Orton Babb > Recent Status Updates

Insightful chapter on comparison including the distinction between jealousy and envy which I was aware of but learned that unhealthy comparison says “be like everyone else but better.” Resentment as more about envy than anger “what am I denying myself that I envy you for allowing yourself?” Freudenfreude as empathetic joy

This one is already helping me organize my understanding of emotion families. Dread as pointed at high probability events (kind of duh, but it’s distinguished from anxiety because the uncertainty element goes away which makes the definition clean). She frames vulnerability as a meta-emotion: the exposure we feel amidst emotional expression. Wish the material on coping was longer in this chapter.

“I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”

Siddhartha realizes that the once disavowed world of appearances are not illusions but actually a manifestation of the Self. This leads him to explore his sexuality for the first time after meeting the beautiful courtesan Kamala who counsels him on the worldly life. I’m reminded of the Charvaka-Lokayata materialist philosophy of hedonism in these chapters.

Interesting so far. Siddhartha and Govinda start out in a Brahmin household with highly ritualized dharma akin to the Purva Mimamsa tradition, but S yearns to have a more direct contact with The Self (Brahman). He spends time with ascetic “Samanas” who are like Jains but does not achieve liberation. Then he then meets “The Buddha” but decides to skip the transmitted teachings in favor of direct insight.

AI as a coach for deliberate practice

AI as solution to the two sigma problem in education