Last time I posted on one of these rationality journals it was about 9 months ago. I said I was going to go on a couple month long bike trip. I’d been having a lot of trouble setting and meeting goals, and after failing so many important goals ended up pretty depressed, so I decided to just not set goals anymore and just peddle my bike for a while.
My bike trip ended up being just three days, as I got bored rather quickly. It turns out that just biking all day was not as mentally stimulating as I had hoped it would be. The bike trip wasn’t a complete waste; biking to the ocean has been a life goal of mine, and I finally pulled it off. Also, I got lots and lots of exercise, which helped with my depression. Finally, I slept in a ditch on the side of the road, something I have never done before. I no longer fear being homeless. If you have food in your stomach, a warm coat, a place where you can rest undisturbed, and a deep exhaustion that makes worrying about social conventions impossible, it turns out that the rest of life will take care of itself. Of course, I was biking through a rural area, so that made sleeping undisturbed a lot easier. The other big thing was the ocean. Oceans and libraries always settle the thoughts in my head.
After all that, I went home and got a job. They don’t pay me much, but on the plus side expectations and stress are very low.
I went from generally depressed to generally happy all at once, when I got that low stress job I previously mentioned. It turns out that spending several months sending out tons of job applications, getting exactly 0 responses, and then having LOTS of free time to stew in your thoughts is not healthy. In the future, I will treat large blocks of free time as being a potential risk, and make sure to fill them up with productive activities.
I’ve had “find meaningful tasks to occupy my time” as a life goal since about age 7 or so, though back then I phrased it as “don’t be apathetic”. Basically, I want to be the sort of person who goes out and does things and has an interesting and meaningful life, but instead I do the easiest, laziest thing instead, which usually means browsing the internet. Up until now, my strategies have included (starting with my first strategy and ending in my last) praying to god to change me, swearing every night that I would totally be a different person, berating myself when I failed, using physical impediments to prevent myself from failing, reading lots of books about reason and psychology and keeping a journal in which I listed things like goals and reasons why goals were not being met, and using mind altering drugs to chemically force the emotions I wanted. All these plans failed, and as you can likely imagine by the time I was willing to use the mind altering chemicals I was pretty desperate and upset.
The thing that all these strategies have in common is that they are attempting to promote the positive emotion. I read some books on meditation, and one concept that stood out to me was this idea that happiness doesn’t exist; there is simply the absence of negative emotions. Remove all negative emotions, and you will discover that you are happy. My new strategy is that I am going to practice removing negative emotions. When I detect negative thoughts, I will focus all my attention on the sensations I am experiencing present moment, starving the negative emotions of the brainpower they need. It’s like that old question; “Quick, think of anything other than white elephants!”. The way to prevent your mind from thinking unwanted thoughts is to focus your mind so intently on another, different thought that there is no space left for the first thought. Poof! White elephant gone.
My new plan for “find meaningful activities to spend my time on” is to meditate until I eliminate the negative emotions that are preventing my from enjoying myself. Once my mind is a place of peace, I will being to naturally enjoy certain activities again, and find them more compelling and interesting then just browsing the internet.
So far this plan seems to be working well, and I have even had some success in starting a meditation habit. I’ll report back in a couple months.
...
One last thing; I’ve often thought that flossing would be a good idea, but was too lazy to bother. Then I learned that the water in my district was not fluoridated, and that mouthwash actually works, so I went and bought some mouthwash. Swishing funny-tasting liquids around my mouth is a lot more fun then dragging a string between my teeth and having it sometimes come back bloody, so I’ve successfully added “use mouthwash” as a habit. That’s neat. And hopefully it’ll save on dentist bills. I’ve had a cavity pretty much every time I visited the dentist for as long as I remember, so if I suddenly stop getting cavities I’ll have clear proof that this works.
In the future, I will treat large blocks of free time as being a potential risk, and make sure to fill them up with productive activities.
A few years ago I wasted three continuous months of completely free time just by reading internet. These days it’s like: “oh, I wish I had a week just for myself and my plans”. But yeah, I am afraid of what a lot of free time could possibly do again. Which is why I wish only for one week, not three months. Problem is, it is technically much easier to get three months (quit the job, find a new one three months later) than one additional week of vacation.
instead I do the easiest, laziest thing instead, which usually means browsing the internet.
