Hypotheses on Pica — Metabstract

Pica (medical diagnosis): “Pica is a psychological disorder characterized by an appetite for substances that are largely non-nutritive, such as ice; hair; paper; drywall or paint; sharp objects; metal ; stones or soil; glass; faeces; and chalk.” (wiki)
Pica (as coined by the rationalist community): “a metaphor for actions which people take that are intended to meet a goal (often one that is not articulated) but are ill-suited to actually do so” (CFAR Handbook, Version 2016)

I’ve found the concept of Pica an insightful and useful one, ever since I was first introduced to it. However, I guess I struggled feeling its relevance, because, at least in my personal experience, it is really hard to identify substantial picas in your own life.

By substantial, I mean a non-trivial, non-immediately obvious pica. It’s easy to see some picas: we tend to eat sugary and fatty foods when we need comfort, consolidation or something that helps us de-stress; we distract ourselves with facebook or youtube when we hope for a task to get easier or less ambiguous, or done, by magic; we cut our hair when we feel like it’s time for a radical change in our lives; we pester our loved one(s) to be tidier in the kitchen while all we want is that they listen to us…

These pica-esque behaviours are relatively ‘obvious’ as they have been discussed and written about a lot - so much that we can probably judge them as part of the well of common knowledge. Once behavioural patterns like these are sufficiently present in everyone's subconscious, it becomes much easier to identify them. Thus, I call them obvious or trivial picas.

[Which isn’t to say they are necessarily easy to defend against. There are many reasons for why this can be hard to do. Moreover, we might not even be able to reliably notice these patterns in the first place (not when we are in the midst of the battle anyway). Humans have a plethora of defence mechanisms (and some of them there for good reasons!) that prevent us from consciously identifying pica-esque behaviour. However, exploring these failure modes is not the focus of this post.]

Meanwhile, most picas are far from obvious or easy to spot. Personally, I haven’t yet managed to clearly identify many cases of non-trivial picas myself. In ‘Experiential pica’, Alicorn states: “The trouble [...] is that it's hard to tell what your experiential deficiencies might be.” Yep.

To my surprise, I think a recent epiphany had me identify a few such substutional behaviours and how they relate to (and fail to serve) some of my goals and desires. Since that has so far been a rare phenomenon, and even thinking hard about where the picas are in my life is far from reliably insightful, I decided that it would be valuable to write down what I’ve recently discovered.

So, let’s get to the pica (I think) I have encountered. Picas consist of a) a behaviour and b) a goal; where a) doesn’t suit b).

1 - The behaviour: ‘Not taking responsibility’

To put this right, I don’t think this is what I have been doing generally. There are many areas in my life where I am and have been taking on responsibilities over-proportionally to what one might expect from somebody my age. Instead, what I mean here is that I have been avoiding, or rather ‘actively not assuming’, responsibility in a very specific area of my life. As a pica for something I am lacking.

Some examples:

Getting my bike fixed: I manage to let my broken bike stand around for months at a time, without being able to make the minimal effort of bringing it to a nearby mechanic to get it fixed. Sometimes it’s even just a flat tire. (And we have a bike pump at our place. I didn’t use to have one, but now I do!)
What is noteworthy here is that I indeed need my bike, nearly every day. But for some crazy reason, I always find ways around the issue. (I usually just happen to borrow a bike from someone or somewhere else, sometimes for longer periods of time.) Which, of course, quasi-eliminates the incentives to get my own bike fixed.
The superficial explanation for ‘my bike-situation’ is that, by trying to get as much work and productive time into my day as possible, I seem to be unable to find a 5 minute time window to pump up my tires. Of course, this isn’t more than a bad excuse. (As I am wasting 5 minutes on much less useful things all the time.)
But the possibility of ‘just doing it’ (i.e. pumping up my tires) somehow appears to be not part of my option space for things I can do on any given day. When I notice that I theoretically could fix my bike/get my bike fixed now (or in 30’ from now), I just always can think of an alternative thing to do that is ‘a much better use of my time’ (from the point of where I am standing right then).
Buying clothes: I never go clothes shopping. For all that is of practical relevance, I actually mean never.
I do realize that I need new clothes. I do get frustrated about not having enough clothes that I like, that fit me, that are comfortable, that are apt to the current season/weather conditions, etc. I also would like to have more clothes of the sort I like.
But going to town to get some - nah. Doing some online shopping - nah. I sometimes even start tackling it. And then just not go through with it.
Superficially, the observation is about as follows: I like having nice clothes. But I actively dislike clothes shopping - a lot. Much more so than I like having nice clothes.
Looking after myself: I recently was not doing exactly great health-wise. (Nothing major, just things like (substantially) lacking sleep, being overworked, having a weakened immune system, struggling with nasty day-long headaches. I also had some small wounds on my leg that were getting infected. (As I learnt, this sort of thing is non-negligible, because it poses the risk of developing into sepsis if not taken care of properly.))
I kind of cared about these things. I took some measures to counteract them: trying to go to bed earlier, talking about finishing work earlier this week, observing whether my wounds were getting worse and thinking about what I would do if they did.
But to be honest, these measures were simply the lowest-effort things I could come up with, the most low-hanging fruit that didn’t actually require me to do something outside of my usual routine.

And here is the common pattern: I always kind of care, I always kind of do something to tackle these sort of issues. But if I’m honest, I just do whatever is needed to make it look like I cared. Things that get me around being straightforwardly accused of not doing anything. Things that save my face. And which leave me lacking and needy.

This doesn’t resolve the question though: why don’t I do these things properly? After all, they would clearly benefit me.

And this question directly points us to the substance of this pica.

2 - The goal: Reassurance (of/and Love)

In other words, feeling and experiencing that someone cares. That someone sees what is going on in my life, what I am working towards or struggling with; when I am in need of an extra push of motivation, an extra dose of love, a moment of warmth and connection; when I need a reminder of the greater reasons for why I am committed to what I’m committed to; or when I just need a second of being fully human.

To clarify, this doesn’t necessarily mean I am waiting for someone to get my bike fixed for me, or buy clothes for me. It might just mean that I want somebody to talk through it and encourage me to do it myself.

I imagine a large part of this comes from the way I was brought up: what I learnt love is, and looks and feels like. Growing up, the key, and most trustworthy sign indicating that someone loved and cared for me was not a very concrete action (e.g. that they would solve a problem for me), but a sense that that person was there for me, that they were having my back. The fact that they listened, again and again; that they were interested in and tried to relate to what was going on in my life and how I was feeling about it.

Love is the feeling that they are there for me: standing at the sidelines while I am doing the thing I need to do.

[I was relatively young when I moved away from parents’ place and during the (so far) most challenging periods of my life my family wasn’t physically close to where I was living at that time. Furthermore, a lot of the things I did and was interested in (which is still true today, more so than ever), my family knows very little about. These two factors mean that they rarely could help me in a very hands-on way. I often couldn’t and cannot connect to them via talking about object-level things I am interested in. The way we connect, the way they show and prove to me that they love me, is by listening and caring anyway, and spending their time and attention on me.]

***

Let me sum this up:

I am engaging in a behaviour that

ensures I can make others (and myself) believe I care about the issue at hand and that I am (about to) take steps towards solving it (akin to ‘plausible deniability’); while
never actually solving the problem for good and maintaining a state of need or insufficiency with regards to the issue.

This is my ‘ill-suited’ way to ask [and maybe test?] for care and love from my surroundings.

Sometimes, having a friend check whether I “finally got around to getting my bike fixed” does more in terms reassuring me in that they care, than actually getting the bike fixed would.

Obviously, and that’s why this is a pica, there are much better ways to get both: a functioning bike and the reassurance that people care.