Joshe

I could see how these metaphysical mechanics would usually serve to spiritually bypass the underlying fragility. For most, it would be a coping mechanism and a magic pill solution to avoid the work becoming antifragile.

True dat

Engage with the nuance bro. You don't get to flatten all distinctions and then tell everyone your flattened frame is basic common sense. lol. Nice try.

Also, how one deals with "uncertainty" is near the root as well. Neediness = fear-driven attempts to eliminate uncertainty and to secure safety. So, maybe part of the solution is courage has to be cultivated. And/or you have to cultivate groundedness in the absence of guarantees.

@UnbornTao Totally agree. In my first reply I had something like "it's helpful to distinguish between want and need", but I removed it after I started thinking about the complexity it invokes. It feels like "want" becomes a need at a certain point, so I started thinking of "desire" as the base phenomenon on a spectrum of intensity, but then couldn't figure out the rest of the framework. Also, it's not so simple because you can have both an intense want and an intense need. Where things become unstable is when not getting an intense want is mistaken as some sort of existential threat. So neediness seems to have to do with your relation to the desire - how high you believe the stakes are or thinking your safety will be compromised if you don't get it. At the end of the day, I think neediness is a symptom of a fragile self. Find what is fragile and make it not fragile.

OP is asking for mechanics. “How does it really work”. It’s like they’re saying they want a deep understanding of how an engine works and some distinguished mechanic chimes in: “combustion”. Anyone have any insights into the mechanics of it?

Problem solved! lol

But what does the attitude consist of?

Maybe neediness is the byproduct of being desperate for something from someone else and you subconsciously positioning yourself lower than them. The variables seem to be desire intensity, forced closure, and often low self-respect. What does it mean to desperately want something from someone else? I’m very selective about what I desperately want. If I find that I’m being desperate, I correct myself. Eventually, it’s second nature to not be needy. Also, you can want things without being needy. I might want some sex but if I don’t get it, I’m not bothered much. And I’ll never allow desperation for a fleeting desire to turn me into a subordinate weakling. I have too much self-respect for that. I think this is how I uprooted my own neediness. I really didn’t like being at the mercy of others, so I fixed it. Of course, it’s easy to go wrong in the fixing. You don’t want to become overly cynical, more narcissistic/superior, etc. I think becoming non-needy is a big self-development project that requires careful balance, which can only be learned over several years. And for me, it started with not allowing myself to desperately want anything from someone else. But not with suppression. Rather, from realizing things like no one else owes me anything, I can’t force them to do something, and therefore, what others give or don’t give is outside my control, and overly relying on them for psychological safety sets me up for suffering, which I don’t like, so I avoid the entire thing by preventing desperation. Eventually, it becomes an automatic operation.

What about this analogy: If your boss of 3 weeks says to you "I am wondering - do you see yourself sticking around long term and devoting yourself to our cause"? No matter how he frames the question, it creates pressure, and IMO, is a bit unfair. If the employee feels pressured, is that just on them? So if you're deliberately using it as a filter, I think that's fine and makes good sense. Nothing, as long as they're ready for it or have the capacity and desire to meet you there. But it seems risky. You might end up scaring some off that you'd actually like.

Empathy. Respect. Attunement. I understand your point. I'm not saying "don't do that". You can do it and things still work out for you. I'm just saying that if you pull a fire alarm and everyone in the building panics, and you say "their panic is on them - I was just expressing myself", that's technically true, but it's ignoring the fact that you caused the panic. It seems you want clarity about a specific thing but want to ignore the impact clarity-seeking would generate. There are consequences to pretending the impact is only in the other person's head. Self-expression changes the emotional environment.

