Writer Wander 028 - Free Trait Behavior, Never be a Leader

Wander talks about his growing fatigue with being a leader

Transcript

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Rider Wander twenty-eight. And this is the real version of Rider Wander twenty-eight. So to give you guys some context, I tried to recording an episode twenty-eight a few days ago, and I'm not usually the kind of person to delete an episode or to ignore a certain recording just because I was not satisfied with the particular delivery. However, I feel that when I was recording that particular episode, I think that the quality of it, um, the ideas in it, well certainly good ideas, were not expressed in an organized enough fashion to where it will be something worth putting out into the public. I will eventually touch upon the ideas that I talked about there, but I feel that the core feeling that I had there, I'm gonna try to refine it here because I'm gonna focus on it from another angle. In the last episode, I was trying to talk a little bit more about my own perspectives on finance and achieving a life of true freedom, and I will talk about that here as well, but less from a financial lens, because I've been coming to grips with something that I think I just now understood. It's almost kind of a breakthrough for me. It seems kind of basic and kind of simple, but it's very important to me. But we will be discussing that in a bit. But before that, let's get on to the writing update. I was able to continue working on Echoes of Heroes today, and uh, like I said before, we finally got into that scene, that moment where Finnegan is in wine and guard, and he has boarded the ship that will take him into the mainland to eventually join on this expedition that the High Lord of Paragost is hosting. However, we've just gotten to a point in that same voyage that he's taking. It's his first trip outside of his homeland Namak, and naturally, since it's a plot and things have to happen, he is boarded by corsairs or pirates that basically take over his ship and take him prisoner, and they are taking him to a base that they have in the coastline of the mainland continent. Right, there's not too much to talk about there because these are like very this is a part of the story that's driven a lot by external action. It's not a lot like the previous parts of the story that a lot of the tension was the the inner the inner tension within Finn himself on deciding whether to stay or to leave and thinking through his um you know the things that were holding him back, the things that were keeping him from staying, that were keeping him staying, and what eventually drives him to leave. So those those are the kind of like sort of philosophical points that you can talk about on a podcast. But this has been very action-heavy, and in fact, I think it is the the first moment in this novel that is a purely external action-based um moment where these corsairs are raiding the ship. And uh, last I left him off, Finnegan was on a ship led by the slavers by the corsairs that is headed to the base alongside the Zvenish warrior Heraldur and his other companion um Tosted the Dwarf. However, Ken is not present with him, and as we write, we will learn that Ken um is not actually dead, but is working in the shadows of Rifen and his companions regarding that. But the main topic for today, aside from the actual update, is that I've been thinking a lot about my own role in life as a leader. I'm involved in multiple circles in what essentially what I feel is like um, in some sense, a leadership capacity, even if it's not there. Ever since I graduated university, I've made it an effort to be the kind of person that is the kind of guy that's a go-getter, that organizes things, that is the first person to go for something, the first person to offer himself for something, the first person to assume roles of leadership and and organization when no one else is. Because I think that even basic leadership skills are are very rare. So usually it's just a question of offering yourself up if you want to have that experience, and it's been a great experience. I've learned a lot of good things, and I've been able to accomplish a lot of great things by putting myself forward to these leadership positions, and you know, these positions of you know being a forthright person and you know chasing after the things that you that you want, but I'm at a very interesting impasse personally, right? So even though I am doing these things, even though I am involved in coordinating activities, say in my in my in my local church or giving or giving talks, or even though um my in my previous job I had basically taken over a leadership position of a massive project that led me to be being burnt out um uh in the last year I was on that project, you know, even though I've been doing these things and they have developed me as a person, there's a certain reality that I can't escape, and that reality is that I I am not naturally desirous of being put in such positions. Such positions are very unnatural to the kind of person that I visualize myself as and that I and that I want to be, and that I think is something that is is troubling, right? So I was actually you know doing some internet searches about this to to see if there's like a name for this kind of problem, and while there isn't exactly a name for this kind of thing, I was able to find out a psychological phrase, um psychological concept called free trait behavior. And I find this very fascinating because I think that this is very much the kind of leadership, the