Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajkjk | Hacker News Reader

I like this article, but I wish it was phrased "are you being a baby" instead of "are you a baby". Labeling oneself as wholly a particular attribute is one of the mechanisms by which anxiety takes root: you _are_ or _aren't_ something, full stop. Labeling actions or states shifts your mindset so that you can clearly see this is something you're free to change. It's the sort of thing that makes no difference at a factual level (they're logically equivalent! right!?) but emotionally the tone shift makes a huge difference.

View on HN

It seems blindingly clear what the author means, and if one isn't going to connect with the article because they're hung up on "is acting like" versus "is", they weren't going to get it anyways.

Why do you think it's "blindingly clear"? If you're going to use such strong language, it should be easy to present your argument in a more convincing way. Others disagree with you - I think calling them wrong without so much as a single line to suggest why is very much "being a baby". You think others should just agree with you because it's what YOU think - my five year old niece seems to think this way as well.

The person I'm responding to acknowledges that "is a" & "acts like a" are equivalent in the context of the article.

If somebody is getting hung up on something as nit-picky as that, they're not going to see the forest for the trees in an article like this.

Ironically, playing nit-picky semantics games like this is the kind of avoidant attitude that lead people astray from personal growth.

I think you're both right:

* someone reacting strongly to this slight difference is "acting like a baby", at least colloquially, but I'm not sure if it meets the author's definition of "active".

* the author using the term "acting like a baby" might get through to people who are sensitive to the difference

Yeah, my point is exactly that although it is clear at a language level, the terminology shift can be quite important for whether you end up with a thought process that's healthy vs entangled with anxiety. If you don't believe that -- perhaps you haven't dealt with a lot of anxiety in your life?

I've dealt with plenty of anxiety. Talk therapy is great.

If somebody's anxiety prevents them from connecting to the article because the author refers to themselves as "a baby" instead of "like a baby", that person may benefit from talk therapy.

As an outsider, I think the conversation went off the rails here when you assumed the OP wasn't "going to connect with the article" based on their comment. This is now the 2nd time w/o reason you're implying that, whereas the OP is talking about general implications of the word choice (on the author and on people in general, not on people's emotional state while reading it).

Excellent point. I try to do that on HN: differentiate between describing how you interpreted what they typed ("said something greedy and childish") rather than a value statement about that person ("you are greedy and childish"). Easy to forget sometimes, but super important to separate the words/actions from the person. We all say/do dumb shit sometimes that is out of our normative character for all sorts of reasons.

I certainly agree that it's important to leave people room to change who they are, but if a person isn't defined by their actions, then what are they?

I guess it is polite discourse these days to distance a person's actions from some intangible person-ness, but it feels very mushy.

"I guess it is polite discourse these days to distance a person's actions from some intangible person-ness"

Are you acting obnoxious or are you obnoxious?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder ;)

A person is perhaps defined by _all_ their actions, but they're not very definable by a single action, out of context. That's the kind of reasoning that writes someone off if they make a mistake, which is totally intolerant.

That's fair. I would say a person is defined by what they do next.

I think what you're saying is that you should be careful telling someone that they 'are a baby' or 'are dumb', because they might believe you.

I would also be careful of telling someone they are 'acting like a baby' or 'acting dumb', because most people won't appreciate the semantic difference.

In the context of this article, though, I'm not too bothered since the article is about how one can change their baby-like habits. But it is always a good reminder.

I'm not really so concerned with what you tell someone else, but what you end up telling yourself can be pretty important and stick with you for a long time. an article like this is mostly targeted at one's perception of themselves, and if you read it and start to adopt the model that that "you are a baby" when you act that way, you might have adopted a slightly less healthy model than you could have.

Presumably no actual babies are reading the article so I think it's quite clear what the author means.

That's a misunderstanding. See gotaquestion's reply above

This makes me think of an interesting story from an article [0] about MIchael Bublé's latest album, and his work on it with Sir Paul McCartney.

> “It was a long day, we were playing live, and he was really calm and patient with me. He helped me to make sure that I told the story the right way. Less was more for him. I’m dramatic, so I have the urge to go over the top.

> “I was taking liberties, and he didn’t like that. He had to make a long walk from the control room to come down and put me right a few times.” When Bublé sang the line “I’m waiting on a sign”, McCartney called a halt and arrived in the booth.

> “Can you explain to me what you’re waiting on?” he asked. “Yes. I’m waiting on a sign,” trilled Bublé enthusiastically. “So are you actually on the sign, waiting?” asked McCartney, “or are you waiting for a sign?”

> Recounting the tale, Bublé hangs his head like a defeated schoolboy. “I’m waiting for a sign, Sir Paul.” He laughs. Bublé’s revived love for his craft is endearing.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20220404134753/https://www.teleg...

Sir Paul is obviously still smarting over the fact that he didn't write Waiting on a Friend.

Get over it, walrus.

I don’t think they're logically equivalent at all.

“Are you being a baby?” - Are you temporarily being a bit of a baby, like, at the moment? Could you maybe be a teeny bit braver to get through this current bit of anxiety you're feeling, and then we'll worry about the next bit tomorrow eh?

“Are you a baby?” - Is it possible you have always been a baby? Is it time to grow up, ie, make a real, permanent change to how you think? To start taking responsibility for managing your own emotional responses to the all the inevitable sources of potential anxiety that life will continue to throw at you forever? To break the cycle of weak/passive/burdensome social behaviour once and for all?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com