So recently I’ve been toying with a new idea. It seems that for many of us—at least for my friends and I—living a maximally efficient rational life is difficult as one’s irrational emotions tend to get the best of us.
To overcome this I have been experimenting with living my life as if I were in a game.
Let me explain:
If I view my life as a (potentially) single shot ‘spawn’ in an open ended MMORPG, I seem to be able to do more high risk/high reward things with much less irrational restraint.
My first method is to set up a HUD in my head. By visualizing a simple HUD (compass of where I want to go, health meter, and symbols representing notes of goals) and then viewing day to day decisions as mere choices within a game world where I will always ultimately end up ‘OK’ (ie alive, able to influence the world in a small way, able to make an income to eat and sleep in comfort) I am able to force myself to increase the predicted value of high success variables (financial status, etc).
If making these high risk decisions, it seems paramount to stick to a personal policy of absolute honesty. This gives me less variables to keep in my head at any one time. By being transparent and honest with people, yet continually racking up my own pre set achievements (financial, social, etc.) I am able to move quickly through career positions, financial income levels, quality of social circle, and other variables that have a large degree of influence on one’s day to day happiness scores.
By writing notes in this method I am able to make my mind process complex ideas much faster.
Has anyone experimented with similar ideas, and if so what are your outcomes?
Short answer, “yes,” and I always normalize to my baseline way of viewing the world, or else in some way habituate such that the trick stops feeling novel enough to feel valuable even if it’s still providing value.
It’s difficult/impossible to tell in retrospect whether I have given up on some new perspective or framing or worldview because it didn’t work, or whether it did work and I got used to it and stopped noticing it. This is a source of continuing frustration.
Very interesting, I default to the same behavior. I notice it working best when I ‘play in game mode’ in bar situations and other highly social events where high risk/reward behavior has multiple advantages.
Other than that I seem to default about 70% of the time to a non game mode way of thinking.
What are the primary other perspective/framings you have found to be beneficial?
So recently I’ve been toying with a new idea. It seems that for many of us—at least for my friends and I—living a maximally efficient rational life is difficult as one’s irrational emotions tend to get the best of us.
To overcome this I have been experimenting with living my life as if I were in a game.
Let me explain:
If I view my life as a (potentially) single shot ‘spawn’ in an open ended MMORPG, I seem to be able to do more high risk/high reward things with much less irrational restraint.
My first method is to set up a HUD in my head. By visualizing a simple HUD (compass of where I want to go, health meter, and symbols representing notes of goals) and then viewing day to day decisions as mere choices within a game world where I will always ultimately end up ‘OK’ (ie alive, able to influence the world in a small way, able to make an income to eat and sleep in comfort) I am able to force myself to increase the predicted value of high success variables (financial status, etc).
If making these high risk decisions, it seems paramount to stick to a personal policy of absolute honesty. This gives me less variables to keep in my head at any one time. By being transparent and honest with people, yet continually racking up my own pre set achievements (financial, social, etc.) I am able to move quickly through career positions, financial income levels, quality of social circle, and other variables that have a large degree of influence on one’s day to day happiness scores.
By writing notes in this method I am able to make my mind process complex ideas much faster.
Has anyone experimented with similar ideas, and if so what are your outcomes?
PS I find reddit.com/r/outside very interesting for this way of thinking.
Short answer, “yes,” and I always normalize to my baseline way of viewing the world, or else in some way habituate such that the trick stops feeling novel enough to feel valuable even if it’s still providing value.
It’s difficult/impossible to tell in retrospect whether I have given up on some new perspective or framing or worldview because it didn’t work, or whether it did work and I got used to it and stopped noticing it. This is a source of continuing frustration.
Very interesting, I default to the same behavior. I notice it working best when I ‘play in game mode’ in bar situations and other highly social events where high risk/reward behavior has multiple advantages.
Other than that I seem to default about 70% of the time to a non game mode way of thinking.
What are the primary other perspective/framings you have found to be beneficial?