Thank you! I felt so incredible awkward publishing it - though writing it was a blast. I think this piece taught me a bunch of deep lessons about writing. Fun to see where that goes.
I loved this and especially the 3 ideals around communication: 20k hours, comfort in talking through hard and painful decisions, and conversation that is "wildly generative."
Conversation is a skill, too. Me and Johanna has spent a lot of time thinking about how to get better at it. So we had like 2/3 first, and now have all 3 and are better at all parts of it.
> But I do think it is a good idea, generally, and one that I have used—to speedrun relationships by jumping directly to the strange parts. There is really no point in going to a café to talk safely (if you can avoid it). You want to rapidly extract as much information as possible, so you can figure out what you like and so that you can pattern match, and you want to communicate as much as possible, too, so you can filter people who wouldn’t fit you anyway (which is why keeping a blog is good).
I think about this as being similar to how with a startup, you want to fail fast.
> I remember with a cold sweat that I almost turned Johanna down because I felt confused by my inability to explain what our relationship was and why I liked it
This reminds me of something. Growing up, I didn't "believe in intuition". Well, I guess what I mean is that I didn't believe it was sufficient evidence. Like if I had an instinct that X would happen but wasn't able to logically describe why I think X would happen, I'd say "Forget it, I can't justify this belief, I don't think X will happen."
But then I discovered neuroscience. I read this book and it talked about how there _is_ logic behind the intuition. Your brain does a whole bunch of information processing before it spits out an intuition as an output. It isn't "just a feeling". It's just that the logic isn't legible to you; it happens subconsciously.
And then later on I discovered Bayes and realized that it doesn't even matter whether there is logic behind the intuition. If X is true, how likely would I have this intuition? If X is not true, how often would I have it? As long as the answer to the first is greater than the answer to the second, it counts as evidence. Period. As Scott Alexander says: "P(A|B) = [P(A)*P(B|A)]/P(B), all the rest is commentary."
Yes, I agree with both points. Failing fast. And also, its about building up the ability to pattern match. I get a lot of emails about this piece from people who recruit top talent because they feel this is pretty much what they are doing.
(By the way, I saw your comments on LW and liked them (agree that the first piece I did two years ago overreaches a bit, though that framework has been very useful for me). I'm too busy to reply on LW atm.)
Conversation that are wildly generative is something I never knew I benefited from. But looking back through my relationships over the years, all the ones that have stuck, have been with people like this, people who's conversation I adore, and learn from. So true. Dang. Your a genius.
OK wow this is a super essay. Thanks for getting your thoughts down on paper. I very much agree that if you can expose your innermost thoughts to someone and have them accept them without judgement then they're a keeper. This works for friends as well as lovers. In fact with friends you benefit from the fact that you don't have to provide unconditional love which can muddy the waters when you're looking for raw honesty.
I think this was one of the best things I've read in MONTHS - thank you <3
Thank you! I felt so incredible awkward publishing it - though writing it was a blast. I think this piece taught me a bunch of deep lessons about writing. Fun to see where that goes.
All the awkward ones always get the best response. Vulnerability is COOL!
Can I second this?
I loved this and especially the 3 ideals around communication: 20k hours, comfort in talking through hard and painful decisions, and conversation that is "wildly generative."
so we're like 6k hours in or so - but goddamn is it wild
Such a beautiful thought but also terrifying for me (and i imagine? Expect? Hope? others).
I've never met a perhaps that i could see fulfilling all 3.
Past relationships have had 2/3. Perhaps that's enough for most of us. And that's ok.
Conversation is a skill, too. Me and Johanna has spent a lot of time thinking about how to get better at it. So we had like 2/3 first, and now have all 3 and are better at all parts of it.
Excellent point. And if you have 2/3, you likely are compatible enough communicators to make the third happen
> But I do think it is a good idea, generally, and one that I have used—to speedrun relationships by jumping directly to the strange parts. There is really no point in going to a café to talk safely (if you can avoid it). You want to rapidly extract as much information as possible, so you can figure out what you like and so that you can pattern match, and you want to communicate as much as possible, too, so you can filter people who wouldn’t fit you anyway (which is why keeping a blog is good).
I think about this as being similar to how with a startup, you want to fail fast.
> I remember with a cold sweat that I almost turned Johanna down because I felt confused by my inability to explain what our relationship was and why I liked it
This reminds me of something. Growing up, I didn't "believe in intuition". Well, I guess what I mean is that I didn't believe it was sufficient evidence. Like if I had an instinct that X would happen but wasn't able to logically describe why I think X would happen, I'd say "Forget it, I can't justify this belief, I don't think X will happen."
But then I discovered neuroscience. I read this book and it talked about how there _is_ logic behind the intuition. Your brain does a whole bunch of information processing before it spits out an intuition as an output. It isn't "just a feeling". It's just that the logic isn't legible to you; it happens subconsciously.
And then later on I discovered Bayes and realized that it doesn't even matter whether there is logic behind the intuition. If X is true, how likely would I have this intuition? If X is not true, how often would I have it? As long as the answer to the first is greater than the answer to the second, it counts as evidence. Period. As Scott Alexander says: "P(A|B) = [P(A)*P(B|A)]/P(B), all the rest is commentary."
Yes, I agree with both points. Failing fast. And also, its about building up the ability to pattern match. I get a lot of emails about this piece from people who recruit top talent because they feel this is pretty much what they are doing.
(By the way, I saw your comments on LW and liked them (agree that the first piece I did two years ago overreaches a bit, though that framework has been very useful for me). I'm too busy to reply on LW atm.)
What book was the neuroscience one?
Ah cool, that makes sense about recruiters. No worries on LW and being busy.
what was the neuroscience book? Love this framing of intuition also!
"It's just that the logic isn't legible to you" love this thought, Adam. Thanks for sharing.
Conversation that are wildly generative is something I never knew I benefited from. But looking back through my relationships over the years, all the ones that have stuck, have been with people like this, people who's conversation I adore, and learn from. So true. Dang. Your a genius.
Thank you Henrik. this was wonderful to read. Favorite lines:
"the someone else was kind and deep and worth a lifetime"
"show the inside of your head in public, so people can see if they would like to live in there."
love the second one a lot! I also think we ought to ask ourselves how we can love the inside of our heads too
oh, I like that
OK wow this is a super essay. Thanks for getting your thoughts down on paper. I very much agree that if you can expose your innermost thoughts to someone and have them accept them without judgement then they're a keeper. This works for friends as well as lovers. In fact with friends you benefit from the fact that you don't have to provide unconditional love which can muddy the waters when you're looking for raw honesty.
Such a GOOD read. I feel I’ve done a good job over forming friendships with interiorities similar to mine, but dating... is much trickier 😅
PS. Would love to hear a retelling but from Johanna’s perspective!
Yes we neeeeed Joanna's perspective !!!
This completely shook the words in my head into a scramble and for the first time, I liked how that felt
Keep coming back to this. Stunning. Going to continue exploring my inner space and being vulnerable -- generative is a great criteria.
This was wise and thoughtful - thank you for writing it.
Excellent, Henrik.
How annoying, now I have to read through everything you’ve published.
Truly exceptional. Thank you for sharing your interior landscape.
this was such a great essay!
This was AMAZING! What an engaging read <3
This was just ... beautiful! Thank you!