wyattstorch

"I'm a professor of psychology and picked up this book to consider for my incoming PhD students. Don't waste your money... [...]" "Not an argument..." heh.

Bad Therapy, Good Therapy (And How to Tell the Difference by Michael J. Hurd https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005EJATDU/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

"Cellular precursor lives matter..."

See also "Crow epistemology."

Dylan, thanks for sharing your experiences on this. I think it's pretty helpful on quite a few levels. Especially in the specifics, which were not just similar, but oddly so. It's made me see that these people all share something in common, and if others can see that, it makes being objective about them that much easier. "The result: my mother and my grandmother's reactions proved I was right." Ironically, your grandmother and mother's reactions do nothing to defend themselves; they only go to confirm what has been said about malignant narcissist's tendency to downplay their actions, shift responsibility, and play the victim card (among many other things...). What's that saying about not interrupting one's enemy when they are defeating themselves? Happy new year.

Nope, that was right to the point. And that is the point of it all, isn't it?

"P.S. : You should remind me if I forgot or didn't respond to something you hoped I was going to." Nothing specific, just taking in what insights people have to offer on the topic.

Hi, Barn. Thanks for sharing that. I've only a few minutes to respond to all this...but your question: "Allow me to ask you why are you seeking answers? Would I be wrong by guessing you are after the boundaries / limitations?" I could probably write a book on that topic...

Ah, no, that wasn't me; I don't use "Wyatt's Torch" as my music project's name.

I actually did hear that podcast with the musician, thanks...I certainly did relate to his situation. Rock music, especially, has always leaned more leftist. (It's probably why I gravitated more towards metal, for a while, though that came with its own set of, shall we say, challenges, ideologically.) But I've long-focused on composing instrumental music, anyway, which I can do solo. Ah...Philadelphia...let's just say that I'm over it. (Do I have to hear any more about "Meek Mill", already?) Already moved to the outskirts of the county, away from the Center City area, and looking to probably leave the state. I've been considering New Hampshire, for the Free State Project, but I'm looking at other options, too, along similar lines. I think I get you re: negative experiences. Sometimes you just gotta dive in, and learn from experience. And I certainly get you re: working in liberal places; it's why I'm "over" Philadelphia...

Oh, going on the idea of Jung, tricksters, and r/K selection theory: Stephan M mentions, in one of his presentations, that he didn't think that "r"'s were all bad, because they can introduce innovations and variations that are sometimes needed. I agree with that sentiment, but here, I'd propose an alternative explanation: that if humans are actually a "K" species, then the Trickster archetype, as a bringer of conceptual paradigm shifts, offers the same desired result, as a result of creative integration, and relies less on a genetic theory and more on a conceptual capability.

Heh. Well, in the case of a truly skilled technician, craftsperson, tradesperson, what have you, is it still a Dunning-Kruger effect, as much as it is a mistaken notion that excellence in one aspect would automatically transfer into another?...but maybe you're right, I guess it still is "Dunning-Kruger" if one is skilled in one area but not in another, and moves into that area, anyway. (At least, I can sympathize with a skilled worker taking offense at poor management.) But yeah, it's really insulting when it's a not-so-skilled or lazy worker asserting the same... "Since you mentioned business and artist(ry?) , would you say that artists often forget that marketing and sales is over 80% when considering running a successful art-related venture? " I'd agree, if I thought that that most artists ever knew that, let alone forgot it. I hate to over-generalize, but in this case...I'm a "black sheep" artist/musician, in that I'm not a socialist/Marxist looking to sustain myself on liberal arts grants, or even adverse to the idea of art and commerce being compatible. (That's the Objectivist in me.) Most artists and musicians I've met (not so much "commercial" artists, though there's still some of that) still subscribe to that dichotomy, so much so that I've had to go solo as a musician out of a lack of compatible musicians, philosophically. But that's Philadelphia, for ya... (Speaking of marketing and sales: My own problems with the business side of things was not a lack of business knowledge, but the extroversion required to make the sales pitch for my own work. That's when I learned Gerber's point that exercising skills like baking puts one in the business of bakking, not necessarily running the bakery. I've since come to appreciate the role of an manager or agent to do the job of promotion...) "Do you also consider yourself high in openness and relatively lower in disagreeableness?" Artistically? I'm open to new ideas and experimentation as a artist...but I can be highly disagreeable, when needed. It really depends on the context. (In that sense, I'd say I'm a romantic realist.) I'm not a Howard Roark-hard ass when it comes to group projects. But in those cases, in a disagreement, I tend to be the mediator towards the group/project's goal or idea, using THAT as the arbiter, the defining principle. (To the extent that the others involved are also committed to the same.) And I try to avoid groups or work that violate my principles or values, but having met that criteria, I'm open to ideas.

You're welcome, Barn. I wish I had read those two books in reverse, myself! My initial personal venture as an artist was premature, as I had a lot to learn about the entrepreneurial mindset before. (That distinction I learned from E-MYTH, i.e., if you're a baker, you're in the business of baking, not necessarily in the business of the bakery...his example of the skilled practioner complaining that they could run the business better, but trying to approach that from as a craftsperson, not necessarily as an entrepreneur...rings true, to me.) And I do agree that the "rich dad" is valuable as an abstraction.

I found some helpful ideas in RDPD, even if the existence of the "Rich Dad" himself was called into question. But there are reasons why some people are employees, and some people aren't. So if I were to recommend the book, I'd also counter-balance that recommendation with Michael Gerber's THE E-MYTH REVISITED: WHY MOST SMALL BUSINESSES DON'T WORK AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About-ebook/dp/B000RO9VJK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511896445&sr=1-1&keywords=e-+myth+revisited

I did a quick google search, thinking it was like the "100th monkey" anecdote (the one where the monkey washes the clams found on a beach in the water, and by the 100th monkey does it, the rest of the monkeys follow suit without having to be taught, or something like that...) This looks kinda, sorta, like that, but different... http://www.wisdompills.com/2014/05/28/the-famous-social-experiment-5-monkeys-a-ladder/ I don't know enough about epigenetics, personally, to say if there's a a cause and effect here, or causation-correlation (I'm at the stage of learning the controversy, not the science, myself, and I tend towards "if-then" logic in the absence of full knowledge.) But it does look like the 5 monkeys story is disputed, however. http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=55731 http://www.throwcase.com/2014/12/21/that-five-monkeys-and-a-banana-story-is-rubbish/ (Which is my concern about epigenetic and r/K claims, in general. Not that I think r/K theory itself is a problem, but the applications beyond its original scope call for scrutiny. And I'm always on the lookout for reification. For example, it's my understanding that the person who developed the "alpha male" theory has since debunked that theory, based on faulty observation about wolves. According to a wiki entry: "Researcher L. David Mech, one of the primary creators of the Alpha male hypothesis for wolves, later found additional evidence that the concept of an Alpha male may have been an erroneous interpretation of incomplete data and formally disavowed this terminology in 1999. He explained that it was heavily based on the behavior of captive packs consisting of unrelated individuals, an error reflecting the once prevailing view that wild pack formation occurred in winter among independent gray wolves. Later research on wild gray wolves revealed that the pack is usually a family consisting of a breeding pair and its offspring of the previous 1–3 years.[16] Mech, L. David. (1999). "Alpha status, dominance, and division of labor in wolf packs". Canadian Journal of Zoology. 77 (8): 1196–1203. doi:10.1139/z99-099. Archived from the original on 2005-12-14.