The important thing is to realize that you cannot solve this problem without learning to avoid internet. So make that your #1 priority, and focus on it fully.
I tried something similar recently, and now I only read internet on weekends. Even that feels like too much; I should try to make it just one day of the weekend. (Previous diaries: here and here, 5 weeks already.)
swearing every night that I would totally be a different person, berating myself when I failed, using physical impediments to prevent myself from failing (...) keeping a journal in which I listed (...) why goals were not being met
The thing that all these strategies have in common is that they are attempting to promote the positive emotion.
Are you serious? What exactly is the positive emotion of berating yourself? If you really mean it, I guess you simply have no idea about what a positive emotion feels like.
one concept that stood out to me was this idea that happiness doesn’t exist; there is simply the absence of negative emotions
Also, chocolate cakes don’t exist; there is simply the absence of non-chocolate non-cakes. And it feels really good, trust me.
There is some half-truth in that saying, and it is this: positive and negative emotions don’t mix well. If you win a lotery and break your leg at the same time, the pain from the broken leg will probably consume all your attention. Negative emotions can push away the positive ones. Therefore, to be able to focus on the positive emotions, you first have to get rid of the negative ones.
It’s like if you want to hear the birds singing, first you have to turn off your radio. But that doesn’t mean the singing of the birds is merely the absence of the radio.
When I detect negative thoughts, I will focus all my attention on the sensations I am experiencing present moment, starving the negative emotions of the brainpower they need. (...) The way to prevent your mind from thinking unwanted thoughts is to focus your mind so intently on another, different thought that there is no space left for the first thought.
That feels to me like instead of turning off the radio, you turn on the TV even louder. And then you don’t hear the radio. (But you also don’t hear the birds. But that’s okay, because they don’t really exist; they are just the absence of the radio.)
Again, there is some good part in this: Not focusing on the negative thoughts, not repeating them… that’s good. If it helps to reduce their frequency, do it. I just feel there should also be some cognitive component in this, like: understanding why those negative thoughts are wrong, or at least useless.
Are you serious? What exactly is the positive emotion of berating yourself? If you really mean it, I guess you simply have no idea about what a positive emotion feels like.
I worded that poorly. The idea I was trying to convey was that you can either work to strengthen a certain trait, or work to remove whatever is preventing you from having that trait. I’m going to retract that idea, since the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.
Also, chocolate cakes don’t exist; there is simply the absence of non-chocolate non-cakes. And it feels really good, trust me.
Happiness doesn’t exist; there is simply the absence of unhappiness. Darkness doesn’t exist; there is simply the absence of light. That is the idea I was getting at. Looking back, you’re right, it’s all just word games. Playing with definitions. So I will just agree with your statement that unhappiness is stronger than happiness, and affirm that my goal is to eliminate unhappiness, then go from there.
That feels to me like instead of turning off the radio, you turn on the TV even louder. And then you don’t hear the radio. (But you also don’t hear the birds. But that’s okay, because they don’t really exist; they are just the absence of the radio.)
To clarify:
Radio = negative emotions
tv = random noise to drown out rest of mind.
*bird = positive emotions
You mention turning off the radio, and you suggest doing so by isolating the root sources of emotions and dealing with them by understanding that they are wrong or useless. This is excellent advice, and is the core concept of how CB therapy works. Your mistake is thinking that once you understand a thought is useless or wrong, it will go away. It won’t, at least not for me. When I am afraid, when I am apathetic, when all choices feel equally meaningless and bereft of happiness, I overpower the radio with the TV. Without a listener, the radio turns itself off. My meditation session is finished, so I turn off the TV as well. In the resulting silence, I hear the bird song. That is the purpose of the TV.
Thank you for your comment. I just read an article claiming there was no such thing as happiness, and I guess I got a little carried away and didn’t think things through.
Happiness doesn’t exist; there is simply the absence of unhappiness. (...) Looking back, you’re right, it’s all just word games. Playing with definitions.
This might be just another definition among many, but I think it is worth to look at the details. Emotions happen when some chemicals are released into our blood system.
So I could translate “happiness is simply the absence of unhappiness” as: there are chemicals people release when they are unhappy, but there are no specific chemicals for happiness; the feeling of happiness is the feeling of not having those unhappiness chemicals in our bloodstream. This would be a testable prediction. I am not 100% sure about biology, but I guess it would be false.
