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PaperclipPerfector  28d ago (text post)   3354 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 19, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Do you have a favorite maxim or aphorism? What is it?

You are what you actually do, not what you say you are going to do.

It’s a paraphrase of the Last Psychiatrist. The basic idea is that the modern world encourages people to adopt an identity and ideology. You might identify as an athlete or a thinker or a writer or an artist. But a lot of times, it’s about the aesthetics or about being seen to be like that because you see it as cool or interesting or something that other people will like about you. But the quick way to see if it’s actually true of you is to look at whether or not you’re taking action. Are you actually writing or drawing? Do you actually donate to those causes? Do you actively seek out knowledge? And very especially do you do it in ways that you aren’t being seen doing those things? Protesting doesn’t really count, nor does writing or drawing in public places — that can be done to show off. But if you’re doing those things alone with the door closed, then you might be that thing.

Is there a specific essay that talks about this? Or is it a general theme of the blog? I read a handful of essays that spoke a bit about this, but nothing devoted entirely to it.

The general theme of the blog was that essentially everyone is a narcissist basically incapable of forming strong natural bonds with other people because they lack a “core self” to connect to other people.

The blog itself was titled The Last Psychiatrist and it was a stand alone website of the same name. It hasn’t been updated to my knowledge in over a decade. There might be an archive of it somewhere, and I think that some fans of the blog wanted to gather it for a pdf.

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