CxD #258: Comfort is killing you; Relationship tip ❤️; How to Think; How to Not Know; Writers using AI 🤖

Aug 13, 2023

I’m back from my summer sojourn in Sicily where the cannolis were both bountiful and delicious. I hope y’all are happy, peaceful and prosperous on your journeys to design your characters in ways that will prove scintillating to all those who have the pleasure of being in your presence(s).

Relationship tip: when your partner makes an awful but innocent mistake (leaves their phone in the cab, forgets their passport when heading to the airport for an international flight, drops and shatters a beloved item, gets in a fender bender, etc.), don't get mad at them.

It makes no sense (it was accidental) and it accomplishes nothing except supplementing an already bad situation with an unnecessary fight.

Instead, think about it like this: as a couple, you will commit like 20 of these hideous mistakes a year and who knew that one of them was gonna happen today, but it did, so that sucks, but it's also a little bit funny, and let's just make the best of it. This turns those moments from relationship-damaging to relationship-building. And of course, what goes around comes around—you do dumb things too, and you'd much rather your partner be a laughing teammate than an angry parent in those situations. I didn't used to do this, I learned it from my wife. I am a frequent committer of hideous mistakes, and it surprised me that she never got mad about it, and then I started being like that too. [Source]
Yuval Harari is the historian and author of the much beloved Sapiens, a book which underscores the extent to which much of human history revolves around the stories that humans tell one another. Religion: a story. National identity? A story. Money: a story. In the segment starting at 2:14:04, Harari begins answering the question “How do you think?” which leads him to explaining the form and extent of his meditation practice. Highly encouraged listening. The entire conversation is likewise highly worthwhile.

3. We’re too comfortable, and this comfort crisis is giving us the existential hee-bee-jee-bees in the best case, and suicidal depression in the less unforgiving cases.

I found this conversation and the blog post below to be a clear and convincing argument for why being comfortable is extremely harmful to your character and what you can do about it. For those of you committed to character design, notice that the topic of boredom comes up in both Harari’s and Easter’s worldview.