This blog is not meant to be a product.
It’s meant to be practice.
Collaborative practice.
That is the value of this blog that people might want to help me by giving me feedback. But not just on my writing.
When I share something and someone gives me feedback from their own ideas or opinions on a subject matter that subject matter becomes collaborative.
The tricky thing about getting feedback is it can be very difficult to get genuine feedback.
People put their thoughts through a lot of filters before they share them. Which isn’t a bad thing.
Everything has to go through some kind of social filter just to be properly understood.
But there are two particular filters I like to try to get around.
One is the polite filter. I don’t want people to worry too much about being polite.
Because polite can be very constraining on a real thought or feeling.
If I try to describe someone to identify them and I say ‘the bigger brunette lady’ but in my head I was thinking ‘that really fat bitch’ I’m filtering out a lot of my initial impulsive reactions to be polite.
But the initial more impulsive reaction is the valuable feedback. The polite version doesn’t really contribute a whole lot of information.
People sometimes aren’t even necessarily always trying hard to be polite. There’s a guilt that can come from the first impulsive thoughts. So that they kind of get shut down.
Also not necessarily a bad thing but when you are attempting to give feedback to people on anything that is looking for a real result, those first impulsive thoughts are valuable.
Why?
Because it’s a collaboration. What a person really feels beneath all the filters matters.
The other filter I want to get around is insecurity.
So many things get filtered through insecurity. How I see something, how I react to something, how I think about something and how I respond to something can all be filtered through insecurity.
It’s very hard to have a real conversation about anything when insecurity is removing most of the information.
It’s also extremely hard to get around insecurity. To take insecurity off and not use it so much.
Because insecurity isn’t bad. It has a very good purpose.
If you let them get too hungry people can be wolves.
There’s good reason to be insecure. If I find enemies, which of course I will, a lot of my weaknesses and failings will be used against me.
For example one of my bigger insecurities is that I used to do porn.
I’m not ashamed I did porn, doing porn gave me a lot.
But in general awareness, generally speaking by most social standings porn is going to be looked down upon. It’ll be a point against me and my character.
People have on some occasions attempted to use porn against me.
Because of my insecurity around porn I have a few extra little measures I can take. Aspects of my personality that weren’t created by the insecurity but definitely were reinforced and strengthened by the insecurity.
For one I lean more heavily on developing trust in the people.
Which means I will go the extra mile. I make sure I do absolutely everything I say. I never lie. Not even small lies. I’m fully honest. I always go a bit above and beyond. I am hyper vigilant when it comes to pleasing people.
I usually know what they want before they know what they want.
A portion of that behavior is an overcompensation for my insecurity around porn.
It’s a strategy built around show casing my worth so I’m not so easily expended.
It’s a way I protect my reputation against people that might try to assassinate it.
Not to say that I was consciously aware of this. I’ve realized it over time of doing too much for people and the consequences that come from doing too much for people.
I’ve reconfigured it and I feel a lot more secure now so I’m more balanced.
But the unconscious method my insecurity created was pretty effective. It had a purpose and a reason. It did aid in protecting me in a lot of more delicate scenarios.
Insecurity can be a very useful filter.
What is the right metric?
What is there to be insecure about?
If I’m insecure about something how do I know it’s real?
What is insecurity first of all?
I’m not some sort of psychiatrist. (I think psychiatrists are creepy) but I have worked through a few of my insecurities so I do think I know what they are.
A lot of the time I’m able to figure out at which point an insecurity is useful and at which point an insecurity is detrimental.
My insecurities around writing this blog for example, what are they?
When I get very anxious about it what is it I’m getting anxious about?
What is the very worst thing thst could happen from posting my blogs?
People think I’m stupid? Eh. That stings a bit but I can live with that.
I risk more exposure? To the people that don’t know I did porn finding out? Eh. They wouldn’t care at all.
Someone I really like or care about could read it and think I’m stupid? Get cringed out by me and slowly distance themselves from me?
Ah. There we go. That one hurt a lot. That’s what it is.
Now that I know where the weak point is how worth is it to continue to try to be a writer?
Well. I’m a bit addicted to writing and sharing the writing at this point. But I could do that anonymously. I don’t have to put my name to it.
But then, how useful is this insecurity that I have? Does it have any point? Or is it just hanging around not really doing anything of value and preventing me from doing something I like to do?
Maybe I’m a bit too focused on pleasing people still and it’d be useful to build up more of a tolerance to not pleasing them.