the kind of experience that I'm having with uh leadership, where free trade behavior refers to when an individual assumes behaviors or traits that are not innate to them for the purposes of achieving a more important goal. And based on my limited reading, these things are not necessarily bad. It is important in our life to have certain free trade behaviors because we can't always be behaving in accordance with our nature, right? Sometimes you have to adapt, circumstances change. If you are an introverted person raising a child, there will be moments in which you might have to assume a role of leadership and a certain degree of decisiveness that does not come to you naturally for the greater good of raising that child. Likewise, if you are someone who is involved in multiple communities and you care a lot about these communities, and it just so happens that most people are not willing to step up and you know uh go go ahead with things, um, sometimes for the greater good of said community and to contribute more to it, you have to be the person that has to assume that sacrifice. And you know, looking at it from a from a religious angle, we must look at the example of Christ, though. Obviously, Christ is not an example of free trade behavior because he he willingly and perfectly um desired the will of God, and that's why he offered himself up. But you know, the main idea is that he offered himself up to do something that was uncomfortable, to to die, to die for our sins. And sacrifice is something rooted very deeply in all of Western society. I think it you know that notion of self-sacrifice is something that is present in all in all cultures to to some degree. However, I feel that in our in our own lives, right, we are not God, of course. And there's only so much that we can take. And I think over the years, I've come to understand that you know it is true, very few people actually want to be leaders. You know, sometimes I wonder if there even is such a thing as a natural-born leader, as someone who does not assume leadership as a free trait, so to speak. Um, but I am certain that there are some people for whom leadership as a free trait is more tolerable than in other people, right? And for me at least, I think my tolerance is probably a little higher than most introverts. But I think I'm reaching a point in my life where I've I've been assuming this persona for such a long time. This persona of of leadership, of fortrightness, these you know, these very positive masculine values that are that are good, and I'm not saying I should abandon them entirely, but I think I'm entering a period in my life where I feel like I've lost my way with myself, I've lost the person that I that I used to be in order to adapt to the changing circumstances of my life, and I've been able to achieve a lot of things. Part of the reason why I've been so successful in my you know in my work, in my professional life, in my investing goals, my financial goals, is because I was able to assume this persona for a space. But as I approach this period of my life in which at a very young age I've accumulated a significant amount of resources, in which I have a you know, uh to give you perspective, I I I I roughly have like like uh almost 200,000 in my in my net worth, right? At you know, in my in my mid-20s, which is no feet to scoff at. You know, hypothetically, if I kicked back and didn't contribute anything else, I'd I'd be set to retire with a with a million around 65. And what's interesting about being in this position is that I'm still I'm still in that go-getter attitude, and it has uses in life, and I'm realizing that you know maybe it's time to slow the brakes a little more. Maybe it's time to take things a little a little slower, to tone things down, to take a different approach to life, because I I am in a place where I can reap my rewards. However, in order to truly do that, I've been contemplating that you know maybe I need to sever myself from a lot of these social circles in which I am inhabiting this leadership role. I'm not I'm not completely sure. And uh again, I'm not doing any of this because I because I hate the people involved in these, but I'm I'm realizing that you know this persona can be really tiring. And um, I I've always visualized myself as a different kind of man, uh a kind of man that whose masculinity, a sensitive young man, a kind of man of masculinity is not expressed um in this you know traditional leadership um role. But again, it's very difficult because in many of the spaces I found myself in, I've I've become this person, and I've been able to exit the job in which I was functioning in this role, and now I'm in another job where I'm in a different role, which is very important, but that aspect of of uh of leadership um uh is still there, but it's much less than in my previous role. I don't have like I'm not alone handling like this gigantic project, which I probably shouldn't have been in the first place, but that's another story. Um But now in other circles that I'm involved in in my social life, um I'm I'm realizing that I want to completely for a time, I don't know how long, I'd like to completely disconnect from this leadership aspect and cultivate the kind of person that I am. But that also begs the question what what kind of person am I trying to become, right? So a lot of you listening to this might assume that I'm simply yearning to return to a version of myself that existed in the past, and there's some truth to that, right? The the version of myself that existed in the past did reflect these