a brief acting experiment

[jay]

As an experiment, for the next week before leaving town, I'm going to try to pretend that others actively seek my cooperation or collaboration... where the default is friendliness and cooperation. This means changing my operating parameters... default assumptions regarding others' motives away from threat-until-proved-friendly, and instead assuming that I can find something in common with almost everyone. Pretending that the world is not a dangerous place, inherently, and that I haven't been harmed and abused in the past, and that destructive things won't happen when conflicts arise between friends. Sort of an acting gig, for a week... I'll see in a week's time how much I fell out of sim, and whether being in-sim caused any personal interactions to divert from their usual patterns.

Comments

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

From personal experience, attempting to consciously change one's world view in this manner tends to be more successful if instead of couched in "pretending", it is framed as "asserting". Own the choice rather than playing at it. I think you'll find it both more successful, and more genuine feeling.

However you chose to play it out, I think this is a marvelous decision and I hope it works out splendidly for you.

I, too, would like to hear if there's anything in particular I can do to encourage this or make it easier on you.

[akienm.livejournal.com]

I concur. Couching it as playing and as an experiment was the best languaging I could come up with on Monday. But I think this is better.