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>> I cannot take seriously all these fleeting pastimes and bucket lists and ultra-specific cultural critiques when the world is a horrible place that is going t

>> I cannot take seriously all these fleeting pastimes and bucket lists and ultra-specific cultural critiques when the world is a horrible place that is going to implode soon if we don't do something about it. This seems to preemptively foreclose interest in any kind of initial conversation or meeting anyone where they are. And does so because there's something more important. Everything everyone does is a waste of time because the world is imploding and we should be doing something about it. Well, what's the author doing about it? Volunteering? They might meet people they wanted to talk to, even agreed with and could have serious conversations about non-ephemeral things with, if they spent some time trying to be part of the solution, by helping any of literally thousands of organizations that could make use of their time and energy to try to prevent or reduce the severity of an implosion. Otherwise how is sitting around feeling sorry for yourself any more noble than people doing their bucket lists or having stupid surface level conversations?

koboll 4y ago
That line revealed to me, as someone who has dealt with similar things, that his real problem now is depression. It's not just sadness, it's an inability to perceive a future where things get better, or even a future at all. Sadly this mentality tends to make it more difficult to do the things you need to dig yourself out of a depressive episode. It's self-reinforcing.
eloisius 4y ago
I agree, and I'm surprised to see so much positive feedback in the comments here. Being disinterested in 99.9% of what other people care about isn't special or interesting. It's just refusing to meet people where they are. If someone is too special for you to connect with, I guarantee that ascending to the lofty heights that they think they inhabit to engage with them will not be worth it. Even if they could articulate where they want you to meet them, and then you went out on a limb to discuss supernovae collapses, or whatever big important thing, I think you'll discover that their special tower above all the fleeting pastimes and bucket lists of the normies would suddenly shift to yet another inaccessible place. People who genuinely inhabit interesting or rare positions or have special life experiences still love to share their story with other people. No one lives in a tower because their ideals and life story are too special for anyone else to get. They build walls to keep people away. Of course it's never a good idea to tell someone else why they do something, especially a stranger on the internet, but in my experience with people that do this, it's not because they are special, but rather because they are not, and they like the game of making other people pursue them while they continually shift the field so you can never get to them. It's best not to play. If they get lonely enough, they'll do something about it. Hopefully it's a group activity, therapy, or a dose of humble medicine and going to talk about the weather with strangers at a language exchange meetup.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  > Being disinterested in 99.9% of what other people care about isn't special or interesting. The fact that you think this tells me that you cannot meet me where I am. > People who genuinely inhabit interesting or rare positions or have special life experiences still love to share their story with other people. Appeal to purity. >It's best not to play. If they get lonely enough, they'll do something about it. Yes, it has led to at least one of my attempted suicides.
  - noduerme 4y ago
    Come on. You can disdain everyone and everything, and claim that people are incapable of having a serious conversation, and where does that get you? To a world where you believe no one is as smart as you and no one can possibly relate to what you're going through? Have you stopped to consider that all the human beings on this board, and even those around you on the street, have inner lives and complicated thoughts and sometimes when they talk "surface level" they're just trying to establish communication so they might be able to talk more seriously once they get to know you? People are a jewel box. You find the good in them among the garbage, and almost every person has something you can absorb from them, even the negative ones. This is called being a member of your species. Like it or not, you are one. Look around and instead of feeling superior, appreciate the fact that every other human here has trodden upon the same lonely paths that you have.
    - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
      > You can disdain everyone and everything I can, but I am not. > and claim that people are incapable of having a serious conversation It is not about seriousness, it’s about my interests. > You find the good in them among the garbage I’m not saying what they like to talk about is garbage, I’m just not interested in it. You’re the one making the value judgment. I don’t think that people who talk about football are stupid or disinteresting or lowbrow, I’m just not interested in it. > Look around and instead of feeling superior, I do not feel superior, I feel inferior. You see, you cannot come to my level. I’m not saying it is higher or lower, maybe just different. Not better, different.
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
> This seems to preemptively foreclose interest in any kind of initial conversation or meeting anyone where they are. Everyone wants us to meet people where they are, yet no one wants to meet people where we are. You see, if you do not understand what we are going through, you can not meet us where we are. It is hard, maybe impossible, for you to meet us where we are, harder than it is for us to meet you where you are. I would no doubt be able to talk with this man and we would know where we both are. I volunteer, but that does not do anything. Yeah, it helps others, but it does not help others meet me where I am. It is like you are telling Aurê that he has to meet everyone where they are. (If you think I am being condescending writing this then that proves you cannot meet where I am.)
- noduerme 4y ago
  I don't think it's condescending, I just think if you find yourself in a situation where you actually need to work with other people, it becomes impossible to view them as one-dimensional checklists. Maybe they don't like you or you don't like them, but you can no longer simplify each other so easily. And maybe in the end you think that wasn't worth it, but you still take something from the interaction. For the record, I'm not telling you what to do or how you should feel about people. I've spent so many years in roles facing groups of people that, at times I love them and at other times I want to kill them. That's just how it goes. Hell is other people, said Sartre. Of course he also meant that being abandoned by them is hell, too. I'm not trying to be opaque here. I'll say what I meant more plainly: If you have any humility or self-awareness, you will realize that nothing, absolutely nothing you are experiencing has not been experienced before. You are entirely unique, but your reactions to the world are not, and there's a great deal to be learned about how to be okay in the world which other people will be happy to show you if you don't deny your commonality with them.
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    > you find yourself in a situation where you actually need to work with other people, How can I get this across to you. I work with people all the time. What I am saying is that they do not work with me. There is nothing I can do to change that and it is lonely. When I talk about the things I want to talk about after listening to them for hours I get strange looks and they change the conversation. This does not happen with everyone, but it happens with the majority of people I meet. How does someone who sees the ultra violet spectrum of light share that experience to someone who does not? For a white European I know I am neurologically genetically different than most. (Yes, I know my genetics). This has caused me to express a bipolar schizoaffective phenotype every know and them, but ordinarily it makes me different. So even coming here of Hacker News, most every thing I say gets downvoted before people even ask me why I think the way I do. But you know, it is so easy to get up votes here, just submit a post about ADHD. ;) So like I said, I can meet people where they are, but I do no think people want to try to meet me where I am since they can just quickly find someone else like them in the world.