uh these traits that I feel that I'm currently missing a lot more than my current version. However, there were some problems with that version that I had corrected, right? So in the past, I was someone who very much indulged in this introverted nature. I don't know if I mentioned it on this podcast, but uh I'm diagnosed with with Asperger syndrome, and you know, like like many people who are on the authorism spectrum, uh we tend to have very particular interests and we have trouble connecting with people when those interests are not are not reciprocated, when we when we don't share that same that same interest um in whatever subject, and it's usually something hyper niche, right? Um you know, I think I'm I probably like a lot of like history, medieval stuff, obviously fantasy, as you as you can probably tell by the nature of this podcast and and prior episodes, and you know, where I'm from, in general, anywhere, there's not a lot of people with those interests, but where I'm from, there's even there's even less of that. This isn't really a place where there's a huge um literate population, it's not like it's not somewhere like Boston, for example, where there is you know uh a lot of people in the population that that read for recreation's sake, you know. This isn't the place for that, and uh, you know, that's fine, but whatever, I can't control that. But the kind of person I was indulged a lot more in that, but I was much more closed off from my peers from society. In many respects, I I would have considered myself to be the traditional understanding of what a loser was, and that is objectively a worse place than what I'm trying to currently get away from, right? I'm trying to, I already got away from that. I got away from that lifestyle where I was just living for myself, I was indulging in myself all the time, I didn't have a sense of direction or or purpose, I didn't have any personal projects, I you know, I just consumed things, right? And over time I've been able to move in a direction where I don't just consume things, but I I create things, I create novels, I have an artistic identity, I have interests that are not hyper niche, um, even though I still foster those hyper-niche um interests. But between that first phase where I was the stereotypical loser, and I moved to this second phase, um, where I started creating, but aside from creating, I also started unlocking what I want to call certain social technologies, right? If any of you guys have prayed like grand strategy games, um, first of all, my heart's out with you. Um, we we should probably get together and play Victoria 3 sometime, but you know, for those of you who know, those games tend to have like technology trees as your civilization advances, and you can pick up stuff from the technology trees to you know better your technology and learn things you hadn't learned before. And this is obviously supposed to simulate how as time passes in societies, the technology available to these societies starts getting even more advanced, right? And um, what's fascinating about that is that you can apply that to your own life, and I unlocked during that transition from phase A of being a hikigamori. Um, I'm not gonna explain what that is, uh well a neat. I think a neat is more common term from evolving to more a neat role to toward a toward this more socially acceptable role where I was creating things, but I was also training my social muscles, which are not natural to me, but I was able to make a lot of friends, I was able to make a lot of social connections, but in the process of that, over over time, I start to realize that you know even though socialization is not something that comes naturally to me, I'm pretty good at it. I can kind of I can kind of gamify it. I have a very tangible persona that's very affable, that people like, that I can, you know, that I can put on for people all the time, and it's very effective at influencing people. And I'm I'm a very good public speaker, curiously enough, despite being a very a very um unapologetic introvert. I'm a I'm an excellent public speaker. And this made it such in such a way that over time I was slowly pushed in directions that favored the development of these skills that I was um, you know, uh pardon the redundancy developing, and I ended up in positions of leadership, positions where I frequently had to communicate with people. That was what was going on in my last job. I was involved in a massive project that was affecting the scale of my entire organization, and I had to coordinate with teams from all over the world, okay? I was the guy talking with the people from India, I was the guy talking to the uh you know to you know to the people um from Europe from different states and whatnot. You know, I was that guy, and I think I I did a pretty good job at doing that, especially considering that that I was alone, but it was exhausting. And not only that, um at one point uh I also started applying this to my own social circles. I you know, I I'm involved in many activities in you know in the Catholic Church, in the the area where where I'm in, and I've I've encountered many spaces in which um you know uh people my age um I'm trying to phrase this in a way that's not arrogant. Um it's it's very uncommon for people my age, especially a lot of Gen Z people, to take much initiative in things, right? We are of a much of a different of a different disposition. We are certainly much more introverted than prior generations, and we are much more self-aware. And I think that leadership represents a certain level