It looks like recently I've started doing a "rerun" of the whole Kegan thing — not on purpose, just noticed that it's apparently happening. The rerun consists of actually getting good at each stage — and not merely accepting them intellectually or trying to grok stage 5 and thinking "mission complete", as I used to think.
(See also: The Kegan adaptations.)
I am bad at getting something out of things (see 21-03-13: I'm not getting anything out of it).
I don't propose trades. All my side projects used to be free and open-source. When I started Brick, I felt bad about limiting the free users in any way. I try not to be selfish, and then I feel bitter in background.
I am working on fixing all this, being selfish and using people on purpose. For example: I took my sister and her friend on a mountain trip a few days ago, and thought "okay, but then we will go and explore a new route because otherwise I'm not getting anything out of this mountain trip at all".
I am bad at relationships.
I am bad at being loyal to friends / to existing relationships. I don't feel like I belong in any group; whenever I see a group I like, I try to become contrarian to that group. Last summer I co-organized a rationalist meetup in Minsk; everyone wanted to play "Spot the fallacy" and I wanted to talk about how fallacies and biases are alright.
I am working on fixing this, too. I have half-decided that it's alright to help people I like, rather than "whoever's right". I want a friend's coffee shop to win against other coffee shops. I have started thinking about whether things I say can hurt other people. I have started trying not to alienate people by saying sarcastic things about the causes they care about.
I am bad at principles.
I used to do anything I did as "whatever seems good", never adopting explicit principles that would ever go counter to what my gut feeling tells me to do. I would read other people's principles ("do thing X even if uncomfortable") and not understand how anybody could ever force themselves to do something uncomfortable. I didn't particularly dislike formal roles in organizations, but also didn't see a use for them. "A bunch of people just doing stuff well" was my ideal model.
This is also changing. I have started feeling alright about ideas like "if something works, try doing it even if you don't understand how exactly it works". I am writing a "duties description" document for one of my employees so that he knows what I expect from him. I am abstaining from trying to befriend my coworkers. I am saving 30% of my salary, rather than "as much as I can afford this month". Etc.
I am not thinking about this one yet.