koboll 4y ago

That line revealed to me, as someone who has dealt with similar things, that his real problem now is depression. It's not just sadness, it's an inability to perceive a future where things get better, or even a future at all. Sadly this mentality tends to make it more difficult to do the things you need to dig yourself out of a depressive episode. It's self-reinforcing.

eloisius 4y ago

I agree, and I'm surprised to see so much positive feedback in the comments here. Being disinterested in 99.9% of what other people care about isn't special or interesting. It's just refusing to meet people where they are. If someone is too special for you to connect with, I guarantee that ascending to the lofty heights that they think they inhabit to engage with them will not be worth it. Even if they could articulate where they want you to meet them, and then you went out on a limb to discuss supernovae collapses, or whatever big important thing, I think you'll discover that their special tower above all the fleeting pastimes and bucket lists of the normies would suddenly shift to yet another inaccessible place. People who genuinely inhabit interesting or rare positions or have special life experiences still love to share their story with other people. No one lives in a tower because their ideals and life story are too special for anyone else to get. They build walls to keep people away. Of course it's never a good idea to tell someone else why they do something, especially a stranger on the internet, but in my experience with people that do this, it's not because they are special, but rather because they are not, and they like the game of making other people pursue them while they continually shift the field so you can never get to them. It's best not to play. If they get lonely enough, they'll do something about it. Hopefully it's a group activity, therapy, or a dose of humble medicine and going to talk about the weather with strangers at a language exchange meetup.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago
> Being disinterested in 99.9% of what other people care about isn't special or interesting. The fact that you think this tells me that you cannot meet me where I am. > People who genuinely inhabit interesting or rare positions or have special life experiences still love to share their story with other people. Appeal to purity. >It's best not to play. If they get lonely enough, they'll do something about it. Yes, it has led to at least one of my attempted suicides.
- noduerme 4y ago
  Come on. You can disdain everyone and everything, and claim that people are incapable of having a serious conversation, and where does that get you? To a world where you believe no one is as smart as you and no one can possibly relate to what you're going through? Have you stopped to consider that all the human beings on this board, and even those around you on the street, have inner lives and complicated thoughts and sometimes when they talk "surface level" they're just trying to establish communication so they might be able to talk more seriously once they get to know you? People are a jewel box. You find the good in them among the garbage, and almost every person has something you can absorb from them, even the negative ones. This is called being a member of your species. Like it or not, you are one. Look around and instead of feeling superior, appreciate the fact that every other human here has trodden upon the same lonely paths that you have.
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    > You can disdain everyone and everything I can, but I am not. > and claim that people are incapable of having a serious conversation It is not about seriousness, it’s about my interests. > You find the good in them among the garbage I’m not saying what they like to talk about is garbage, I’m just not interested in it. You’re the one making the value judgment. I don’t think that people who talk about football are stupid or disinteresting or lowbrow, I’m just not interested in it. > Look around and instead of feeling superior, I do not feel superior, I feel inferior. You see, you cannot come to my level. I’m not saying it is higher or lower, maybe just different. Not better, different.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

> This seems to preemptively foreclose interest in any kind of initial conversation or meeting anyone where they are. Everyone wants us to meet people where they are, yet no one wants to meet people where we are. You see, if you do not understand what we are going through, you can not meet us where we are. It is hard, maybe impossible, for you to meet us where we are, harder than it is for us to meet you where you are. I would no doubt be able to talk with this man and we would know where we both are. I volunteer, but that does not do anything. Yeah, it helps others, but it does not help others meet me where I am. It is like you are telling Aurê that he has to meet everyone where they are. (If you think I am being condescending writing this then that proves you cannot meet where I am.)

noduerme 4y ago
I don't think it's condescending, I just think if you find yourself in a situation where you actually need to work with other people, it becomes impossible to view them as one-dimensional checklists. Maybe they don't like you or you don't like them, but you can no longer simplify each other so easily. And maybe in the end you think that wasn't worth it, but you still take something from the interaction. For the record, I'm not telling you what to do or how you should feel about people. I've spent so many years in roles facing groups of people that, at times I love them and at other times I want to kill them. That's just how it goes. Hell is other people, said Sartre. Of course he also meant that being abandoned by them is hell, too. I'm not trying to be opaque here. I'll say what I meant more plainly: If you have any humility or self-awareness, you will realize that nothing, absolutely nothing you are experiencing has not been experienced before. You are entirely unique, but your reactions to the world are not, and there's a great deal to be learned about how to be okay in the world which other people will be happy to show you if you don't deny your commonality with them.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  > you find yourself in a situation where you actually need to work with other people, How can I get this across to you. I work with people all the time. What I am saying is that they do not work with me. There is nothing I can do to change that and it is lonely. When I talk about the things I want to talk about after listening to them for hours I get strange looks and they change the conversation. This does not happen with everyone, but it happens with the majority of people I meet. How does someone who sees the ultra violet spectrum of light share that experience to someone who does not? For a white European I know I am neurologically genetically different than most. (Yes, I know my genetics). This has caused me to express a bipolar schizoaffective phenotype every know and them, but ordinarily it makes me different. So even coming here of Hacker News, most every thing I say gets downvoted before people even ask me why I think the way I do. But you know, it is so easy to get up votes here, just submit a post about ADHD. ;) So like I said, I can meet people where they are, but I do no think people want to try to meet me where I am since they can just quickly find someone else like them in the world.