Feedback Loops, Better Worlds, and Trust
Feedback Loops
Why don’t you spend time with me? | Because you are not nice to me. | It’s hard to be nice, when you are so ambivalent.
You don’t even understand me. | Because you won’t talk to me. | When I talk to you, you don’t understand.
You’re being cold. | No, you’re being cold.
Better Worlds
In social feedback loops, it is easy to imagine better worlds. The alternative world where people enjoy being together, being open, and being warm. We can envision a better world and still struggle to get there. The more hurt and resentment that we feel, the harder it is to roleplay happiness.
Yet, lingering in a toxic state risks amassing more mutual negativity that makes it even harder to escape. Eventually, we might lose sight of the good world altogether. We might come to believe it’s the person, rather than the dynamic. We might give up, and lose one another forever.
Trust
I try to sprint to the better world. No matter the fight, I try to patch things up quickly. As soon as I can manage it, I start acting. Fake it till you make it. I tell myself that the conflict is bullshit, which is usually true. I offer emotional bids. I swallow rejection and try again. I apologize. This is often good.
Yet, the urgency in my approach reveals a lack of trust. I assume that, if things aren’t fixed now, they will necessarily get worse. I assume that waiting will not improve things. I assume that, even with time, they will not offer an unprompted bid or apology.
These assumptions make me act immediately, which is often too soon. I excessively force issues, and do not allow time for processing and healing. In rare cases, this can exasperate the immediate conflict. The bigger and more common problem is that my rush to fix things prevents real progress on deeper issues.
There is a tradeoff between the benefits of emotional processing and the harms from remaining in toxic emotional states. How do we balance this trade-off?