I went through my thought process just to demonstrate the sort of insecurity filter I’m trying to get around with people.
In any type of collaboration whether it’s something creative or an intimate relationship insecurity is a filter to get around.
Because insecurity can filter out the first impulses. Which again, not a bad thing. Impulses should be filtered.
But those first impulses have all the information.
The information on what is actually driving interest or a desire or a fear or a repulsion.
They are the things to share in creative collaboration (creative doesn’t always mean art. To me it also means science, or engineering or basically anything that requires problem solving thought) and the things to share in intimate relationships.
It’s been tough to write this blog because I don’t have a lot of time.
I do get hit with insecurity and a bit of anxiety as well. But that’s just always how writing is.
I’m out of time now.
Jess lanai 
9 responses to “Insecurity”
Jess, have you ever heard about the book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ by Daniel Kahneman? It talks about this difference between those two modes of information processing you mentioned- impulsive and what you called “filtered”. Reflexive and Reflective, if you will.
Regarding what you said about people judging your history as porn actor, there’s this idea in social psychology of “master status”- where one label kind of becomes the main thing people see, and everything else gets interpreted through it. Like doctor for example. I’d guess its the same for porn actor. I do professional betting and for many years I didn’t want to tell people because I knew they’ll judge me inaccurately. Anyway, If you find how we precive other people interesting, look for the field of social cognition.
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I haven’t heard of the book but I’ll definitely read it. Sounds super cool and helpful.
I think it’s true on this ‘master status’ thing but people do like being surprised and contradicted too. Like they like liking something they thought they’d hate. They like to be surprised.
Some people don’t but it’s usually because they have some unhealthy issues or like maybe personality traits or just super ingrained stuff.
Buy like when you say doctors, I hate doctors but when I met a doctor I liked and it gave me a new perspective on doctors it was very interesting.
Same thing when I read a book I think I’ll hate or a subject matter.
So I don’t think the ‘master status’ is always a bad thing. It can everything more interesting.
It does get in the way though initially sort of. It can also be an advantage. Because people expect less sometimes so it’s easier to impress them too.
I don’t know much about professional betting. What that? It sounds cool to me. I’ve known some professional poker players. Which I find impressive. Is it like that?
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I agree with you. People do enjoy being surprised, especially when something contradicts a negative expectation. I think there’s actually a concept for that in neuroscience called reward prediction error- when reality turns out better than expected, your brain generates a positive signal. It’s tied to dopamine dynamics, where you have a baseline level (tonic dopamine) that reflects your general state, and then short spikes (phasic dopamine) when something better than expected happens. (I saw the other day you wrote about the brain’s reward system and the nucleus accumbens, so I thought you might find this interesting)
But I think there’s also inertia in how people form judgments. Not because people are stubborn, but because updating takes cognitive effort and involves some uncertainty. So the first impression tends to persist by default, even if it’s not fully accurate.
Anyway, I’m not even framing it as good or bad. On a fundamental level, it’s all just information. Nothing is inherently good or bad- it’s just data being interpreted. I’m more curious about how people process that and turn it into judgments.
When you look at how people form judgments, you start to see some patterns: the first piece of information tends to get disproportionate weight (anchoring / primacy bias), and whatever is most vivid tends to dominate the whole impression. So even a small cue can shape the entire model someone builds about you.
Do you trust your first impressions or are you a bit skeptical of them?
I guess what bothers me personally is when people jump to conclusions and then don’t update them- not even out of stubbornness, just kind of cognitive laziness or lack of awareness. Sometimes you end up being judged by some motherfucker who’s not really thinking deeply about it, and there’s not much you can do about it. It can feel like you’re a bit of a prisoner of the version of you that exists in someone else’s mind… but I’ve learned not to take it seriously. In the end, it’s just information- it tells you more about the competence of the person judging than anything about you.
About the betting thing, I was always fascinated by what really wins football games. At some point I felt like I understood tactics and strategy quite well, but then I realized that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Tactics are more like a byproduct of cognition- how a team actually performs depends a lot on things like motivation, emotion, arousal, perception… all of which are dynamic and interact with each other in complex ways. So I started looking at it from that angle- how internal states interact with execution.
I guess it’s somewhat similar to professional poker in the sense that it involves probabilistic thinking, managing risk, and trying to find an edge over time.
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I’ve heard, don’t quote me on this I don’t remember where I’ve heard it, that surprise is actually the feeling of neuroplasticity. Like it’s your brain actually rewriting so it is very good for you.
