> It was never the pyramid.
> It was never the optimization.
> It was the people around the fire.
"It was cold out, but none of us were cold."
"In that moment, there was nothing to do. Nothing to improve. Nothing to fix. It was perfect."
"We’ve all seen it. Clear as day, you can see the goal post at the top: self-actualization. LFG! It’s time to journal and 80/20 myself! Pass me a shaman and some modafinil. That’s the mission. That’s the point. Right? But hold on."
"Because at the end of the day—and at the end of a Montana night—the point was never yourself. It was never the pyramid. It was never the optimization. It was the people around the fire."
very different from actually good writing, as in literature. art.
Nothing against Mr. Ferris, just very clearly happen to come across these "i'm trying really hard at good writing" styles in influencer type blogs.
I am not suggesting that this isn't his writing.
What I was wondering was whether these are the elements of style that LLMs have picked up.
From what i gather, openAi particular flavor of response is from reinforcement learning, these PMs are intentionally gamifying it. just today literally every reply was followed with "… want me to show you the one trick you can implement to avoid…"
was gross.
I don't say 'self acceptance' because that's often described as a necessary precursor to changing whatever we find difficult to accept about ourselves.
Good point! I wish I wrote that, haha.
love it.
existing
During time of war and uncertainty, self help takes on the form of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
We are conditioned beings, we respond to the macro environment and dynamics.
In my self-help journey I came across meditation which ultimately led me to altruistic-based practices. So can't relate.
> A focus on improving the self usually first requires finding problems with the self
Oh I got in there the other way around. I wanted a few things out of life socially speaking but society was blocking me somehow. So I went out to investigate why that is and then studied it all and then solved my own problem. In order to do that, I had to improve myself as I wasn't connecting well with the world. I'm much happier with how I do that nowadays.
I think it's worth it to be ok with everyone being a little bit in the same boat of wanting to self-help, then becoming enamored with buddhist ideas, then grappling with everyday being just another human. In whatever order.
I'm sure you mean well but just kinda irked me that you immediately put in the effort to "nope can't relate"
My waking call was, ironically, another management book "The Management Myth" by Matthew Steward (I think), which just showed me the ridiculousness of it all.
And I read it probably closer to two decades ago.
I liken it to jiujitsu in a way. When I first started and knew nothing, I needed a lot of instruction and of course then practice. After years of that, I can now take a simple tweak to something I've been doing for years and suddenly it's much more effective. Finding those tweaks is the challenge, while also avoiding chasing silver bullets or bouncing to new thing after new thing and never getting good at something.
I'm happy that he has gone beyond the "book / author of the week" format and this blog post is most welcomed.
Relationships are crucial, especially ones that help elevate yourself or, at least, keep you on a stable level instead of dragging you down.
so, the self help didn't help and he passed the problem on his readers. Great!
The more interesting question is what that deficiency actually is. I think attachment theory gives a more precise answer: the underlying sense of insufficiency is mostly relational in origin. So his pivot to relationships has real intuition behind it — but it still mistakes the symptom for the cure.
The actual trap isn't self-help as a genre. It's using any action — including optimising your relationships — to externalise rather than confront what's underneath. The distinguishing feature is direction: are you doing this to avoid discomfort or to change your relationship to it? Rumination and productivity hacks fail by the same measure for the same reason.
His buried insight — "you cannot improve suffering away" — is the most important line in the piece, treated as a footnote. That's where the real work starts: developing the capacity to sit with what you've been avoiding rather than finding a better-feeling target for the same restlessness.
It is a bit ironic: the article is monetised self-help advice warning you about self-help, while introducing fresh deficiencies along the way — everything you learned was wrong — and staying carefully at the level of framework. That's precisely the move he's critiquing: redecorating the avoidance rather than confronting it. The most useful version of this piece would be considerably less optimised and considerably more vulnerable.
Self-help has never helped anyone. If it did, there wouldn’t be a massive industry waiting to prey on the people who are desperate for help.
>I hate to inform you, but this doesn’t work. I’m also thrilled to inform you that this doesn’t work. You can stop picking up a lot of boulders.
Really reminds me of Oliver Burkeman. Take https://www.oliverburkeman.com/never for a start:
I might be stuck with certain inner disturbances forever [...] It turns out my really big problem was thinking I might one day get rid of all my problems, when the truth is that there's no escaping the mucky, malodorous compost-heap of this reality. Which is OK, actually. Compost is the stuff that helps things grow.
DieErde•2h ago
Maybe I have to climb Maslow’s pyramid to be compatible with those?
47282847•2h ago
Everybody is adventurous; each in their own way. You can invite people to your personal adventure, and be part of theirs, for as long or short as it serves the both of you.
DieErde•1h ago
Me: "Let's fly to Paris tomorrow!"
People: "Nah, I'm fine just doing what I did the last 3650 days. I wonder how I deal with this issue I have with my boss at work. That is enough adventure for me."
Me: "Trash the job! Let's start a startup!"
People: "Nah, that is not for me. The benefit-to-work ratio at my current job is just too good."
rendx•1h ago
DieErde•41m ago
matwood•26m ago
eternauta3k•1h ago
rendx•50m ago
RugnirViking•2m ago