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> Volunteering and traveling both put you in a position you are not normally in. Volunteering is work. Sometimes hard work, back breaking even. I don't do it f

by sown 13y ago

> Volunteering and traveling both put you in a position you are not normally in. Volunteering is work. Sometimes hard work, back breaking even. I don't do it for fun, and certainly not the pay. I did it a few times to try to see what it is people get from it, and while it was nice to help people in need, I don't see it as you listed. I'll probably do it again soon because someone has to do the work. > It's mind-expansion. It's fun. It's rewarding. You make new friends. You find new things to love. Your perceptions change. You become a different person. I don't see it as, "Man, you blew my mind" type expansion (what ever that means). In fact, a lot of what you just said could be applied to just plain work. Again, either people are getting something from it that I don't 'get' without having someone enunciate exactly what it is or people who give this advice don't really volunteer, or something that needs explaining to me.

graeme 13y ago
Have you ever learned another language, or lived in another country for an extended period of time? Often when people say 'travel' they mean immerse yourself in another culture. One of the deepest learning experiences you can have that forever changes your view of the world and your own culture. You may have already had that. But if you haven't, understand that travel is as varied a thing as reading. There is a vast difference between War and Peace and a blog post.
- sown 13y ago
  > Have you ever learned another language, or lived in another country for an extended period of time. Yes and yes. > Often when people say 'travel' they mean immerse yourself in another culture. One of the deepest learning experiences you can have that forever changes your view of the world and your own culture. I think the loose definition might be part of the problem. Some people might say that going to the west coast for a week and telling everyone how they touched a whale was like being born again vs living in another country for a month is confusing, and doesn't seem like the same problem. Still, having lived in another country where I could vaguely speak the language didn't seem so magical.
  - L0j1k 13y ago
    An important part of this equation is why you lived in that country. If you spent a month in Canada for work expecting "the travel experience", you're doing it wrong. The point here is to spend "a significant enough" amount of time in "a significant enough" of a different culture such that you gain some insight into humanity that you otherwise don't get from eating out at Chili's on Wednesdays, or any of the other huge number of vapid things most people fill their lives with, especially in the United States. Or, join the army, and see the other side of travel. And that's a serious suggestion.
  - peterwwillis 13y ago
    The definition is loose because everyone does it differently, and finds something different. You should look into Buddhism, or Yoga (which is many many things, only one of which is doing poses on the floor). What most people never understand is that there is a lot of introspection, thinking, reflecting, noticing, altering, and understanding that you should be doing. One example: by concentrating on your breathing (and I mean really noticing everything about every aspect of the action of taking a breath and what happens before, during, after, etc etc) you will learn things. You will learn how your body works. You will learn what it sounds like when you breathe. You will learn how deep a breath you can take. You will learn how long you can hold it. You will learn how your posture can affect it. You will learn how your breath affects your immediate surrounding. How it can affect your mood. How it can alter sensation. How it can be changed. How it can be tuned. And a million more things, just from spending time thinking about and tinkering with your breathing. You can take this one concept of constantly noticing, evaluating, and learning about all the possible aspects of one single thing, and begin to do the same thing as you travel, or as you volunteer, or as you do any thing at all. This is why the concepts of travel, volunteer, etc are so broad. There is an infinite number of possible things to influence your brain, which will alter every possible thing about you (the way you think, talk, speak, act, etc). But you can't just stand in a room and wait for enlightenment. It's an active process. You must seek out change by taking everything in and thinking about it. It doesn't happen overnight.
    - eloff 13y ago
      Reading your description of all the things you can learn about your own breathing reminds me of a line in a Seinfeld episode when Tia the model turns to Jerry and says: "I've never met a man who knew so much about nothing"
Amadou 13y ago
I don't think there is anything more to it. I think it is a matter of personality or perhaps something along the lines of "neural wiring." I feel pretty much the same as you do - for stuff like this the juice just isn't worth the squeeze. I think that for some people the juice just tastes better - maybe they have "taste buds" that I lack or maybe I have a much better imagination such that the difference between the actual "juice" and just thinking about the juice is much smaller. FWIW, I also get no pleasure out of physical activity, no runner's high and after working with a physical trainer 4 days a week for two years getting into shape and dropping 75lbs to a normal weight I felt no better than I did when I was fat - the only difference that was perceptible to me was that my old clothes were too loose. Maybe that's all related, maybe not.
- circlefavshape 13y ago
  fwiw I never got any pleasure out of physical training either - lifting weights, running, etc is just pure tedium for me. I do, however, get a surprising emotional boost from physical work. Axe, shovel, sledgehammer, wheelbarrow. I don't so it all that regularly, and the effects would no doubt wear off pretty damn fast if it was my day job, but when I do it invariably puts a smile on my face
potatolicious 13y ago
Firstly, since I don't want to spam replies, a comment on an earlier post: > "Yelling at people doesn't help. It kind of feels like people are telling a person to just cheer up if they're clinically depressed." Except it's completely different. "Go interact with human beings" is actionable advice, he even listed a whole bunch of ways by which this interaction can be achieved. This is very different than a general, un-actionable "just get better, duh". To do what he suggests you literally just follow his post. His advice is IMO relevant - just like when I'm feeling frustrated at work my coworker tells me to go take a walk. It's directly actionable, and it works. > "I did it a few times to try to see what it is people get from it" I think this is at least part of the problem. This is sort of like saying "I picked up a basketball a few times, I just don't get it", or "I sat in front of a piano and hit some keys, but I still don't get it". Volunteering is not some kind of religious experience where you go and 30 minutes later you've received the Divine Revelation of Why This Matters. There is no magical threshold where you will suddenly be dumbstruck with All The Volunteering Secrets. If you want to grok volunteering, you need to have more than a glancing blow with it. You will not collect the rewards on the first day, or the second, or the third.

