Here’s Kaj Sotala talking about how he lost motivation after getting rid of many of his negative emotions
Note however that I’m pretty sure that the long-term impact will be increased motivation rather than reduced (am gradually getting more done and having more motivation again). Also, I wouldn’t really say that what I did was getting rid of negative emotions, just getting rid of one dysfunctional source of them.
I think what’s interesting in what happened to you after doing the self-concept work is that the source of negative emotions was also a strong motivational factor for you in finding meaning—This is something that I think ChristianKI was in a roundabout way trying point at.
I also think that what’s interesting about what you’ve done since then is that you’ve been able to build up positive alternatives for the negative motivational strategy. I’ve had similar experiences when doing my own mindhacks. I think a frequent pattern is something like a “trough of no motivation” when removing a large strategy that resulted in negative emotions internally, in which all of the things that strategy was regulating go out of wack for a bit (frequently motivation) until you work to find new strategies that don’t result in negative emotions.
To me, this gives credence to ChristianKI’s view that you should be careful with brain hacks that are removing negative emotions or sources of them, as this trough could be potentially disastrous. However, it also gives credence to Natalia’s view that coming up with strategies that have few or no negative emotions could actually be quite powerful, providing that you avoid potentially disastrous consequences of exposing yourself to the trough over and over (or making the trough quite sticky by removing multiple strategies/negative emotions in quick succession).
+1 eliminating certain negative emotions seems to temporarily get rid of any motivation structures that were using those negative emotions as a building block. Things I really value seem to rebuild themselves on better foundations.
From what I know about what you shared about your journey I also wouldn’t put yourself in the category of people who hack directly manipulatively on the emotion-layer.
I addition Focusing, Core, Transform Yourself, Internal Family System and Double Crux are all already system that were developed by people who know what they are doing and that went through a lot of practical testing.
If you work on your identity you don’t get into the problem that you changed your emotions and don’t really know who you are anymore.
I remember reading SquirrelInHell’s posts earlier and I’m really sorry to hear that. Is there any more public information regarding the circumstances of the suicide? Couldn’t find anything with google.
There’s a few documented cases in the community of a lose of negative emotion leading to a general malaise and lack of motivation (Here’s Kaj Sotala talking about how he lost motivation after getting rid of many of his negative emotions https://kajsotala.fi/2018/12/18-month-follow-up-on-my-self-concept-work/).
Here’s an example of the reverse case, in which someone claimed to have a method to remove negative emotions and feel bliss, but was not motivated to use it: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3Hkpttb6WsJwr5WdF/happiness-is-a-chore#comments
I suspect Christian may have been talking about the second example, as the author in the second post committed suicide.
Note however that I’m pretty sure that the long-term impact will be increased motivation rather than reduced (am gradually getting more done and having more motivation again). Also, I wouldn’t really say that what I did was getting rid of negative emotions, just getting rid of one dysfunctional source of them.
I think what’s interesting in what happened to you after doing the self-concept work is that the source of negative emotions was also a strong motivational factor for you in finding meaning—This is something that I think ChristianKI was in a roundabout way trying point at.
I also think that what’s interesting about what you’ve done since then is that you’ve been able to build up positive alternatives for the negative motivational strategy. I’ve had similar experiences when doing my own mindhacks. I think a frequent pattern is something like a “trough of no motivation” when removing a large strategy that resulted in negative emotions internally, in which all of the things that strategy was regulating go out of wack for a bit (frequently motivation) until you work to find new strategies that don’t result in negative emotions.
To me, this gives credence to ChristianKI’s view that you should be careful with brain hacks that are removing negative emotions or sources of them, as this trough could be potentially disastrous. However, it also gives credence to Natalia’s view that coming up with strategies that have few or no negative emotions could actually be quite powerful, providing that you avoid potentially disastrous consequences of exposing yourself to the trough over and over (or making the trough quite sticky by removing multiple strategies/negative emotions in quick succession).
+1 eliminating certain negative emotions seems to temporarily get rid of any motivation structures that were using those negative emotions as a building block. Things I really value seem to rebuild themselves on better foundations.
From what I know about what you shared about your journey I also wouldn’t put yourself in the category of people who hack directly manipulatively on the emotion-layer.
I addition Focusing, Core, Transform Yourself, Internal Family System and Double Crux are all already system that were developed by people who know what they are doing and that went through a lot of practical testing.
If you work on your identity you don’t get into the problem that you changed your emotions and don’t really know who you are anymore.
I remember reading SquirrelInHell’s posts earlier and I’m really sorry to hear that. Is there any more public information regarding the circumstances of the suicide? Couldn’t find anything with google.
As far as I know there’s no public information. There’s some nonpublic information ; )