I think in general, early on, girls don’t like the pressure of exclusivity talk and even labels like boyfriend/girlfriend. I think they usually need to feel you out for a couple months first and you have to just wait on them to let you know if/when they’re ready. I always just approached women with a “if it happens, it happens, if it don’t, it don’t” approach, and I let them choose when we move to the next level. They give signs when it’s time. If you say “I want to be exclusive”, that is MASSIVE pressure you’re putting on them because what can they say? Either yes, no, or let me think about it. Each response has significant implications. It almost feels inhumane. Lol. And many girls will say yes out of guilt, so they’re basically coerced. If they say no, then it’s possibly over right then and there, and they might not want that either. Saying directly “I want you to be mine and only mine” before they’re ready for that just doesn’t sit right with me, and I think in general, they don’t prefer it. Thirsty ones might.

She might not have liked your style and thought you were treating the relationship like a contract with clauses. I don't get the need to even mention exclusivity. At some point, the girl will let you know when she starts saying things like "you better not be talking to other girls". If you try to manage it before she is ready for it, it just seems like hyper-vigilance or something.

I had a friend in high school who girls absolutely adored for his looks. He could never make it more than 2 weeks with a girl before they bounced. His neediness was too much. Even super-attractive dudes run girls off with neediness. That's how repulsive it is to them (generally speaking). I was too needy with my very first girlfriend. She bounced and couldn't even give me an explanation as to why. lol. I figured it out though and came up with a rule of thumb: never be more invested than they are. If you're doing everything you think you should be and a girl ever wants to leave, have some self-respect and show her to the exit. I had a fling with a girl I met from a bar and she was going through a rough time with her boyfriend. Eventually, he found out about us and came over to my place one night. I opened the door and he starts pleading with her. She went out to talk to him. She came back inside and sat on my bed and was contemplating whether she should leave or not and I could tell she wasn't sure what to do, so I told her she should just go be with James and that I didn't want a gf anyway and things would be a lot simpler for her if she just left. I genuinely meant everything I told her because I couldn't stand feeling like an option she was weighing. After that night, I couldn't get rid of her. We were together for like 5 years after that. Maybe the moral of the story is: Staying rooted in your dignity and self-respect creates opportunity. Or maybe, you can't perform non-neediness. You have to actually not be needy.

And for all generations, “The universal human task is to reach a point where life is stable enough to sustain meaning — and meaningful enough to justify maintaining stability.” - ChatGPT 😝, only cuz Claude was down.

Good point. You can’t necessarily solve this generations problems with the previous generations solutions.

Blast this shit on repeat:

I think you're seeing a lot of things clearly, but one thing you might reign in is, it seems like you may have unrealistic standards given your current situation. Because when I posed a hypothetical $50k gig, you immediately asked if it's meaningful, uses your strengths, offers advancement, makes an impact. These are not really fair questions at square 1. At square 1, a good question is: does this get me stable enough to think clearly and slowly advance. You probably have more freedom and latitude than it seems, but we all have to operate within the scope of our situation. The reality is that there are constraints. The way forward is to map those constraints clearly, and then find realistic ways to transcend/remove them, bit by bit. We can't jump from square 1 to 10. We have to intelligently and patiently climb up. For me, "clarity" of knowing how to climb up is my fuel. https://recorder.google.com/e24eb57b-b9ce-4b04-bf98-32481df98027 The path to what you want goes through where you are. We don't get to skip levels.

When you say "I don't feel capable", it feels like you're saying: "I'm not capable". By "capable", I meant something like "sufficient competence". So, it seems like what you meant to say is you don't feel like you have the "capacity", which is about depletion, not capability. You are capable - you do things, but it seems to me it is costing you a lot, mostly because you're fried. Being fried is a state you can escape. The state has nothing to do with who you are. It's just a current constraint imposing severe limitations. So severe that it should be your top priority, IMO.

@trenton Just curious. If someone handed you over a gig that brings in $50k/yr, and you were plenty capable of handling it, would that change your entire outlook or would you still feel stuck?

Thanks @Indra Rachmaditya! I'm glad you liked it. Yes, I forgot all about that book. Seems like I read it about 10 years ago.