Why I needed consensus-ism so desperately (2023-07-14)

• Archiving older things

On feeling like you need to constantly justify your actions/choices/existence to some imagined third party.

So in part 1, I intentionally avoided talking about my own internal landscape and the problems I had that were so directly fixed by leaning into consensus-ism. I wanted that post to be pretty direct and get straight to the point, because it introduces a new label and some fuzzy stuff around felt sense etc, so I didn’t want to bog it down with personal details. 

But I think an explainer as to what my mental state was like from the ages of 18 to 26, what it was like to live with the World’s Strongest Inner Critic & feel like I constantly had to justify my choices to some imagined critical third party, and how consensus-ism has helped me profoundly, is useful context. I think this’ll be useful both for letting people identify if their internal landscape is similar to mine, and also to show people who were baffled by the first post that “ok yes I clearly don’t need this because I’ve never had these problems, but Alex clearly needed it so I’m happy that it worked for him”¹.

My problems & how they developed

Of course, there’ll be a bunch of complexities and forgotten variables here, but for the sake of narrative clarity I’m going to pin my need for consensus-ism on my relationship with my dad when I was a teenager. 

Quick background — my parents split up when I was a kid, and I’d see my dad at the weekend. He is either a narcissist, autistic, or both. He’s a difficult man, and in particular, incredibly self-centred in conversation². I’d go to the pub with him and he’d talk incessantly about himself for 3 hours, asking me a single question halfway through, listening to my answer for 1 sentence, then pivoting it back to him³. This is a fairly disappointing relationship to have. 

So I remember as a teenager he was giving me a lift in his car, and I had a sudden insight that the reason he was so difficult to talk to, the reason we’d never had a genuine 2-way conversation, was because of some fault on my end. As a 15 year old, I wasn’t interested in anything he was interested in (football, classic cars, etc), and my interests were harder to talk about (video games, books etc), so I had a visceral sense that it was my fault, that I was boring, uninspiring, disappointing, etc. This is something that I’ve carried with me ever since⁴.

The other clear thing that contributed to this whole thing was one time when I went to the pub with my dad and his dad, a working class retired coal miner, whose life revolved around sport. I don’t care about football one bit, about any sports, and at some point during this pub outing the man who was bringing us our beers asked me some sports-related question, and my grandad angrily and loudly interjected that “he doesn’t like football, he doesn’t like rugby, he doesn’t like anything!“.

Introducing - the World’s Strongest Inner Critic!

Looking back on these experiences, it makes total sense to me why I’ve had such a strong inner critic, why I’ve had so much doubt about my genuine interests and personality, second guessing everything. I could go on a long-ass tangent here enumerating everything about my life that I’ve felt uncertain about, but the summary is this: I’ve always known deep down what I genuinely enjoy and want to do, but have had a very strong inner voice questioning everything and telling myself that my genuine interests are stupid, that I’m not normal, that my inclinations towards introversion and niche obsessions and love of working on personal projects and learning and etc are far from the norm and should be stopped. 

Imagined judgement by others/needing to justify my actions and existence

In addition to a strong inner critic second-guessing things and telling myself that I’m weird/boring/etc is the related feeling of needing to justify myself, my choices and interests and actions etc to some critical, judgemental third party.

I’m constantly imagining that at some point in the future I’ll have to justify myself to other people. Like I’ll have to explain what I’ve been up to, and I need to provide a satisfactory answer to prove that I’m interesting. That I can’t just say “oh I spent all week in the library working on this personal project that I’m excited about”. Or imagining telling someone that I cancelled on a social event that I was excited about due to feeling more excited about doing an online course, or that I just don’t care about travelling, or that I’ve been in Taipei for >3 months and haven’t left the city yet because I’m just not that fussed about exploring on my own, etc.

The silly thing is that — no one gives a shit. I never have to justify this stuff to other people, or if I do they’re pretty much just like “that’s fine dude you do you”, with maybe a little bit of confusion sprinkled in (“wow you haven’t left Taipei yet?”), but nothing sincerely critical. So it’s like feeling the need to justify, plus having the false assumption that people are way more judgemental than they are.

Conclusion — consensus-ism to the rescue

So there. That’s why consensus-ism has been so incredibly profound for me - since being introduced to it and slowly leaning into it, I’ve learned to notice what I genuinely want to do, and have followed that internal consensus, not listening to the voice that thinks that my natural inclinations are weird, and not worrying about having to justify myself to people. My natural inclinations are my strengths, my passions, what makes me me. And I don’t have to justify myself to anyone. I don’t expect anyone to justify themselves to me!

And of course, if you’re someone who perhaps was raised in an environment where your genuine interests were nurtured, where you were made to feel intrinsically valuable, where “do what you enjoy even if other people might think it’s a bit weird” is incredibly obvious, redundant advice, then consensus-ism will be incredibly non-profound. 

But if you’ve spent most of your life anxiously worried about what to do, overthinking what it means that you don’t like “normal” things like sports because you were literally shamed for not liking these things and weren’t much encouraged re: what you did like, then leaning into what you care about unapologetically is pretty amazing. 

“You can spend a lifetime looking for answers in books and articles and podcasts and courses, only to find that the answers you seek are inside you. Anything that anyone writes or creates or produces is their attempt to find their own answers. Sometimes that can help for guidance, but your truth won’t be found there. You can only find your truth by creating the space for yourself to listen and feel.”
– Renée Fishman (@reneefishman)

Footnotes

1. I shared part 1 with a friend who is around 15 years older than me who didn’t quite understand it, and then realised that it was because they just hadn’t made themselves do anything that they haven’t genuinely wanted to do for so long. ↩

2. Whilst I’ve been pretty consistently pissed at him for being so difficult & sad for myself at the healthy father-son relationship I never got to have, I feel much more like “it’s not his fault/he’s a product of his childhood & etc” recently, which is nice. ↩

3. Even after exciting life updates like landing a fantastic job at a biotech startup, or breaking up with my long-term partner, where I thought he might finally take an interest. ↩

4. I’ve made progress with therapy & IFS & etc, but it’s definitely the reason I’m avoidant with friends & struggle around people in general - a strong bodily sense of “they’ll find me boring, they’ll be able to tell I’m not normal”, etc. ↩