You can just do things: 5 frames

-JenniferRM riffing on [norvid_studies].

You should know this by now, but you can just do things. That you didn’t know this is an indictment of your social environment, which taught you how to act.

You Can Just Do Things

Yes, you. All the activities you see other people do? You can do them, too. Whether or not you’ll find it hard, you can do them.

The barriers you see to doing so are not iron-hard constraints. They are obstacles you can climb over, costs you’ve reified into infinitely high cliffs because constraining the action space, and thereby the solution space, can simplify life. But always remember, these are fake cliffs. If you actually want to solve a problem, if you feel but the barest moment of whimsy, you can topple them with but a thought and expand the action space however much you like.

If you are ruling out actions, make sure it is because it is useful, not because of social pressure, timidity, fear of success, habit or so on.

You Can Just Do Things

Though sometimes, those walls are up for good reason.

You *can* lie, but then you’ve got to pay the costs of upkeep or let the truth come out. You *can* shoot an insurance CEO, and further normalize political violence. You *can* ride a bike in rainy weather without reflective gear, but you risk getting hit by a car.

There are reals costs to some actions, and many of our seemingly useless norms and habits fencing us in are there to protect us from these costs. When doing out of distribution things, it is worth checking if there’s high downsides to them. But once you’ve done so, and deemed the downsides acceptable, you can just do them anyway.

You Can *Just* Do Things

It’s weirdly easy to do things. A lot of things just aren’t that hard to do. Sure, they may take time, but in terms of mental or physical effort? Not that bad. We do not fear doing things themselves, instead we fear the twinge of starting.

What that usually cashes out to is the momentary costs of figuring out what to do next. But the costs are just that: momentary. Usually, they yield to 5 seconds of thought.

And often, what we fear isn’t even doing the thing. It’s our overly complicated, Rube Goldberg version of doing the thing. But there’s no need to add on bonuses to the win-condition. Just do the thing directly.

You Can Just *Do* Things

And you can just do the thing directly. You don’t have to talk, or write, or plan or delay acting.

You can just go out and ask people on dates, even if you are overweight, even if you don’t have many friends, even if you haven’t practiced your approach.

You can just make a magazine even if you don’t know how typography, or have a bunch of writers lined up to contribute, or have asked audiences what they want to read.

You can just [solve your problems by doing one new thing a day for 100 days, even if you’ve got no ideas on what problems to solve, even if your problems look too hard, or even if you’re busy for the coming weeks.

Even if that means you won’t do the thing perfectly, it does mean you will do it. And then you’ll do the next thing, and the next, and the next, and by acting you’ll generate more information and develop more skills than you would have talking about doing the thing.

You Can Just Do Things

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There are so many things you could do.

You could:

• Hire your favourite writer to write a short story for you.

• Join a dance class to find love.

• Bench 100kg after a year of training.

• Start a blog.

• Go fly to another country for $30.

• Dissect a cadaver.

• Walk across England in a straight line

• Say no to requests.

• Say yes to opportunities.

• Start up a reading group for a book that hasn’t been released.

• Make an origami bull in an afternoon

• Repair things yourself.

• Apply for grants.

• Email the author of the book you’re reading with your questions.

• Climb up a tree.

You Can Just Do Things

Those things you keep idly wondering if you could do? You can just do them. Go on. Do them.

O_O