If you want to use your sense of wonder again, it might be good to seek out something completely new to you. Learn about something new, develop a new skill, or go to some place that you haven’t been before. Then spend some time being quiet and observing or practicing.
Or spend some time in person with people who are enthusiastic about things you are not enthusiastic about, and get curious about why they like it, and listen to what they say.
I’m pretty sure you still have a sense of wonder in there, waiting to be used. It may be something that grows with practice though.
Also, remember that familarity is not the same thing as comprehension! You may very well be familiar with more interesting things about the world than you were before, but that does not me an that you understand them! And Less Wrong is certainly not a comprehensive compendium of all the interesting things in the world. For example, a topic that is rarely discussed on Less Wrong is Fluid Dynamics, which is something that awakes my sense of wonder. Here’s a link to a blog about fluid dynamics: http://fuckyeahfluiddynamics.tumblr.com
I’m not sure whether to think up some strategies to help you find joy in the things you used to enjoy, or if what would help is spending time on completely new things, and making bigger changes in your life. Or some mixture, like remixing your past and present to make your future.
If there are still some minor things that you do find joy in, do those more often. Sometimes it is as simple as noticing what you like doing, what makes you feel even a smidgen happier, and doing it more.
I’m a bit confused as to how reading the Sequences could make it harder to find joy and excitement in minor things, or make you feel like you know everything. What happened, if you don’t mind sharing?
That’s helpful, thank you! Your mention of Fluid Dynamics was particularly nice.
Happy to share.
Part of is what I replied to ChristianKl: that I feel like every important thing should be reduced to thinking about EA or AI. This makes me think that I can’t find any new areas interesting because they’re not good, or should be eliminated to divert resources into one of those two items.
Another part, I think, is that previously, I could always discover a… greater… area of interest once I grew out of the old one. When I got good at video games, I could move on to try making friends, then to do volunteering, then to attend college, then to try living alone, but, once I started to seriously think through the Sequences, which made read other Yudkowsky’s writing, including, sigh, “The Road to Singularity”, the next thing then was “saving the world” and it doesn’t feel like I can get much further from there.
Sometimes a change is as good as a rest.
If you want to use your sense of wonder again, it might be good to seek out something completely new to you. Learn about something new, develop a new skill, or go to some place that you haven’t been before. Then spend some time being quiet and observing or practicing.
Or spend some time in person with people who are enthusiastic about things you are not enthusiastic about, and get curious about why they like it, and listen to what they say.
I’m pretty sure you still have a sense of wonder in there, waiting to be used. It may be something that grows with practice though.
Also, remember that familarity is not the same thing as comprehension! You may very well be familiar with more interesting things about the world than you were before, but that does not me an that you understand them! And Less Wrong is certainly not a comprehensive compendium of all the interesting things in the world. For example, a topic that is rarely discussed on Less Wrong is Fluid Dynamics, which is something that awakes my sense of wonder. Here’s a link to a blog about fluid dynamics: http://fuckyeahfluiddynamics.tumblr.com
I’m not sure whether to think up some strategies to help you find joy in the things you used to enjoy, or if what would help is spending time on completely new things, and making bigger changes in your life. Or some mixture, like remixing your past and present to make your future.
If there are still some minor things that you do find joy in, do those more often. Sometimes it is as simple as noticing what you like doing, what makes you feel even a smidgen happier, and doing it more.
I’m a bit confused as to how reading the Sequences could make it harder to find joy and excitement in minor things, or make you feel like you know everything. What happened, if you don’t mind sharing?
That’s helpful, thank you! Your mention of Fluid Dynamics was particularly nice.
Happy to share.
Part of is what I replied to ChristianKl: that I feel like every important thing should be reduced to thinking about EA or AI. This makes me think that I can’t find any new areas interesting because they’re not good, or should be eliminated to divert resources into one of those two items.
Another part, I think, is that previously, I could always discover a… greater… area of interest once I grew out of the old one. When I got good at video games, I could move on to try making friends, then to do volunteering, then to attend college, then to try living alone, but, once I started to seriously think through the Sequences, which made read other Yudkowsky’s writing, including, sigh, “The Road to Singularity”, the next thing then was “saving the world” and it doesn’t feel like I can get much further from there.