of sincerity and the willingness to stand up for something that is very hard for our own generation to grasp, despite the fact that we profoundly long for it, because that's what that's what gives meaning to our lives, right? And so I assume these positions of of leadership because I know how important they are, and I know that no one's stepping forward, but deep down uh I would rather literally anyone else do it. I would rather literally anyone else go ahead and and assume these uh these positions, right? These positions of of leadership. And I did it, and I've done a pretty good job. I made a very strong, I am a much more social person than I've ever been, I've ever thought even possible. In fact, it it got to a point where I've I've met people who have less of a social circle than me, and such a thing would have been unthinkable to me in high school. Such a thing would have been absurd. I thought I was um, you know, I was, you know, I was never a loner, but my friend groups were always very small, but now it's it's all the contrary. My friends group, friend groups are almost almost too big. They're almost too big, right? And that leads me to where I currently am, where I've developed this technology of leadership, of being a go-getter. However, however, despite developing this technology, now it has come at the expense of my own my own inner world, my own artistry, because all of these responsibilities and different points in my life have started to get in the way of the creation of my art. And this was even more so the case last year when I was in my in my previous role. Thankfully, I I left that, and because of the fact that I I left that particular that particular role, I'm in a much better position to explore those artistic sensibilities. But I'm realizing that having brought that identity into other social circles, it has affected the way that people look at me. People look at me as a leader, they look at me as a mentor, as someone that they can that they can look up to, and I'm flattered. I'm I'm very happy that people view me that way. Um, and it but it is a huge responsibility. And for as good as this is, it is something that affects the perception that I have of myself. Because I know that I'm capable of doing these things. But these are not the things that deep down I want to be known for. I want to be known for my art. If I could visualize myself, I would consider myself, you know, I want to be the kind of person that's just, you know, the low-key eccentric that is obsessed with his own with his own work, with his own, with his own, you know, artistry. You know, he can communicate well. He has social circles, but he's not he's not the main face of things, you know? He's not the main face of things. He's just the guy doing his thing and uh working working on his thing, but he's not like this big community figure that like everyone that everyone looks like, which is sort of like the traditional role of the of the author. The author is an influential figure in society, but he is one of those rare cases where someone is influential while in large part maintaining their own individuality and their own individual individual space as an artist, as a as a person, and that's what I want. But the way that my life has been shaped up up until now, um, I am becoming an influential person, but that influence is putting me in the crosshairs, the visual crosshairs of multiple communities, having to serve those communities in uh in different ways, right? And so it creates a tension within myself, right? There's this one novel series uh that has an anime and it's very good sci-fi, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and without getting into the plot, it follows two antagonists that are on opposing sides of a war that has gone on for a very long period of time. And there's this one character on you know on the side of the republic who's called Jiang Wen Li. And I relate a lot to his characterization, and I feel that the struggle that I feel is what he feels where his greatest dream was to be a military historian or just a historian in general. That that is his greatest dream. However, when the when he gets drafted into the war, during his war efforts, his skills at leadership and at moving people and at you know pushing them forward and and winning battles, his skills are so good that you know his society naturally keeps hosting more responsibilities on him because he is too good at something that is not his fundamental passion, his fundamental dream, his fundamental identity. And so he keeps being loaded with the responsibilities of becoming a general, uh, you know, a supreme leader, but he doesn't want that. He's he's fundamentally he doesn't like it, he doesn't like it because he's always just wanted to be a historian, he's wanted to be someone who records history, not someone who's a part of history, and I think that's a real strong tug within myself, and I think that it's an understated conflict that in particular a lot of men probably go for, right? You know, if if I had to be honest with you, um, you know, if it were fully up to me, I'd just be someone who records history. I don't want to be a part of the history, I don't want to be a part of of the big projects that are unfolding around me. At least I don't want to be like a big part or anything like that. I just want to be someone who watches it all unfold and you know contribute, contributes in an indirect way, but there's also a real masculine impulse that you know hits me and strikes me every once in a blue moon. So, yeah, to say, like, yeah, I'm