Narrative, self-image, and self-communication

A somewhat related thing that I do is to read/watch stories with clever/intelligent/rational (or whatever I want to be) characters such as Death Note/HPMOR (I have a bunch of other examples) which both seems to prime me to think a bit like them (or to enter in a mode where I think that my narrative is similar to theirs) and also gives me role models on which I can fall back to in some situations (like in your Naruto example). This has definitely at least partially worked (might be placebo) as I almost always have more motivation on which I act to study/do productive things after watching/reading such a story.

I've done a lot of deliberate thought about my self-image, but I still found the four questions here helpful to work through. (If you haven't tried them, try them!)

Among other things, it identified an action that both resonates and conflicts with my self-image, which I've been tracking for a while as a regular internal conflict.

Self-image related things I had altered before:

• I used to see myself as someone who didn't dance. I was in the cast of a play with a guy I wanted to impress, and we would have cast dance parties to blow off steam during rehearsals; I decided that I would be more impressive dancing poorly than not dancing, and so decided I was now the kind of person who danced.

• I found intermittent fasting easy to adopt, because the only required change was deciding "I am not the sort of person who eats outside of noon to 8."

• I consciously decided that I would be friendlier to other people at some point, which was partially accomplished through self-image changes (but also appeared to be mostly driven by normal age-related empathy increases).

• There are a number of things that I don't do or don't like primarily because I didn't do them or didn't like them; in particular, younger me had very narrow tastes. My tastes have actually changed with age, but many of my dislikes were cached- do I really not like pickles, anymore? I deliberately shifted my self-image to be more xenophilic in my tastes (but not all that far).

One of the observations I would make is that it's important to keep in mind that self-image is a combination of self-constraint and self-perception. You have varying levels of control over various aspects of your self-image, and while some aspects shift best by a dramatic reset, others shift best by gradual movement. For example, one of the things I wrote down as an action that conflicts with my self-image is recharging emotionally in a crowd. Regardless of my preferences or goals, that one looks to be because my brain is not set up that way; I can still adjust my perception of crowds and social events quite a bit, but the range of possible values is smaller than, say, my range of possible dietary habits.

Excellent article!

I've always seen life in terms of stories. I used to tell stories to myself from age 5 or so, and probably earlier–definitely before I could write, because my mom used to record them on tape. The most common thing I'll do when I'm bored is create mini-story scenarios in my head, involving myself and people I know, and dramatic events taking place, and how people react. (Like "myself and the rest of my swim team are stranded on a desert island" or, years later, "I'm trapped at work in the hospital with the rest of the staff after a nuclear strike".)

I've always been an avid reader, and looked up to the main characters with heroic qualities, and been all too aware that I don't have those qualities–I'm clumsy, I have slow reaction times, I don't cope well under pressure, etc. I think the biggest bias that "narrative thinking" has given me is the thought that you, as a person, are defined by that "climactic moment of your story" where you're in the position to do something heroic. Thus, I think my literally greatest fear is that my climactic moment will come, and I'll fail due to lack of heroic qualities.

This has motivated quite a lot of my large-scale life decisions–I chose to go into nursing, among other reasons, because I thought it would improve my ability to actually be useful in a crisis situation. (I'm not saying it was a wrong decision–I think it was an even better decision than I realized at the time, if not for the same reasons.) Still, there are definitely drawbacks to seeing the world in such a biased way. And though my intellectual self may be more sophisticated than that now, my emotional self definitely still thinks that way–and has a way to see every situation as "the author of my story is testing my skills."

More recently, I've tried to incorporate "tsuyoku naritai" into my self-concept, to see myself as the kind of person who is constantly working to become stronger. This helps a lot to persuade my reluctant emotional mind to do all the things that I find unpleasant or that scare me, like dragging myself to taekwondo at the end of a long day, or going to help out when a patient is in cardiac arrest.

An injury that prevented me from climbing this semester lead to me feeling chronically meh for about a month, until I realized it was because my self-image as a physically active and playful person was threatened.

