When I’ve been mean at work, and I’ve had many moments, I’m often unsure where it comes from: why did I react that way? It’s not what I wanted. And I’ve been fortunate to be humbled so much in my life and career, now perhaps more than ever, that I’m forced to juggle with the parts of myself that I’ve left in the shadows to my own detriment. I think this is the central paradox of a lot of folks like Graham: when you have capital, even your losses can be manufactured to be wins, and so you become estranged from dissolution and decay and humbling necessary to be born again into someone with fresh perspective.
I think Jung said something like: it is better to be yourself and accept the consequences of being you versus forcing yourself into a mold of what you or others think you ought to be. And often this means engaging deeply with what you’re avoiding and coming to terms with why.
I think I'm pretty decent at understanding people these days, as in predicting how they'll react to things, figuring out what they want, that sort of thing.
But I don't understand it on a fundamental level, the way I understand something like math. I have a decent grasp of the game, but I don't understand why the rules of the game are what they are. I get the impression this is how a lot of people feel about math, or computers. They know you can compute a 20% tip by sliding the decimal point over and doubling, but it's just a procedure they follow, they don't understand it.
I've read and thought and interacted plenty. This has built up the skill just fine, but the fundamental understanding is something I don't think will ever come.
As far as permanence goes, I'm probably more than halfway through my lifespan at this point and there's no sign of any improvement there. Like I said, as a skill I do just fine. But that deeper understanding isn't there and I doubt it will be.