Ask HN: What do you do socially that you learned from a book? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What do you do socially that you learned from a book?

16 pointscodingclaws11 comments

eg. Did you start acting differently after you read How to Win Friends & Influence People?

I'm a jazz musician, and often used to do a lot of negative self-talk while playing in public. Like "Oh no, omg that was terrible, oh yuk, oh geez I can't play at all, oh that sounds awful!" etc. I read this book Effortless Mastery that mainly said, never criticize yourself on a gig—do that when you practise but never ever on gigs. So I stopped, and ever since have just had fun. The change was amazing.

I'm not sure but I think that affected my life in other areas too. Although I read a lot of self-help, psychology, new agey, etc books in my 20s, no one thing helped as much as that. I guess it's part of learning to love yourself. I was trained as a kid and young adult to treat others well, but never to treat myself well! The idea of yourself being one of these people you should treat well, never appeared. You can be so mean to yourself, say truly horrible things you'd never say to a friend or loved one, and hardly notice, if it's something you've always done. And I was bullied a lot at home and school, so treating me badly was something it was easy to also do myself, until I learned just to stop, to never do it. Then when you are kind to yourself, it's natural to be kind to others.

Some books I remember helping with this: New Guide to Rational Living by Albert Ellis (on becoming aware of your habitual thoughts and self-talk, and changing them for the better where necessary), Wayne Dyer's first two books Your Erroneous Zones and Pulling Your Own Strings (similar to Ellis), Louise Hay on loving yourself, SARK's first 8 books, everything by Robert Fulghum, A Life of One's Own and An Experiment in Leisure by Joanna Field/Marion Milner (psychological self-explorations). Emerson's essays. Also keeping a diary was very useful for seeing patterns, e.g. I'd describe some emotion for what seemed the first time, then see I'd described the same thing 10 times before!

Great insight. I find it hard to control my thoughts, ie. I think I would find it hard to turn off negative self-talk during certain situations.

The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong has been a huge influence in how I view and interact with folks who are resistant to change. While the book itself is about religious fundamentalism, the primary thesis - that fundamentalism is a repeatable, observable reaction of those who feel modernization has been forced upon them and those folks inevitably go on to create something entirely new and unique as a response in their efforts to preserve "the old ways" - is shockingly applicable in a wide range of cases. I've thought about this both while responding to RFPs and chatting with neighbors, for example.

From the preface (or maybe chapter 1, I forget and gave away my copy so I can't check):

    Modernization has always been a painful process. People
    feel alienated and lost when fundamental changes in
    their society make the world strange and unrecognizable.
    ... Fundamentalists feel that they are battling against
    forces that threaten their most sacred values. ... Those
    of us — myself included — who relish the freedoms and
    achievements of modernity find it hard to comprehend the
    distress these cause religious fundamentalists. Yet
    modernization is often experienced not as a liberation
    but as an aggressive assault.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_for_God

What are some positive approaches to interacting with the fundamentalist mind?

This is tough because it's less a matter of tactics, but awareness. Reading about Jews radicalized to martyrdom by the inquisition doesn't exactly give you a hands-on toolkit to address the issue of fundamentalism in society today.

It does, however, serve as a reminder that folks who dig their heels in when presented with a new development that contradicts the familiar - myself included - are going through a shared, relatable process and the end result of that is always something new. It's inherently going to be its own kind of advancement or progress, even if the intention is preservation of the status quo. That leads to thoughts like, "What does this person want to preserve?", "What new development could come out of this and is it useful to consider?", and "What does this person fear this new idea will disrupt?" Those are handy thoughts to keep in mind when trying to reach a common understanding of the change at hand.

"The fundamentalist mind" isn't an alien, foreign reaction held by a few disillusioned radicals, but a totally normal and relatable coping mechanism (albeit taken to a horrific extreme in some rare cases). That serves as a basis to talk about it constructively, IMO, whether I'm dealing with a new client who wants to change everything (but without changing anything, naturally) or my uncle who proudly shares misinformation from Facebook that supports his comfort with "the way things used to be." This includes questioning my own motivations when I catch myself jumping through hoops to make my old beliefs or practices work in a new context.

I hear this as “allow yourself to see the other’s humanity and acknowledge their needs”.

I get it. The thing is, in some cases their humanity, their needs and beliefs have been carefully weaponized to support a certain ideology and hardened against change.

The ideologies using mass manipulation in this way are objectively exploitative and destructive on a large scale.

To the point of threatening our biosphere, our basic freedoms, our lives.

I do acknowledge the value of the inner practice.

The propaganda machines however work at scale.

If we are to survive, we need healing at scale, too.

We need self-awareness at scale. Seeing each other’s humanity at scale - to contradict the mass dehumanization efforts aiming to divide and conquer us.

Any thoughts on this?

This book sounds absolutely fascinating. Lately I've taken to modelling some of people's seemingly unusual behavior as a sort of religion or mythology and it fits remarkably well.

Looking forward to reading it. Thanks for mentioning it.

IIRC I haven’t read this specific title, but I’ve read one of Armstrong’s books and IMO she’s a formidable writer/thinker.

Agreed, having read a few of them. Also surprisingly approachable.

I read Nonviolent Communication recently and it opened my eyes to a new way to conversing with people. Didn't realize how harmful some of my communication habits were (and still are). It will take some practice enunciating the steps needed since we use a lot of shortcuts when speaking and this method means being mindful of what we say.

Years ago, I read Speed of Trust which has made me a bit more trusting about the motives of people, so I don't default as much to the negative side of thinking people have bad motives / lack intelligence.

After reading about psychological safety in blogs, I decided to read The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety which I think will be very beneficial in helping me create a productive team at work.

Never ever critic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influen...

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