I do believe that and I’ve felt totally dumbfounded by how surprised I was before. I felt in a daze from being so pleasantly surprised by something that I swear my brain was so busy rewiring that I couldn’t properly function. I’m going to write about it because it was crazy.
I know exactly what you mean about how people form judgments. I’ve dealt with it before and it can be very frustrating to deal with from just like people you have to interact with but it’s hard when it’s people you care about.
I’ve never had anyone do this to me with porn actually. But with other things I’ve had people I love form a judgement that is for one wrong, and for two, they seem incapable of ever changing it. It’s very hurtful to deal with when you care about the person.
And people’s judgments can make life harder but there’s ways around judgements or ways to use it to an advantage too. Especially since I’m a woman it’s very easy to like, play the dumb card I guess. Let people judge me in a certain way and then it can actually make things a lot easier for me.
I’m very skeptical of my first impressions unless they are very strong. Like, I am a judgemental person in the sense that I like a lot space and alone time. So anyone that gives me the impression they will impede on my alone time I hate instantly. And if they gives me the impression they will give me alone time I like them instantly.
But I’ve learned not to trust that. That it’s not a good judge of person.
If I feel an intense discomfort or threat or just a strong alarm I do trust that though. It’s never been wrong.
The betting thing is very cool. It’d be dangerius if you were irresponsible with it I suppose but otherwise it just sounds like a very useful and fun skill.
I’ve known some poker players that are pretty addicted and basically constantly win and lose large amounts of money. Then I’ve met the smart ones that do it as a hobby and just win a lot because they never go so deep that they can lose a lot
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I get what you mean, especially when it involves people you care about…
I think it’s almost like surprise is one of the few moments where the brain is forced out of its usual low energy, reinforced shortcuts and into an updating mode. In that sense, it’s not the rewiring itself, but more like the gateway condition that allows it to happen. I think neuroplasticity can also happen without surprise, but it usually requires repetition and sustained attention to compete with those more persistent pathways.
About the dangerous part, I’m quite introspective and curious, so I’ve learned how to navigate it. My core motivation is mostly intrinsic, which I find important- it’s the difference between directed attention and captured attention. I’m doing it because I enjoy the task itself, not really for rewards or money. The activity is rewarding on its own.
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For me it was like something I always believed to be true got proven wrong. And it was a negative belief so my brain was so happy to be proven wrong I swear in a split second it just started trying to process this new information and it was so overwhelmed that I felt dazed.
I have a belief too that we do have past memories. Like, a part of us has been alive this whole time and has encountered problems it’s never been able to solve for maybe eons of time, and sometimes we get just a tiny bit closing to solving a problem we’ve had for an eternity and it seems small to us but it’s huge to that part of it.
I think that is part of the intrinsic reward we feel that doesn’t really care about success or money or even acceptance. It’s just the enjoyment of doing the thing. I the reward is from solving a really ancient problem a part of ourselves has faced.
That’s just my little spiritual type theory thing though on it.
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Providing feedback can be difficult depending on what it is you are critiquing and your relationship with that person. Most people in our society are conditioned to be filtered, especially at our jobs. Most people work in an industry that commands compliance and not creativity. For example if I think that something my boss wants to do is completely fucking stupid and totally retarded I can’t obviously say that or else I’ll be fired. Instead I use a different, more socially palatable watered down phrase for a response because request for feedback at a job is more like a formality that is really an order. In general, I believe that constructive criticism is the best form of feedback. When done right it can be honest like an impulsive response but respectful and refined for the person to hopefully respond positively to the feedback. I appreciate that you think the comments on your blog provide collaborative feedback. My comments are probably not the most intelligent or insightful responses but at the very least I do enjoy the posts and look forward to the next one.
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It is really hard to provide feedback. It takes practice. I’ve had to practice it by critiquing writing myself or practice it by telling friends or family something that’s difficult to say because of how it might be received. Or even just, I’m trying to go on dates, so rejecting people without making them feel bad but also helping them get better at dating is hard.
It definitely takes a lot of practice. With bosses, if they have an ego, you really can’t give them feedback at all. I’ve learned not to bother with it in work situations unless it’s a really good environment. Same with casual friendships. It’s better to just not bother and keep the peace. I only bother to give feedback to people I really trust and value so I go the extra mile to communicate with them.
I’m trying to be open like that with this blog. Just have an environment where people don’t have to filter themselves too much. Even if they come off rude. I’d rather have the rude than the filter. In creative stuff like this
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