“Self-sabotage takes many forms,” Eliane Glaser writes in this essay for Aeon. “Self- sabotage is about deferring our stated goals and — when we are given a shot — blowing it, or subtly hindering our chances. The puzzle is why so many of us perpetually find ourselves getting in our own way and disrupting our best-laid plans.” But what if self-sabotage is the plan? Can you sabotage your desire for self-sabotage? What if one’s “stated goals” are at some level a cover story, obscuring the sources and heterogeneity of our aims? What if “being in our own way” becomes the only way to be, the only way to grasp our own agency? I, for one, feel most like myself in the midst of self-sabotage, and this newsletter in many respects serves as an ongoing testimony to that.
Enjoyed this piece. In some ways the algorithmic bubble is even more insidious than stated here. Said bubble seems to say, in ever more slick and sophisticated ways, “we know you better than you do” or “let us do your thinking for you.” Many tech people I know have a near religious, hypnotic fervor about all this. In this way we find yet another way to embraced the unexamined or quietly reflective life.
I love this piece--all the angles of self-sabotage. "Sabot" is French for a worker's shoe. "Sabotage" is from throwing a shoe into the machinery, literally gumming up the works. If sabotage led to workers' rights, what does self-sabotage lead to? A stoic manifesto? A monk's discipline? Where's the Zen acceptance of flawed humanity and try, try again?
Enjoyed this piece. In some ways the algorithmic bubble is even more insidious than stated here. Said bubble seems to say, in ever more slick and sophisticated ways, “we know you better than you do” or “let us do your thinking for you.” Many tech people I know have a near religious, hypnotic fervor about all this. In this way we find yet another way to embraced the unexamined or quietly reflective life.
In such a way, intuition, wisdom and learnedness become “quaint”.
I love this piece--all the angles of self-sabotage. "Sabot" is French for a worker's shoe. "Sabotage" is from throwing a shoe into the machinery, literally gumming up the works. If sabotage led to workers' rights, what does self-sabotage lead to? A stoic manifesto? A monk's discipline? Where's the Zen acceptance of flawed humanity and try, try again?