Some scattered thoughts about character development

1. Different people have different characters. I think some are more virtuous by accident of their nature / biology. Upbringing and life history in general surely also contribute. What's easy for some people can be hard for other.

2. Paul Graham wrote in one of his essays that "he tries to do in software what Robert Morris does in hardware". I like that metaphor a lot. Even if you're not naturally patient / constientous / etc you can develop software workarounds over those firmware deficiencies.

3. What is virtuous is certainly context-dependent. Liking sweets was very helpful for our long-gone ancestors - motivated them to get more vitamins etc. Liking sweets nowadays must be controlled, lest it ruins your health. https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1139549393999159297?s=20

4. The Iron Law of social science says "The expected value of any net impact assessment of any large scale social program is zero". I think this to a considerable degree applies to individual people and self-help as well. It's hard to change something!

5. But people do change all the time! And often they do it intentionally. It's very hard to consistently reproduce such change, but it doesn't mean it's impossible!

6. The Last Psychiatrist's core message (or at least what I got from him) was that often we choose feeling bad over making a change. https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/06/amy_schumer_offers_you_a_look.html

7. Often the change is impossible because you're working from a wrong (inaccurate) model of how the world works (or how your mind works). The society sells you inaccurate models all the time. (How could it be any other way?) But some models are better than other -> make updates!

8. Practice makes perfect, but repeating the same exact thing over and over again, without variation, is counterproductive. Try new things, read theory. https://twitter.com/reasonisfun/status/1275885898421407745?s=20
I think this applies to most things, including character development.

9. You shouldn't be working against yourself, you should cooperate with yourself. https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1093608466977964032?s=20

10. The default behaviour is not to lift weights. It wasn't neccesary in the ancestral environment. But for white-collar workers in today's world lifting weights has many benefits.

The default behaviour is not to consciously train your character. But ... ;)

11. @amelapay calls this default behaviour "just-in-time character development" and contrasts it with "just-in-case characted development". Strong recommendation. https://www.pamelajhobart.com/blog/will-you-have-what-it-takes-just-in-case-character-development

12. Often when you want to change some bahaviour it's easier to change some aspect of your environment so that the change becomes natural or at least easier. Compare @alexeyguzey method of fighting procrastination https://guzey.com/productivity/ 

13. You can use Twitter to select your filter bubble / echo chamber to change / guide your beliefs or behaviours (indirectly). That's one of things I'm trying to do here (though having fun is ofc at the top of the list!)

14. There are no magical solutions and easy, universal fixes. But there are many BORING things that can improve your life by 0.01%. Compounding of these improvements over time can almost work miracles!

Hey @eigenrobot this is related to my recent question to you: https://twitter.com/eigenrobot/status/1295417552206565376?s=20

Please don't take it to be a dunk, because it is not! I think you have some very good habits that excercise your character: being perceptive, aggresively escaping framings.

Some of your tweets have inspired and challenged me in the not so distant past, ilu!