This might be your best and most important post ever. It is exceptionally powerful to be able to translate a mindset that is alien to a lot of people and help them understand it and respect it. Learning to appreciate yin as a skill rather than just viewing it as incomprehensible behavior is a key insight that everyone else seems to miss.
I was influenced to write this by talking to a hundred different women about their dating struggles and trying to make sense of it all, which I guess is my spiritual practice.
In general, my gateway to any spiritual understanding is through the intellect first. For example, I was first convinced by philosophical argument that the self is an illusion and only then I checked in and there was really nothing there :)
What was interesting to me about your post here is that it echoes some of the things I’ve written that are more materially focused, but to me it feels like a *much* stronger echo of the energy/spiritual practices I do, which are decidedly woo :)
It seems like everyone has a different yin/yang set point and the activities that come off as try hard or impotent for one person totally don’t for another.
This post and the ones on roles not rules and you are not a thought experiment have been excellent for me. Changing people with words is hard—but I feel my eyes are more open and my outlook more excited through reading them. Thank you for the series, and these last few articles especially.
I don't see any reason you can't maximize both good yin and good yang. Guys should subtly arrange to spend more time with their crush, laugh at their crush's jokes, lightly touch their crush on the arm while flirting, etc. And girls can be free to ask a guy that they're confident they like to go on a date and get some food with them.
I think there are something like three ways to try to solve problems: Intuitively, empirically, and logically. Very complex problems will often want all three. For some problems, one or two of the options will make no sense.
In a game of a chess, intuition is when you look at a board and go with the move that feels right. Empiricism can help set some ground principles like that controlling the center is good. Logic is when you calculate several moves into the future to be certain which moves lead to material advantage or checkmate.
Solving problems empirically or logically is yang, solving intuitively is yin. But even analyzing a problem and trying to decide whether to use yin or yang is itself yang. Reading a blog post like this will always be yang. The way to improve yin in a yin way would be to work under a mentor or group, with them showing you the right move in various situations, and you learning to imitate and extend the principles to new situations, without ever fully consciously learning the rules
I'm honestly baffled by this statement about advice given to women: "Very little is oriented towards changing oneself to become more desirable, even less towards proactively seeking the right man wherever he may be." This is like a third of books and magazines ever published, no?
Otherwise I appreciate the appreciation for Yin. But... Why not both?? Do we have to split the assignment here? Can't we all be more realized and enlightened beings by harnessing both sides of our selves?
The reasoning "women are often not attracted to someone until they've known them for sometime, therefore they can't initiate" just doesn't follow. Men are *also* often not attracted to someone until they've known them for some time!
I appreciate the heck out of this piece for giving a perspective I haven't seen before. Yet still it seems that the norm for women in dating is to sit on your ass and complain. Be a coward and give up your agency. This is a crass way of putting it; maybe I could dress it up with a few nicer-sounding words. But sometimes you just call a spade a spade.
Woa. This post really changed me. I'm going to operationalize it into an excel "things to watch for" checklist. Thank you
This might be your best and most important post ever. It is exceptionally powerful to be able to translate a mindset that is alien to a lot of people and help them understand it and respect it. Learning to appreciate yin as a skill rather than just viewing it as incomprehensible behavior is a key insight that everyone else seems to miss.
This post has some really interesting frames. What do you think influenced you to write this? Do you have a spiritual practice?
I was influenced to write this by talking to a hundred different women about their dating struggles and trying to make sense of it all, which I guess is my spiritual practice.
In general, my gateway to any spiritual understanding is through the intellect first. For example, I was first convinced by philosophical argument that the self is an illusion and only then I checked in and there was really nothing there :)
I think you know this (others reading it may not) but I used to write about this sort of thing a lot - see https://open.substack.com/pub/lydialaurenson/p/sex-and-power and also https://open.substack.com/pub/lydialaurenson/p/a-couple-of-my-old-books-in-pdf
What was interesting to me about your post here is that it echoes some of the things I’ve written that are more materially focused, but to me it feels like a *much* stronger echo of the energy/spiritual practices I do, which are decidedly woo :)
Great read, thank you!
It seems like everyone has a different yin/yang set point and the activities that come off as try hard or impotent for one person totally don’t for another.
A remarkable post! Thank you very much, Jacob <3.
One thing left to truly start to appreciate Ying is to start noticing it, and that's hard..
This post and the ones on roles not rules and you are not a thought experiment have been excellent for me. Changing people with words is hard—but I feel my eyes are more open and my outlook more excited through reading them. Thank you for the series, and these last few articles especially.
> Very little is oriented towards changing oneself to become more desirable
Boy, what do you think lipstick is?
I don't see any reason you can't maximize both good yin and good yang. Guys should subtly arrange to spend more time with their crush, laugh at their crush's jokes, lightly touch their crush on the arm while flirting, etc. And girls can be free to ask a guy that they're confident they like to go on a date and get some food with them.
I think there are something like three ways to try to solve problems: Intuitively, empirically, and logically. Very complex problems will often want all three. For some problems, one or two of the options will make no sense.
In a game of a chess, intuition is when you look at a board and go with the move that feels right. Empiricism can help set some ground principles like that controlling the center is good. Logic is when you calculate several moves into the future to be certain which moves lead to material advantage or checkmate.
Solving problems empirically or logically is yang, solving intuitively is yin. But even analyzing a problem and trying to decide whether to use yin or yang is itself yang. Reading a blog post like this will always be yang. The way to improve yin in a yin way would be to work under a mentor or group, with them showing you the right move in various situations, and you learning to imitate and extend the principles to new situations, without ever fully consciously learning the rules
I'm honestly baffled by this statement about advice given to women: "Very little is oriented towards changing oneself to become more desirable, even less towards proactively seeking the right man wherever he may be." This is like a third of books and magazines ever published, no?
Otherwise I appreciate the appreciation for Yin. But... Why not both?? Do we have to split the assignment here? Can't we all be more realized and enlightened beings by harnessing both sides of our selves?
The reasoning "women are often not attracted to someone until they've known them for sometime, therefore they can't initiate" just doesn't follow. Men are *also* often not attracted to someone until they've known them for some time!
Some interesting thoughts combined with a lot of pandering.
I appreciate the heck out of this piece for giving a perspective I haven't seen before. Yet still it seems that the norm for women in dating is to sit on your ass and complain. Be a coward and give up your agency. This is a crass way of putting it; maybe I could dress it up with a few nicer-sounding words. But sometimes you just call a spade a spade.
What is this frame missing?
Was that talk mentioned in the footnotes at manifest by chance? Lol
It was Christine Peterson's talk at LessOnline, which she gave twice. I wasn't there for Manifest so I don't know if she gave it two more times or no.
Yeah, it was lessonline, I was just wrongly referring to the whole thing as manifest