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Last Updated by feos on 6/25/2023 7:51 PM
Expertise is about diversity.
You take a perceived phenomenon and refuse to limit your impression with anything in particular. You let all the potential aspects appear naturally and refuse to do an evaluative judgement. There cannot be any taboo topics when it comes to faithful examination.
There's always a tendency for an examination to become biased, which makes perception limited. It happens when certain aspects are deemed more important than others. Of course, assigning priorities is natural and important for things to remain relatable and manageable, but priority should remain a positive scale, not a binary switch between consideration and ignorance.
At first it may look like diversification of your knowledge (or possessions) is a risk and requires courage. But that in turn means that you don't have enough knowledge if something looks risky. And new knowledge naturally comes when you remain __curious__.
This applies to the philosophy of growth points. If you try to remain in the current comfort zone, you don't work through things you can't tolerate, which leads to overall tolerance decline. But if you learn to move forward with things you're not used to, you gradually become more adapted and skilled. That's because certain stances lead to certain trends, but knowledge about this connection is not always immediately pleasant.
Hiding away from an immediate risk leads to missing the strategic risks, and eventually to a crisis. But getting worked up about a potential crisis doesn't help to prevent it. Then what does?
There's a great analogy with a quicksand. It feels unstoppable and fatal, until you stop panicking. In water, you can drown if you don't move enough. But quicksand is the opposite: if you don't move, you will just stay partially submerged. And to escape a quicksand, you need to have certain knowledge about its nature, and to act __strategically__. You need to maximally distribute your weight across its surface (like diversification distributes the risks), then it won't be able to draw you in (crisis). And you can only pull your limbs out of it if you pull them ''sideways'' (counter-intuitive solution).
So in order to expand your comfort zone strategically, you need to learn working with situations and your inner state in them.
* The most time consuming part is rationally working through all possible risks, so you don't fear __being__ in a certain situation or state. Since that alone won't make you advance, there's the next step:
* Learning not to fear __perceiving__ yourself in that situation or state. That process is not rational, it's about emotionally working through impulsive, immediate, involuntary reactions, and learning to ''live with their cause''.
* Coming up with an accurate, impartial __definition__ for any unknown situation or state you encounter. As long as it remains undefined, it will act like a ghost haunting you regularly, causing visceral reaction and undesired outcome.
Even though fear is the main obstacle, the formula ''"there's nothing to fear but fear itself"'' is wrong. The right formula is ''"there's nothing to fear, not even fear itself... as long as you're __curious and open__"''. Curiosity defeats fear.
So when something freaks you out in the moment, examine it! Research and learn. If it's something dangerous, you'll know more about it, and therefore you'll be more equipped against it. And if the danger is exaggerated, you'll be able to resolve the tabooed problems.
Now this is a point that makes hypnosis possible (brainwashing, gaslighting, etc). Some people think there are subjects that should be actively ignored in order to sustain stability. If you want other people to believe your rubbish, you need to become an example of that: you need to seriously bank on it being true. If they see you're ready to risk for it, they will think you have grounds for that. And even if the risk is giant, you'll look the more brave the more you risk losing (seemingly).
Interestingly, people who bank on manipulating others, do diversify the risks! They simply distribute those risks... entirely across everyone else. And experience shows them that the more they throw others under the bus, the more dedicated the eventual adepts are. Because such a system replaces personal responsibility with group involvement: if a group agrees on something, it must be right. So populism, submission, and devotion are more important than personalized approach and boon. And dedication is a winning strategy, because fanatics will outrisk and conquer others with brute force and trickery. And it's funny how dedication is the opposite of tolerance for them (radicalizing xenophobia: decision to attack what you don't want to tolerate).
So basically, curiosity and outlook is a way to fight manipulation, which is based on fear and ignorance. But since manipulation is also based on sweet propositions, one needs to be able to resist the temptation to enjoy something excessively. Because that's how you obscure the bigger picture, long-term risks, and strategic success with a favorably biased and limited echo chamber (pleasures need to be diverse as well).