This could be a purely physiological thing. Exercise releases endorphins, and if your body's used to getting its daily endorphin boost and suddenly isn't anymore, it isn't all that surprising that you would feel "meh." Quite apart from the psychological aspects–which are huge as well–you can suffer purely physical "withdrawal" from lack of exercise. I certainly do!

An important aspect of self-image is whether people consider themselves "successful" or "losers", based on their previous successes and failures. But we have a bias here: the feeling from a successful or failed task is not proportionate to its difficulty. So people can manipulate their outcomes by only doing easy tasks, which have high success ratio. When used strategically, this can be helpful; but doing it automatically all the time is harmful. Learning new things requires trying new things, but that has a risk of failure, which can harm self-image with possible bad consequences such as learned helplessness. On the other hand, protecting self-image all the times means never learning anything. Updating means admitting you were (more) wrong. How to deal with this?

I could treat my positive self-image as a depletable resource: after repeated failures I would stop experimenting with new things and return to practicing the stuff I am successful at, until I feel good about myself again. Maybe this is a secret ingredient of practice: not only does practicing a skill make one better at the given skill, but it also makes it part of their self-image. Doing difficult exercises would be better for actually improving the skills, but doing easier (though not too easy) exercises would be better for the self-image as a skilled person.

I could try to make a self-image of "a person who tries difficult things many people would rather avoid" which could make failures less significant (actually contributing to the self-image) and successes more sweet. On the other hand, if I overdo this, I get a convenient excuse for never completing anything. Perhaps it could be balanced by measuring whether people really avoid those things I am failing at. Alternatively I could use a self-image of a person learning something, because the only way to fail at learning is to stop learning; getting an exercise wrong is a part of learning. Again, overdoing this, I get a convenient excuse for failing.

Somehow related: the line between "solving the problem" and "running away from the problem" is sometimes blurred, but the respective self-images feel very differently. What kind of a solution can I accept so that it will not feel like running away? (Changing my job, which greatly improved my life: was it running away from the problem, solving the problem, or both?) It is easy to blame the environment, but also to blame the person, even if we are the person (we model others blaming ourselves). I prefer the self-image of a problem solver (because it would prime me to solve problems, duh), but my ultimate goal is winning, not working hard.

Also I have stopped reading internet discussions where people are impolite (unfortunately, too large sections of the internet), because I realized that it harms my self-image: I started to think about myself as a person who cannot have an intelligent and polite discussion with most people. Somehow I blamed myself for evoking the responses I got online, and integrated that into a stereotypical self-image of a computer guy with low social skills. However, most offline experiences proved me wrong: with real people I am a nice person, and I can have a pleasant talk with most of them.

A+ post, would read again.

Especially it just gave me a little push in a direction I dislike going but I want to go, namely I tend to Explain Away my behaviour in terms of biases and akrasia instead of actually working to fix it.

Fantastic post! Quick typo corrections: Oultine -> Outline, Chaneling -> Channeling (and do you need the quotes?), Explicilty -> Explicitly

(Substance coming after a meeting.)

Reading this post made me feel very uncomfortable for some reason.

(Removed a spoiler tag)

I drafted a story in my mind about a hero who was able to outwit his foes by being less constrained by narrative than they were, and I identified with him whenever I felt a need-for-narrative coming on. Batman's narrator goes for something like this in the Dark Knight when he abandons his heroic image to take the blame for Harvey Dent's death.

Curious example, I interpreted that in exactly the opposite way. Taking on the blame is the penultimate sacrificial conclusion of that story arc, which is why most people saw it coming a mile away. It fits his stereotype perfectly, instead of emancipating himself from his narrative, to me it was gliding to the narrative-mandated conclusion on rails. He lived up to his heroic ideal / narrative, the image he portrayed to others was secondary. Just as with your own personal narrative.

Related: The Curse of Identity.

Using narrative to adjust own emotional responses seems like a potentially useful device (if it actually works). I don't see how that motivates the idea of a "self-image", what that idea is, more clearly, or if it's of any use. Keeping your identity empty, in the sense of actively resisting mere status quo as a motivation for keeping patterns of thought, seems like the way to go (apart from whatever simple/consistent facades you need to display to groups of people whose perception of your identity matters for some reason, and it might be psychologically difficult to have more than one of these).

