runs out of steam* After that, I can bring it back on board and actually try simulating the suggested change (which probably requires modeling other minds, which probably requires emotions, which requires unity rather than distance), and so far Ive decided no, that isnt a change I want to make. Then a few minutes later Im like, Oh, hey, wow, that was really interesting! I bet I can speed up the process with practice and spend less time in the defensive and feet-stampy parts. I should totally thank the author! And then Im slightly disappointed as I remember that the feedback is anonymous. I really wish it didnt require the time and effort of lots of other people to practice this; being able to hear out-right insults and quickly extract any value they might have without taking a hit is *totally* a new skill I want to have.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 08:34:19 +0000