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I used to be similar and here is what I do now: - Avoid the news. 99% is rubbish and the other 1% isn't going to have any effect on you. If anything is importa

I used to be similar and here is what I do now: - Avoid the news. 99% is rubbish and the other 1% isn't going to have any effect on you. If anything is important enough you'll hear about it anyway (from talking to people, Facebook, etc). I only read HN and a few Reddits regularly now, but even most of that is rubbish. If you hear about a news topic that is interesting to you, sure go read into it, but you aren't going to gain anything from constantly checking the news 'just in case' you miss something. - Don't care about TV / movies / books / articles. Nothing you read / watch is going to dramatically change your life, so don't feel you are missing out. Again the good stuff will bubble up to you somehow. (Don't care doesn't mean don't consume, I still take a break to watch shows and movies every so often, but I don't do it religiously). After Google Reader shutdown I didn't bother finding a replacement and I don't feel any less of it now. - Meditation. There are lots of different branches of meditation, rather than focusing on a single problem the one I do has you focus on thinking about nothing. You just need to observe any thoughts instead of following them, and eventually your mind will be silent. It's leads to greater mindfulness which means being present in the moment rather than thinking about the past or future.

jodrellblank 12y ago
Don't care about TV / movies / books / articles. Nothing you read / watch is going to dramatically change your life Then what will? How will you escape any local maxima without input from far away - far away in location, far away in time, far away in concept and ideas, far away in political, social, economic, artistic, &c. worldview from where you are? Why would you skip the lessons other people took decades to learn, to refuse to learn from history and from others outside your immediate contacts, on principle?
- deleted 12y ago
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- gravedave 12y ago
  >Then what will? So you assume that TV (80% crap), movies (pure entertainment, excluding documentaries, which are also mostly crap anyway), books (60% crap) and articles (90% assholes with opinions) are the only possible sources of information? Do you really think there's nothing conspicuously missing from there? Here's a hint: it's the origin of all the above and can provide more than all of them combined.
  - jodrellblank 12y ago
    Look how often the writings of Marcus Aurelius pop up on HN. Are you suggesting it's easier to go talk to him than it is to read his writings? Or that the people you talk to can and will tell you everything his writings could teach you? No I'm not tautologically suggesting that awful TV shows are amazing. Nor am I saying that you can't learn from living people you talk to, which is why I qualified with 'local maxima' and 'far away'. Your friends, your HN topic choices, your business contacts, are to some extent an echo chamber of people doing things you do, liking things you like, sharing the world views you share. Reading the life experience of people who did things we can't do, experienced things we will never experience, lived in political and social situations that don't exist anymore, saw and dreamed of things in ways we just aren't thinking about ... is pretty unique.

jodrellblank 12y ago

Don't care about TV / movies / books / articles. Nothing you read / watch is going to dramatically change your life Then what will? How will you escape any local maxima without input from far away - far away in location, far away in time, far away in concept and ideas, far away in political, social, economic, artistic, &c. worldview from where you are? Why would you skip the lessons other people took decades to learn, to refuse to learn from history and from others outside your immediate contacts, on principle?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
gravedave 12y ago
>Then what will? So you assume that TV (80% crap), movies (pure entertainment, excluding documentaries, which are also mostly crap anyway), books (60% crap) and articles (90% assholes with opinions) are the only possible sources of information? Do you really think there's nothing conspicuously missing from there? Here's a hint: it's the origin of all the above and can provide more than all of them combined.
- jodrellblank 12y ago
  Look how often the writings of Marcus Aurelius pop up on HN. Are you suggesting it's easier to go talk to him than it is to read his writings? Or that the people you talk to can and will tell you everything his writings could teach you? No I'm not tautologically suggesting that awful TV shows are amazing. Nor am I saying that you can't learn from living people you talk to, which is why I qualified with 'local maxima' and 'far away'. Your friends, your HN topic choices, your business contacts, are to some extent an echo chamber of people doing things you do, liking things you like, sharing the world views you share. Reading the life experience of people who did things we can't do, experienced things we will never experience, lived in political and social situations that don't exist anymore, saw and dreamed of things in ways we just aren't thinking about ... is pretty unique.