Self image is just another word for bias.

I am an X. X's always do X things. I have to do x things

Why can't people make calculations in real time rather than inserting a pre-made stand in? For example: Problem: a circle of paper with a diameter of 3cm is required Answer: grab an already constructed circle and hope it fits or Answer: note the size requirement for the paper and construct one out of new material so it fits perfectly

which is like

Problem: A man is fleeing from a large mob and hides in a location you know. The mob catches up and ask if you seen him Answer: You reach for a pre-fab self-identity responce such as "I support underdogs" so lie to the mob or "I'm always helpful to everyone i speak to" so you inform the mob or Answer: You don't assume you will do anything other than break out your mental calculator and do the math. This will also likely include trying to find out more data to render the most accurate answer compared to the true reality.

I thought losing the concept of "I am X so I do Y" and replacing it for "the world in front of me is current 1+1 so 2 is my answer" was part of growing up. That is to say I don't dig in to my pockets for change when I see a homeless person because "I think this is what X would do" but because "I have money i can spare et etc etc etc (insert rationalized equation here)".

I too have grown up not liking to dance. I could say "I don't like to dance"- but that would only be a description of my behavior and experiences up until that point in time. If I did dance- I would not feel shame. I would not say "Dan's self-image doesn't dance so i'm not being Dan". If I did start out saying "I don't like to dance" but did so and liked it I would not say "I should not like this because I am Dan (and Dan doesn't dance)"- rather I would update my model of reality to say something like "In the past I have not enjoyed or pursued dancing but I have discovered it is enjoyable in the present". If I was to ask myself if I would do it again I wouldn't ask "Would Dan dance?" I would ask "What do I gain vs what do I lose by dancing?". Again it will be a question of utility return rather than a concrete formula of "X does X things". I think I learnt this lesson best from music. When I was growing up music was a lot more sectarian than it seems now. The statement "He likes Rap music" was synonymous with "He hates Metal music". Honestly I don't know about where you all live but this was literally true where I was. But even wihle really young it made me question how one statement meant the other. Why couldn't people like both? I realized it had nothing to do with music and sound waves but was just a stupid cultural bias and I was better off letting my listening experience create the decision since it would be grounded more with reality than a blanket stereo-type.

To give another example of what i'm talking about

I don't like racism. But when I say that, i'm not talking about "Dan's image is incompatible with racism". I'm talking about the simple maths that returns the value "Racism = bad". How that maths goes and how i define "bad" is a totally different story- but I can tell you it's one that is totally void of my own being and therefore any self image i could lump on top. In other words i'm saying that whether I exist or not racism is like 1+1=2 and for me to "like" it (or think it's not "bad") would be to say 1+1=3 (ie nonsense and not logical). I don't need to think i'm a good person to make a judgement on what is "right"- I just need a calculator and a logic that scans the numbers for bias and inconsistencies. I don't need to think anything about myself- my only task is to build a map that represents the territory accurately. I guess luckily my interpretation of the world says that what is "right and logical" is also "moral and just"- so I don't have to worry about if my utility gain is "evil" since it's only possible for it to go up if it's "good".

If I was to submit to the ideology of everyone needing or having a self-identity then it would be very rudimentary. A simple statement saying like "I am an agent which attempts to maximize utility" is enough to cover it. That tells me to "do the math"- but doesn't tell me what to do. It's enough to let me know I exist but isn't a pre-fabricated one size fits all play block.

Self-image to me seems like a biased filter to pass data through. I don't need to ask what I would do- the simple answer is "I do what I have already have and am yet to do" -and that answer is sufficient enough to not bottleneck my interpretation of the world and subsequent actions.

The whole problem with being human is biases pop up everywhere so the only sane thing to do is to ask "why?" often. "Dan does Dan things"- why? Um i dunno...because he's Dan? You need real reasons why you think/do things rather than stereo types that could of come from anywhere.