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Thank you for this. Primary accounts are great.
You say that you have an expectation of psychically dividing your life into “Before Missiles” and “After Missiles”; how do you think your life is going to be different after?
(I ask mostly from the perspective of one of Scott’s old posts, which, to paraphrase, had a thesis of ‘People Who Claim To Have Achieved Enlightenment / Had A Life-Changing Experience Are Actually Indistinguishable From How They Acted Beforehand’)
Sorry for the late reply.
On Scott's perspective, people's claims of psychic change are not material to outsiders. I think it's too early to really tell. I'll report back if/when it's all done.
For one, I feel a lot more tense and a lot calmer simultaneously. "Minor" annoyances like bureaucracy, shitty driving, my girlfriend not picking up my calls, and having to repeat something I said don't seem to bother me as much anymore at all. Ofcourse any rational person would choose those problems over being in a warzone, but I guess that insight transforming from theoretical to experienced is something.
It's rather cliche, but just a very visceral amplified feeling of "oh wow, the problems I had were actually really minor". I emphasize the visceral experience of it being a difference in kind not magnitude to intuiting it intellectually, which just about everyone does.
There's a 100 other mental things I'm experiencing, which amounts to roughly "fog of war". Having to make decisions to preserve and grow life, livelihood, relationships, and happiness amongst all this, with less brainpower behind it.
This feels similar and different to the fog during the peak of covid. That left me permanently less trusting of governments, "2 weeks" timelines, and the decision-making of the masses and our leaders.
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