Metamodernism's basic tenet: it concerns embracing the contradictions that are more or less inevitable, while still striving for something genuine and hopeful.

PostPoMo (Post-Postmodernism), from what I've gathered, is an ongoing discussion, more artistic than academic, about how to approach and examine our world in the absence of: Grand utopian narratives of how society should be

As an aesthetic: pastiche, with extreme consciousness of language and form.

As a school of thought: the breakdown of categories, the questioning of storytelling/narrative as a vehicle of truth, the idea that there's no 'real world' that we can access because language is always in our way.

modernism is seen as a quest for meaning from chaos whereas postmodernism rejects the idea of an objective truth but rather embraces the idea that we create subjective meanings for things

Metamodernism: modernist optimism and postmodernist critique are two opposing poles we must oscillate between. We must create things to be critiqued, and we must critique things as a creative act.

Postmodernism: there is no single best possible way of living, only people who think their way is best. Therefore any idea of "progress" is not linear or universal, but the product of an agenda.

Modernism: we must try new things and question assumptions to make progress in finding the best possible way of living. Appeared partly in response to the industrial revolution.

But: everyone says that picture of Odysseus is supposed to represent pragmatism and rationality. It doesn't. The practical, rational course would be to do what all the other sailors in the picture are doing and wear earplugs. Odysseus is deliberately avoiding this. He's making everyone else wear earplugs, then tying himself to the mast; he wants to hear the siren song and live. Why? Curiosity, I guess. The lure of some sort of supernatural unearthly beauty - beauty apparently intense enough to die for. This isn't a picture of doing prudent game theory stuff. This is a picture of being a hopeless romantic, and then hastily doing some prudent game theory stuff afterwards so you don't literally die.

The Greek hero Odysseus is sailing through Siren-infested waters. He knows that the Sirens have hypnotic powers, and that anyone who hears their song will stop thinking straight and probably steer their boat into a rock or something. So before the Sirens appear, he ties himself to the mast, so that the future version of himself who hears the Siren song can't screw anything up. Hanson uses it as a general symbol of thoughtful precommitment, of taking steps to constrain future selves who might have values unaligned with yours. Marriage - and any other contract - is a deliberate effort to constrain your future actions so that you can make long-term plans that heavily affect other people - your spouse, but also your future children - without them having to constantly worry about you running off to any Siren you hear

Chris thinks of micromarriages as a motivational tool. If you go to a party, and you don't meet anyone interesting there, it's tempting to get discouraged. If you try again and again, with identical results, it's tempting to give up. Chris says: instead, think of yourself as getting 500 micromarriages each time (or whatever you decide the real number is, with the understanding that you should update your estimate at some rate conditional on success or failure). All you need to do is go to a thousand parties and you have a 50-50 chance of meeting the right person!

This is how I feel about getting married. We are definitely doing prudent contract-drafting work. But it's ropes, not earplugs. Prudence while fully exposed to supernatural unearthly beauty.

My point is, I'm no longer a total failure at this. So as I make the sudden transition from advice-consumer to advice-dispenser, my recommendation for those of you in the same place I was ten years ago is: accrue micromarriages. Micromarriages come from this post by Chris Olah. They're a riff on micromorts, a one-in-a-million chance of dying. Risk analysts use micromorts to compare how dangerous different things are: scuba diving is 5 micromorts per dive; COVID is 2,500 micromorts per infection; climbing Mt. Everest is 30,000 micromorts per attempt. So by analogy, micromarriages are a one in a million chance of getting married. Maybe going to a party gets you 500 micromarriages, and signing up for a really good dating site gives you 10,000. If there's a Mt. Everest equivalent, I don't know about it.