gonna be that guy who does the thing, I'm gonna be that guy who makes the history, I'm gonna be that guy who's involved in the you know, in all these communal projects and and whatnot. And I feel that that really comes at odds with my desires to be a novelist because I feel that a novelist, by nature of his craft, especially considering the fact that he's writing fictional stories that are meant to indirectly influence the real world in which he is a part of, I feel that because of that, um, that certainly causes a tug because the novelist is closer to the scholar, to the historian, the one who wants to record the story, not be a part, not be a part of the story. And I know that technically speaking, it is more heroic to be a part of the story, but I I also feel that it gets in the way with the purity of the of the craft, right? So to give you to give you an example, right? I am a you know, I am a deeply religious person, and I hold these, you know, Catholic values very very strongly, and I I find it very important that my my work reflects my values. However, the way that I make sure my work reflects my values is that I assume that my values are so deeply ingrained in me as a person that the kind of stories that I organically write will come out as consistent with those values. So that's the approach that Tolkien took when he wrote The Lord of the Rings. However, I feel that over time as I've become more involved in you know in activities within the church and you know in organizing things, and I've had great experiences doing this, you know, in giving talks, you know, um, and you know, being someone who's really present in the church and deeply involved in a lot of things in it, I feel that that while good has made the art a little harder because on many occasions I've it you know being so deeply intertwined has put me in a position where I am you know where I feel that if if I am not ex giving about an explicitly Catholic message, then my work is um is for naught, that my work is not truly reflecting my values, and it gets it gets in the way of work. I've been able to conquer this a lot more recently where it's like I I no longer actively try to put in my values into the work where I've done it before, um, but uh it's never been like super on your nose or anything like that. But I feel that usually my work suffers for it. My work suffers for you know, I feel that whenever you have an agenda toward doing something, specifically for a work of art, it is very difficult for that work of art to be something truly resonant with you. You know, see this is why I don't like a lot of like dystopian novels, um, or anything like that, because I feel that those are novels that are often designed with a particular with a particular agenda in mind, and even if I agree with the agenda, I just feel that you know it feels a lot of them feel artificial, and um, yeah, that's part of why I can't I have a hard time enjoying them. And what I really like about fantasy, and what I really think makes fantasy reflect truth, goodness, and beauty, um, it's not that you're setting out to make a story that aligns with your with your values. It's just that fantasy taps into a primordial subconscious that is shared to some extent between all cultures, and things that are you know, I believe in objective truth, and and things that are true, that that are good, that are beautiful, that reflect the divine, that reflect God, um, these are things that will naturally come out with the use of mythological tropes and and languages, and you don't need to force it. You don't need you don't need to force it, and when you force it, it it becomes less mythic. It becomes less mythic because now you're focused on telling a story rather than telling a myth. And the issue with fantasy stories is that since they are trying to replicate real world myths, real world myths, the ones we have right now, are the product of multiple generations of different storytellers interpolating into them, right? The result the result of that, but when you try to you know uh conform them to a particular vision and you don't let them sprout organically, they resemble even less the organic product of multiple people working on it. Um, which is why to a certain degree I've I've embraced a little bit this idea of adding more mystery into my work and of also um being okay with the idea that you know consistency in a work of fiction and subtlety are often overrated, right? You know, these these are things that are often over overrated, and uh you know they don't contribute to the work as much as much as we think because when things come out organically to your mind, they're often not as subtle as you want them to be. The subtlety comes after the fact where when you feel the need to to obfuscate what you're going at just for at some for some presumed artistic merit, right? And that's the struggle within myself, you know, the struggle to be either the recorder or the one being recorded, right? And I I think that uh I'm I'm I'm in a point where I had to find some some kind of synthesis, some kind of synthesis between that, and it's hard to tell if such a thing is even possible, but I have to find some kind of synthesis. But part of that synthesis will mean that I will have to lean in more so to my recorder side um in the near future because I've I've tugged too far in the other direction, and I I had this like deepfound desire to find myself again, to find those aspects of myself that I lost in this transformation that I've undergone over the years. But this is the write or wander.