3 ms·

I have a history of being hung up about my perceived importance about making art/entertainment in a world saturated with it. Which is kind of inconsistent given

I have a history of being hung up about my perceived importance about making art/entertainment in a world saturated with it. Which is kind of inconsistent given that I don't lend a greater degree of importance to most other things, but it's just the unshakable sensation that yields when I rationalize what to do. What is flipping things a little is focusing on desire for "flow", or enjoying mastery, that I do not want solely tied to my vocation. I also have a separate but similar itch, which is to work with my hands with no cognitive overhead. I don't feel an obligation to create (to "be human", for pride, validation, etc) nor am I particularly creative. However, my sense is it can satisfy wants where passive consumption falls short. Probably I could be just as satisfied if I obsessed over a sport.

comboy 5y ago
Objectively there is no rational argument you can make why colonizing other stars is better than recording sounds of farts. It all drops down to our values. But I got hung up about that too. My solution - as always it turns out to be a bit of this and a bit of that. It's a personal very complex function that takes into account what you know, what you believe, what you value and what you feel. Very difficult to compute. Luckily you don't need to think about it at all. Your subconscious brain is already computing it all the best it can and presents you the result in the purest form: "I want to do X now". It's pretty amazing. Inevitable follow up - but I don't know what I want to do - do nothing. It works.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  That seems good for tapping into desires, but may be an unreliable heuristic for long-term. In part because we are creatures of habit, and our habits can be hijacked, or plainly unhealthy. We may have several prospective or competing desires - if instant gratification is among them, that is the path of least resistance, the grooves deepen. "I want.. to sit down, eat, and watch something, and be left alone". Delayed gratification is abstracted enough that moment-to-moment desire leads you off course. If we have in us a desire for validation or high-level engagement which drives us to do something, keeping an eye on the prize may mean disposing with whatever the imminent "X" is right now. The point of frustration is that these motivators, which drive us to try to master something, can be tepid or inconsistent and therefore insufficient. You end up needing a sense of obligation, i.e. discipline. At least for me, getting anything done means creating habits, because 'desire' is a shot in the dark. There's a quote from somewhere that power is "acting in the face of uncertainty". Desire and motivation is a murky area to me, beyond obvious things.
  - comboy 5y ago
    In my opinion you do not need discipline and forcing yourself to do anything. Introspection and retrospection is enough. You want to watch something or play something? Go for it. What is the reason not to if you want to? When you watch yourself then you notice that you seem miserable just doing A but you felt great doing B. That's enough. Now it's part of the function. Trying to force yourself to do something is like trying to lift yourself up by your trousers. Ultimately it's you that eventually decide that you want to do it now, the rest is some unnecessarily complex story. You want to do things you want in life. Forcing yourself to do anything is just a story. If you eliminate wishful thinking, then wanting some goal in the future is the same as wanting taking to take some action now that you know is necessary. Any time I catch myself thinking that I'm doing or about to do something that I think I don't want to do, I do a bit of debugging and untangle the story in my head. Probably not explained clear enough. But basically eliminating wishful thinking and realizing that >> I only do things I want << did wonders to me. Habits are still powerful given the above, but observing them I don't have habits which I don't want to have - I usually rather fix the story than behavior, so there's also that. "keeping eye on the prize" and such - there is no cake (and I think that's great)
    - slothtrop 5y ago
      > Trying to force yourself to do something is like trying to lift yourself up by your trousers. Everyone who's had to practice 1000s of hours has had to have discipline.
      - comboy 5y ago
        Who says you have to practice? In the context of coding I just craved it, never needed any discipline. With music most seem to learn like the author just wanting to create something and learning along the way rather than "now it's time for my 2 hours of ableton practice" With instruments I think the situation is pathological. We teach everybody to learn the exact same things, scales, patterns and chords in the exact same way, and then ask them to be original. But you can just take an instrument and start making random sounds, better and better over time because there's tight feedback loop linked with your music perception. And sure, you won't be able to play what others have played - but you will be able to express yourself in an unique way. I think most of those who did spend 1000s of hours on specific thing, did not require any discipline to do these things. They just wanted to do them. Even if they sucked at it.

comboy 5y ago

Objectively there is no rational argument you can make why colonizing other stars is better than recording sounds of farts. It all drops down to our values. But I got hung up about that too. My solution - as always it turns out to be a bit of this and a bit of that. It's a personal very complex function that takes into account what you know, what you believe, what you value and what you feel. Very difficult to compute. Luckily you don't need to think about it at all. Your subconscious brain is already computing it all the best it can and presents you the result in the purest form: "I want to do X now". It's pretty amazing. Inevitable follow up - but I don't know what I want to do - do nothing. It works.

slothtrop 5y ago
That seems good for tapping into desires, but may be an unreliable heuristic for long-term. In part because we are creatures of habit, and our habits can be hijacked, or plainly unhealthy. We may have several prospective or competing desires - if instant gratification is among them, that is the path of least resistance, the grooves deepen. "I want.. to sit down, eat, and watch something, and be left alone". Delayed gratification is abstracted enough that moment-to-moment desire leads you off course. If we have in us a desire for validation or high-level engagement which drives us to do something, keeping an eye on the prize may mean disposing with whatever the imminent "X" is right now. The point of frustration is that these motivators, which drive us to try to master something, can be tepid or inconsistent and therefore insufficient. You end up needing a sense of obligation, i.e. discipline. At least for me, getting anything done means creating habits, because 'desire' is a shot in the dark. There's a quote from somewhere that power is "acting in the face of uncertainty". Desire and motivation is a murky area to me, beyond obvious things.
- comboy 5y ago
  In my opinion you do not need discipline and forcing yourself to do anything. Introspection and retrospection is enough. You want to watch something or play something? Go for it. What is the reason not to if you want to? When you watch yourself then you notice that you seem miserable just doing A but you felt great doing B. That's enough. Now it's part of the function. Trying to force yourself to do something is like trying to lift yourself up by your trousers. Ultimately it's you that eventually decide that you want to do it now, the rest is some unnecessarily complex story. You want to do things you want in life. Forcing yourself to do anything is just a story. If you eliminate wishful thinking, then wanting some goal in the future is the same as wanting taking to take some action now that you know is necessary. Any time I catch myself thinking that I'm doing or about to do something that I think I don't want to do, I do a bit of debugging and untangle the story in my head. Probably not explained clear enough. But basically eliminating wishful thinking and realizing that >> I only do things I want << did wonders to me. Habits are still powerful given the above, but observing them I don't have habits which I don't want to have - I usually rather fix the story than behavior, so there's also that. "keeping eye on the prize" and such - there is no cake (and I think that's great)
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    > Trying to force yourself to do something is like trying to lift yourself up by your trousers. Everyone who's had to practice 1000s of hours has had to have discipline.
    - comboy 5y ago
      Who says you have to practice? In the context of coding I just craved it, never needed any discipline. With music most seem to learn like the author just wanting to create something and learning along the way rather than "now it's time for my 2 hours of ableton practice" With instruments I think the situation is pathological. We teach everybody to learn the exact same things, scales, patterns and chords in the exact same way, and then ask them to be original. But you can just take an instrument and start making random sounds, better and better over time because there's tight feedback loop linked with your music perception. And sure, you won't be able to play what others have played - but you will be able to express yourself in an unique way. I think most of those who did spend 1000s of hours on specific thing, did not require any discipline to do these things. They just wanted to do them. Even if they sucked at it.