by BDGC on 6/24/16, 10:09 PM with 124 comments
by Pharylon on 6/25/16, 12:47 AM
So I did. And even though I was nervous as hell, I did it during the game, in the guise of my character. For a couple years, I was really into the game. It was my life every weekend. I probably spent more social time pretending to be someone else than I did being myself.
And a funny thing happened... I became that guy for real. It's not just that I'm no longer nervous, I genuinely enjoy talking to new people. I barely recognize my old introverted self.
So I believe this. Who we are is just a snapshot in time.
by Animats on 6/25/16, 7:35 AM
Krulak himself says it best:
"We cannot anticipate and train Marines for each situation they may face. All Marines must, therefore, possess a moral consistency to serve as their compass. Making the right ethical decisions must be a thing of habit. This is why we created the Transformation process where we recruit bold, capable, and intelligent young men and women of character and recast them in the white hot crucible of recruit training. We immerse them in the highest ideals of American society -- the time honored values of our Corps -- honor, courage, and commitment. We place these values on them in a framework of high institutional standards to which they are held strictly accountable. We further foster the acceptance of these values through the unit cohesion and sustainment phases."
"Just as we expect a Marine to employ his weapon under combat duress, we must likewise demand that he employ his mind. Marines need to be comfortable with using their intuition under highly stressful circumstances. In short, we must make intuitive decisionmaking an instinct, and this can only be accomplished through repetition. Training programs and curricula should routinely make our Marines decide a course of action under cold, wet, noisy conditions while they are tired and hungry and as an instructor continually asks them "what are you going to do now, Marine?!!"
[1] http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/showthread.php?46546-%91Tu... [2] http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/cultivating_intuiti...
by aab0 on 6/25/16, 1:14 AM
by hcarvalhoalves on 6/25/16, 2:27 AM
Those stories have so much appeal and longevity exactly because the spectator can see someone like himself changing. The underlying motif is that anyone can go from weakling to hero, under the right circumstances.
by yngccc on 6/24/16, 11:35 PM
by sixo on 6/25/16, 12:26 AM
by ldehaan on 6/25/16, 1:32 AM
I maintain the same kind of drive I've always had, consuming every piece of data I can get my hands on, but that consumption has changed me.
I remember clearly the first major change to another person I ever experienced. it was after reading the giver when I was a child. I can't even recall who I was before I read that book, but I know he was a lesser mortal than I.
the next major change was after my parents split and I got a new abusive step mother. before that I would cry at a whim, every time I watched fern gully I cried, but after that woman I rarely showed emotion. I was hard and thought hard thoughts, I was a total gangsta, a white suburban gangsta but after a long time trying I finally got street cred. spent time in the kiddie can and all that.
my next major change was actually in military school after gaining too much street cred. something changed in me on the long drive through the desert of Nevada to a large training camp called rite of passage. I kicked ass there, no idea why, but I changed, and became a leader. moved up the ranks and got posted to the cross country cycling team.
and that's where we come to the change that stuck for so many years. In ROP I became captain of my cycling team and we got the opportunity to ride across America. that ride changed me in so many ways. I used to think I couldn't attain my dreams, now I was in a dream.
the next time I changed fundamentally was when I became a father. not in your usual lets get married and have a family way, no, it was as unplanned and crazy as you can get, but I still changed, stepped up to the plate and reflected on my past lives and Knew I could do it.
now I'm an older man, and I am changing at a more observable pace, I can see my views solidifying and it's a little scary, I don't want to be stuck in my ways. but I am comforted by the fact that any day, I can change, at least for now.
by mendelsd on 6/25/16, 1:52 PM
by 11thEarlOfMar on 6/24/16, 10:57 PM
I'd propose that a complete set of research would learn that there are some personality traits that are malleable and there are some that are not. Moreover, those two sets would not be the same for everyone, and there is likely a great deal of diversity.
by chongli on 6/24/16, 11:36 PM
by gadders on 6/25/16, 9:45 AM
“Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity and movement and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds.” - Louis L'Amour
by unabst on 6/25/16, 8:28 AM
What I means is, we can give ourselves names, but who we are is mostly a black box. Any black swan event can change our definition, and the shock doctrine also applies here, in that we are affected by spikes of greatest impressions, not ongoing consistency.
For the most part, we are remembered for our best or worst, but are judged by our last. So in the case of this article, if you commit a horrific crime, that will be what people remember and define you by. And we can do everything in our power to be judged with forgiveness based on our latest actions. But for the most part, it's not until we do something more extreme (shocking) than what has defined us so far that most of us will feel naturally inclined to update our definitions.
But the key takeaway is that even if this is how we define one another, none of it truly predicts what anyone will do next, good or evil, brilliant or lame. Ultimately, we are all much like computer programs that must run their course to know precisely if any of us will halt or not, which leaves personality a mere impossible analysis, much in the spirit of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. We are incomputable, and our inconsistency is what is consistent. The only option is execution -- to let life run its course.
by jokoon on 6/25/16, 4:18 PM
It's true, there is no such thing as personality. But then, why do recruiters want to know about the "profile" of a candidate? What do they talk about when they want someone who is "at harmony with the group"?
If we could really change as we liked, we would not talk about personality. People will always carry a baggage of learned behaviors with them. The sum of this is called personality. It can change of course, but in the "brave new world" that we live in, the incentives to do so never appear.
by afarrell on 6/25/16, 3:16 AM
I haven't thrown a temper tantrum in the middle of a grocery store in 22 years.
by rdl on 6/25/16, 2:47 AM
by peterkshultz on 6/25/16, 6:09 AM
Her ideas have had a tremendous impact on various aspects of business, to the point where she's covered in the Harvard Business Review:
https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-a-growth-mindset-actuall...
by mswen on 6/27/16, 1:01 PM
If I spend too many months pretty exclusively within one of those personas I will start to feel the need to express the other.
by dilemma on 6/25/16, 5:17 AM
by brimstedt on 6/26/16, 11:03 AM
"It has to do with Mischel's most famous experiment, called the marshmallow test, which he first conducted in 1960. You can still find videos of it on YouTube".
Doesn't it sound like they were put on YouTube in the 60s? :)
by brokenmachine on 6/28/16, 1:43 AM
by known on 6/25/16, 10:47 AM
by rajanchandi on 6/25/16, 11:15 AM
by gbuk2013 on 6/25/16, 10:44 AM
by theparanoid on 6/24/16, 11:39 PM
This has less to do with personality and more with testosterone.
by superobserver on 6/25/16, 2:25 AM
The supposition that the personality is completely fixed or completely mutable is simply false. There are fundamental constraints to how the personality can be manifested. Histrionic personalities are perhaps those most inclined to believe that their personality is truly self-determined, but they'd also be mistaken.