In which case we could try more generous interpretation, such as: Yes, there are specific chemicals for happiness, but they are released to the bloodstream automatically in the absense of the unhappiness chemicals. Again, a testable prediction. Again, I think even this would be false.
Your mistake is thinking that once you understand a thought is useless or wrong, it will go away. It won’t, at least not for me.
I didn’t mean to imply this. Useless thoughts don’t go away just by realization they are useless; they are preserved by the power of habit.
Anyway, I was not sure if my reply wasn’t too aggressive, so I am happy you reacted this way.
I remember reading your initial post planning the trip, so I’m glad that you followed up with it and let us know how it worked! I’m also glad to see that it worked out in the end even if it wasn’t really in the way that you expected.
I would love to see more follow-up posts by people a few months later.
Last time I posted on one of these rationality journals it was about 9 months ago. I said I was going to go on a couple month long bike trip. I’d been having a lot of trouble setting and meeting goals, and after failing so many important goals ended up pretty depressed, so I decided to just not set goals anymore and just peddle my bike for a while.
My bike trip ended up being just three days, as I got bored rather quickly. It turns out that just biking all day was not as mentally stimulating as I had hoped it would be. The bike trip wasn’t a complete waste; biking to the ocean has been a life goal of mine, and I finally pulled it off. Also, I got lots and lots of exercise, which helped with my depression. Finally, I slept in a ditch on the side of the road, something I have never done before. I no longer fear being homeless. If you have food in your stomach, a warm coat, a place where you can rest undisturbed, and a deep exhaustion that makes worrying about social conventions impossible, it turns out that the rest of life will take care of itself. Of course, I was biking through a rural area, so that made sleeping undisturbed a lot easier. The other big thing was the ocean. Oceans and libraries always settle the thoughts in my head.
After all that, I went home and got a job. They don’t pay me much, but on the plus side expectations and stress are very low.
I went from generally depressed to generally happy all at once, when I got that low stress job I previously mentioned. It turns out that spending several months sending out tons of job applications, getting exactly 0 responses, and then having LOTS of free time to stew in your thoughts is not healthy. In the future, I will treat large blocks of free time as being a potential risk, and make sure to fill them up with productive activities.
I’ve had “find meaningful tasks to occupy my time” as a life goal since about age 7 or so, though back then I phrased it as “don’t be apathetic”. Basically, I want to be the sort of person who goes out and does things and has an interesting and meaningful life, but instead I do the easiest, laziest thing instead, which usually means browsing the internet. Up until now, my strategies have included (starting with my first strategy and ending in my last) praying to god to change me, swearing every night that I would totally be a different person, berating myself when I failed, using physical impediments to prevent myself from failing, reading lots of books about reason and psychology and keeping a journal in which I listed things like goals and reasons why goals were not being met, and using mind altering drugs to chemically force the emotions I wanted. All these plans failed, and as you can likely imagine by the time I was willing to use the mind altering chemicals I was pretty desperate and upset.
The thing that all these strategies have in common is that they are attempting to promote the positive emotion. I read some books on meditation, and one concept that stood out to me was this idea that happiness doesn’t exist; there is simply the absence of negative emotions. Remove all negative emotions, and you will discover that you are happy. My new strategy is that I am going to practice removing negative emotions. When I detect negative thoughts, I will focus all my attention on the sensations I am experiencing present moment, starving the negative emotions of the brainpower they need. It’s like that old question; “Quick, think of anything other than white elephants!”. The way to prevent your mind from thinking unwanted thoughts is to focus your mind so intently on another, different thought that there is no space left for the first thought. Poof! White elephant gone.
My new plan for “find meaningful activities to spend my time on” is to meditate until I eliminate the negative emotions that are preventing my from enjoying myself. Once my mind is a place of peace, I will being to naturally enjoy certain activities again, and find them more compelling and interesting then just browsing the internet.
So far this plan seems to be working well, and I have even had some success in starting a meditation habit. I’ll report back in a couple months.
...
One last thing; I’ve often thought that flossing would be a good idea, but was too lazy to bother. Then I learned that the water in my district was not fluoridated, and that mouthwash actually works, so I went and bought some mouthwash. Swishing funny-tasting liquids around my mouth is a lot more fun then dragging a string between my teeth and having it sometimes come back bloody, so I’ve successfully added “use mouthwash” as a habit. That’s neat. And hopefully it’ll save on dentist bills. I’ve had a cavity pretty much every time I visited the dentist for as long as I remember, so if I suddenly stop getting cavities I’ll have clear proof that this works.
