Definitely agree. Also this idea that strategies are artificial is (with all due respect) total nonsense. Automatic strategies are strategies nonetheless.

It reminds me of the famous Hacker koan (delivered from memory here and hence butchered): When Sussman was a novice he was once coding up a neural net when Minsky walked up to him and asked him why he was randomizing the initial weights. When Sussman remarked that he didn't want the net to have any preconceived bias, Minsky reacted by closing his eyes. Sussman asked him why he was doing that, to which Minsky answered, "So that the room will be empty".

If there were one terrible thing that I would change about American culture, it is this notion that analysis and learning is somehow artificial as opposed to subconscious uncontrolled reaction to the environment.

It's the same source viewpoint that rejects things like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and that creates this idea that encountering uncomfortable ideas is instantaneously harmful (because your automatic responses are held as the prime understanding).

> Even being well kept and dressing tidy is a strategy to signal you’re organized. Some people are naturally organized, and some people aren’t and have to consciously try to do it. I don’t see what difference it makes though.

The problem of course is when you're dressing tidy while being unorganized. In that case you're being artificial.

Authenticity is a concern for many, but I’ve found that for the people who don’t care about it, they simply can’t understand the people who do.