by sown 13y ago

graeme 13y ago

Have you ever learned another language, or lived in another country for an extended period of time? Often when people say 'travel' they mean immerse yourself in another culture. One of the deepest learning experiences you can have that forever changes your view of the world and your own culture. You may have already had that. But if you haven't, understand that travel is as varied a thing as reading. There is a vast difference between War and Peace and a blog post.

sown 13y ago
> Have you ever learned another language, or lived in another country for an extended period of time. Yes and yes. > Often when people say 'travel' they mean immerse yourself in another culture. One of the deepest learning experiences you can have that forever changes your view of the world and your own culture. I think the loose definition might be part of the problem. Some people might say that going to the west coast for a week and telling everyone how they touched a whale was like being born again vs living in another country for a month is confusing, and doesn't seem like the same problem. Still, having lived in another country where I could vaguely speak the language didn't seem so magical.
- L0j1k 13y ago
  An important part of this equation is why you lived in that country. If you spent a month in Canada for work expecting "the travel experience", you're doing it wrong. The point here is to spend "a significant enough" amount of time in "a significant enough" of a different culture such that you gain some insight into humanity that you otherwise don't get from eating out at Chili's on Wednesdays, or any of the other huge number of vapid things most people fill their lives with, especially in the United States. Or, join the army, and see the other side of travel. And that's a serious suggestion.
- peterwwillis 13y ago
  The definition is loose because everyone does it differently, and finds something different. You should look into Buddhism, or Yoga (which is many many things, only one of which is doing poses on the floor). What most people never understand is that there is a lot of introspection, thinking, reflecting, noticing, altering, and understanding that you should be doing. One example: by concentrating on your breathing (and I mean really noticing everything about every aspect of the action of taking a breath and what happens before, during, after, etc etc) you will learn things. You will learn how your body works. You will learn what it sounds like when you breathe. You will learn how deep a breath you can take. You will learn how long you can hold it. You will learn how your posture can affect it. You will learn how your breath affects your immediate surrounding. How it can affect your mood. How it can alter sensation. How it can be changed. How it can be tuned. And a million more things, just from spending time thinking about and tinkering with your breathing. You can take this one concept of constantly noticing, evaluating, and learning about all the possible aspects of one single thing, and begin to do the same thing as you travel, or as you volunteer, or as you do any thing at all. This is why the concepts of travel, volunteer, etc are so broad. There is an infinite number of possible things to influence your brain, which will alter every possible thing about you (the way you think, talk, speak, act, etc). But you can't just stand in a room and wait for enlightenment. It's an active process. You must seek out change by taking everything in and thinking about it. It doesn't happen overnight.
  - eloff 13y ago
    Reading your description of all the things you can learn about your own breathing reminds me of a line in a Seinfeld episode when Tia the model turns to Jerry and says: "I've never met a man who knew so much about nothing"

Amadou 13y ago

I don't think there is anything more to it. I think it is a matter of personality or perhaps something along the lines of "neural wiring." I feel pretty much the same as you do - for stuff like this the juice just isn't worth the squeeze. I think that for some people the juice just tastes better - maybe they have "taste buds" that I lack or maybe I have a much better imagination such that the difference between the actual "juice" and just thinking about the juice is much smaller. FWIW, I also get no pleasure out of physical activity, no runner's high and after working with a physical trainer 4 days a week for two years getting into shape and dropping 75lbs to a normal weight I felt no better than I did when I was fat - the only difference that was perceptible to me was that my old clothes were too loose. Maybe that's all related, maybe not.

circlefavshape 13y ago
fwiw I never got any pleasure out of physical training either - lifting weights, running, etc is just pure tedium for me. I do, however, get a surprising emotional boost from physical work. Axe, shovel, sledgehammer, wheelbarrow. I don't so it all that regularly, and the effects would no doubt wear off pretty damn fast if it was my day job, but when I do it invariably puts a smile on my face

potatolicious 13y ago

Firstly, since I don't want to spam replies, a comment on an earlier post: > "Yelling at people doesn't help. It kind of feels like people are telling a person to just cheer up if they're clinically depressed." Except it's completely different. "Go interact with human beings" is actionable advice, he even listed a whole bunch of ways by which this interaction can be achieved. This is very different than a general, un-actionable "just get better, duh". To do what he suggests you literally just follow his post. His advice is IMO relevant - just like when I'm feeling frustrated at work my coworker tells me to go take a walk. It's directly actionable, and it works. > "I did it a few times to try to see what it is people get from it" I think this is at least part of the problem. This is sort of like saying "I picked up a basketball a few times, I just don't get it", or "I sat in front of a piano and hit some keys, but I still don't get it". Volunteering is not some kind of religious experience where you go and 30 minutes later you've received the Divine Revelation of Why This Matters. There is no magical threshold where you will suddenly be dumbstruck with All The Volunteering Secrets. If you want to grok volunteering, you need to have more than a glancing blow with it. You will not collect the rewards on the first day, or the second, or the third.