A few years ago I wasted three continuous months of completely free time just by reading internet. These days it’s like: “oh, I wish I had a week just for myself and my plans”. But yeah, I am afraid of what a lot of free time could possibly do again. Which is why I wish only for one week, not three months. Problem is, it is technically much easier to get three months (quit the job, find a new one three months later) than one additional week of vacation.
The important thing is to realize that you cannot solve this problem without learning to avoid internet. So make that your #1 priority, and focus on it fully.
I tried something similar recently, and now I only read internet on weekends. Even that feels like too much; I should try to make it just one day of the weekend. (Previous diaries: here and here, 5 weeks already.)
Are you serious? What exactly is the positive emotion of berating yourself? If you really mean it, I guess you simply have no idea about what a positive emotion feels like.
Also, chocolate cakes don’t exist; there is simply the absence of non-chocolate non-cakes. And it feels really good, trust me.
There is some half-truth in that saying, and it is this: positive and negative emotions don’t mix well. If you win a lotery and break your leg at the same time, the pain from the broken leg will probably consume all your attention. Negative emotions can push away the positive ones. Therefore, to be able to focus on the positive emotions, you first have to get rid of the negative ones.
It’s like if you want to hear the birds singing, first you have to turn off your radio. But that doesn’t mean the singing of the birds is merely the absence of the radio.
That feels to me like instead of turning off the radio, you turn on the TV even louder. And then you don’t hear the radio. (But you also don’t hear the birds. But that’s okay, because they don’t really exist; they are just the absence of the radio.)
Again, there is some good part in this: Not focusing on the negative thoughts, not repeating them… that’s good. If it helps to reduce their frequency, do it. I just feel there should also be some cognitive component in this, like: understanding why those negative thoughts are wrong, or at least useless.
I worded that poorly. The idea I was trying to convey was that you can either work to strengthen a certain trait, or work to remove whatever is preventing you from having that trait. I’m going to retract that idea, since the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.
Happiness doesn’t exist; there is simply the absence of unhappiness. Darkness doesn’t exist; there is simply the absence of light. That is the idea I was getting at. Looking back, you’re right, it’s all just word games. Playing with definitions. So I will just agree with your statement that unhappiness is stronger than happiness, and affirm that my goal is to eliminate unhappiness, then go from there.
To clarify: Radio = negative emotions tv = random noise to drown out rest of mind. *bird = positive emotions
You mention turning off the radio, and you suggest doing so by isolating the root sources of emotions and dealing with them by understanding that they are wrong or useless. This is excellent advice, and is the core concept of how CB therapy works. Your mistake is thinking that once you understand a thought is useless or wrong, it will go away. It won’t, at least not for me. When I am afraid, when I am apathetic, when all choices feel equally meaningless and bereft of happiness, I overpower the radio with the TV. Without a listener, the radio turns itself off. My meditation session is finished, so I turn off the TV as well. In the resulting silence, I hear the bird song. That is the purpose of the TV.
Thank you for your comment. I just read an article claiming there was no such thing as happiness, and I guess I got a little carried away and didn’t think things through.
This might be just another definition among many, but I think it is worth to look at the details. Emotions happen when some chemicals are released into our blood system.
So I could translate “happiness is simply the absence of unhappiness” as: there are chemicals people release when they are unhappy, but there are no specific chemicals for happiness; the feeling of happiness is the feeling of not having those unhappiness chemicals in our bloodstream. This would be a testable prediction. I am not 100% sure about biology, but I guess it would be false.
In which case we could try more generous interpretation, such as: Yes, there are specific chemicals for happiness, but they are released to the bloodstream automatically in the absense of the unhappiness chemicals. Again, a testable prediction. Again, I think even this would be false.
I didn’t mean to imply this. Useless thoughts don’t go away just by realization they are useless; they are preserved by the power of habit.
Anyway, I was not sure if my reply wasn’t too aggressive, so I am happy you reacted this way.
I remember reading your initial post planning the trip, so I’m glad that you followed up with it and let us know how it worked! I’m also glad to see that it worked out in the end even if it wasn’t really in the way that you expected.
I would love to see more follow-up posts by people a few months later.