# help, my self image as rational is affecting my ability to empathize with others

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1

1st Mar 2025

1 min read

### ](https://lesswrong.com/posts/5conQhfa4rgb4SaWx)

by 

1st Mar 2025

1 min read

There is some part of me, which cannot help but feel _special_ and _better_ and _different_ and _unique_ when I look at the humans around me and compare them to myself. There is a strange narcissism I feel, and I don't like it. My System 2 mind is fully aware that in no way am I an especially "good" or "superior" person over others, but my System 1 mind has...difficulty...internalizing this. I'm in a mild affective death spiral, only it's around _myself_, and how "formidable" and "rational" I supposedly am, which means that the tricks in  feel to my System 1 mind like I'm trying to denigrate _myself_. How might I handle this?

## New Comments

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Mar 03, 2025

9

go find people who are better than you by a lot. one way to quickly do this is to join some sort of physical exercise class e.g. running, climbing etc. there will be lots of people who are better than you. you will feel smaller.

or you could read research papers. or watch a movie with real life actors who are really good at acting.

you will then figure out, as  has mentioned in the comments, that the narcissism is load-bearing, and have to deal with that. which is a lot more scary

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Mar 02, 2025

3

It's better to accurately believe you are smarter than others, than to feel ashamed of thinking so and repeatedly tell yourself you aren't smarter than anyone. That causes you to know what you tell yourself is a lie, and suspect the secret truth is that you're actually way way smarter than others, but you've been hiding it from yourself. Which is even worse.

Aim for accuracy.

But when aiming for accuracy, remember that a lot of other people are biased about how smart they are, and if you learn about them you'll realize that they are surprisingly similar to you and me. Most people are biased in overestimating themselves, and this bias is often very invisible.

Also, being smarter and altruistic does not make you superior or worth more. If being smart actually makes you worth so much more, maybe babies are worthless and a superintelligence should kill everyone. To me intelligence is like money, it's mostly a means rather than an end.

Being altruistic does not make you worth more either. We only evolved to be altruistic because it improves social standing. Evolution only allows us to try helping as many people as possible in a utilitarian way, because evolution knows that someone trying to do so can easily be biased and deceived into trying to maximize their power and having a lot of reproductive success as a "side effect." It's like in Terminator Salvation, the machines realize the best way to disguise a machine as being on team human is to put an actual human mind inside it, and try to steer him into serving their interests.

Altruism is good, but an altruistic person isn't worth more because their altruism is just a glitch within a selfish survival machine.

Meanwhile all creatures in the world are overtly selfish since there is no need to pretend altruism. But they are still beautiful, nature is still beautiful, and they are lovable creatures who deserve joy and wonder.

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Mar 02, 2025

1

I am aware of all of these things. Although, I don't believe that I am smarter than others. (I alieve it though, I just don't want to.) After all, if I was significantly smarter, then I would probably have successfully done an intelligence-requiring major thing by now. Also, if I was significantly smarter, I would be able to understand intelligence-requiring books. I fully believe, in my deliberate, conscious mind, that I am not significantly smarter than others in my environment, I just have lots of weird interests and stuff.

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Mar 02, 2025

2

Presumably, you have this self-image for a reason. What load-bearing work is it doing? What are you protecting against? What forces are making this the equilibrium strategy? Once you understand that, you'll have a better shot of changing the equilibrium to something you prefer. If you don't know how to get answers to those questions, perhaps focus on the  of being special.

Gently hold a stance of curiosity as to why you believe these things, give your subconscious room and it will float up answers your self. Do this for perhaps a minute or so. It can feel like there's nothing coming for a while, and nothing will come, and then all of a sudden a thought floats into view. Don't rush to close your stance, or protest against the answers you're getting.

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Mar 06, 2025

1

Great response, first of all. Strong upvoted.

My subconscious gave me the following answer, after lots of trying-to-get-it-to-give-me-a-satisfactory-answer:

"Everyone tells you that you're super smart, not because you actually are (in reality, you are probably only slightly smarter than average) but because you have a variety of other traits which are correlated with smartness (i.e: having , getting generally good grades, knowing a lot of very big and complicated-sounding words, , and sometimes having trouble sleeping because i feel all weird and philosophical for no reason). In reality these traits do not indicate smartness, they indicate a brain architecture that  from the average human brain architecture, and high intelligence is only one type of deviation. You just like to think you're _smart_, because you like the connotation of the word _smart_ more than you do _eccentric_. Which you are, by the way."

This is useful, but I don't know how I would "change the equilibrium" that is formed by the connotation that mainstream society has assigned to the word "eccentric"

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Mar 02, 2025

2

FWIW this feels like it should be a shortform/open thread than a post.

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Mar 02, 2025

1

A "shortform/open thread"?

Posted either as a comment  or using the quick takes / shortform feature, which posts it in your shortform (e.g. ).



I'm saying that this seems to me not on the level of substance of a post, so it'd be better as a comment of one of the above two types, and also that it's plausible to me you'd probably get more engagement as a comment in the open thread.

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Mar 02, 2025

1

ahh that makes sense. should i just move it there now?

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Mar 02, 2025

2

That sounds good to me i.e. draft this post, and then make it a comment in one of those places instead (my weak guess is a quick take is better, but whatever you like).

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