This year I learned a hard lesson in personal life and realized that playing a "Providing Hero" is a poor life choice. It just makes you open to exploitation especially by close family where your guards are down.
I've learned that if you don't make a decision, that decision will be made for you. This is the most important lesson i learned this year. Never procrastinate on making important decisions, be decisive and be ready to weather consequences.
I heard a really similar thing about suffering – which can be a decision if you want it to be.
Choose what you'll suffer for, or someone else will choose for you. In other words, you're going to hurt, and struggle, and have your patience tried for something. Pick something you actually want and suffer intentionally for it, or you'll suffer for nothing as a consequence of trying to avoid hardship.
I am stealing this quote from you. It is print worthy. On similar lines I have started to feel that happy life is not necessarily a good life. Often they don't gel together well.
Unhappy struggle for the principle is way better than living a false Facebook Happy Life.
I don't own that quote – I wish I could claim to have known that innately rather than having to hear and learn it in times of pain.
The thing you said about happy life not being good life is dead on IMO. Happiness != comfort != meaning. Optimize for meaning.
I didn't attribute this quote because hackernews relentlessly downvotes him, but I learned all of this from Jordan Peterson, who has done more than most other people for helping me unfuck my life and be a better man.
He's a problematic dude sometimes, including his takes on climate science, but his youtube courses Maps of Meaning are immensely insightful if you're willing to suspend disbelief and listen abstractly and in good faith.
Great guy. Really interesting insights and ideas. Every word he says has a meaning. It is really hard to listen to someone like him talking. You have to pay attention to each word because that will change the meaning of the whole thing.
He uses meaningful and precise words. Not just empty and unfounded ideas.
edit: now I see how it works. Got downvoted for mentioning JP.
Your Environment is more powerful than you willpower.
I found that to be very true. After 2 years abroad and living through a lot of very intense experiences and changes I thought I was a "new man", and indeed, I learned and changed a lot.
Then when I came back home I hang out with my old friends in our old places and I fell back into my old behavior immediately.
That's why its so hard to start working out at home, because your walls of your apartment\house tell you to keep doing what you always do in there, i.e. not working out.
Change is hard, and like you said it's easy to fall into the same old habits. Something that has worked for me is to change something small at first. Maybe redecorate your room a little bit, or always make your bed, or always keep your room clean. Then build off of that.
You're in your old city again, but you don't have to go to the places you used to, try a new lunch/dinner/beer spot. You spent 2 years abroad, you have the ability to adventure, and there's probably a ton of new people and experiences awaiting you if you get back off the beaten path in the very city you live.
I think all those pop psychology books have done a great disservice to us. It give us false confidence that by applying some " principles" you will influence the situation and arrive at a better outcome.
In reality you influence nothing unless you have something they want.
I learned that withdrawing into yourself when an asshole treats your poorly is the wrong thing to do.
Shutting out may feel comfortable and safe, but leaves you unaccustomed to dealing with emotional disturbances. It makes you soft.
If you are upset by someone else, it's only because you've let their negativity into you, so to speak. The world has an endless supply of assholes, and tomorrow you may face another one. Fortify your mind by maintaining your course.
I learned from Sapolky's Biology of Human Behaviour that most species, including some bacteria and female bats, naturally have an almost optimal strategy (according to game theory) when dealing with situations like the one you described: you always treat others nicely by default, but as soon they behave like asses you respond in kind, but then, as soon as they are nice (again?), so are you. My wife had issues like yours in the office this year, and I advised her just like this. Worked like a charm.
As a relatively younger person, I definitely had a much different impression/expectation of the American political system than what I'm seeing play out.
It seems far more brittle and volatile than I had envisioned it growing up. Now, something sacred like the concept of checks and balances seems a distant ideal at best.
Was the "adult perception" that government is always this chaotic, am I just more perceptive to all the machinations now that I'm older, or are things really "different this time"? I'd imagine the Bush era was also very chaotic.
I guess the lesson learned here is how brittle of a foundation many power structures in the world are built on and how quickly those can shift.
I think government is one of those things that is clean cut and beautiful in the abstract, and an absolute clusterfuck in reality. There are plenty of people who would say the same thing about the Obama era. It really just depends what team you're rooting for.
The thing, in my opinion, that is the single biggest merit of the American political system is that reality that most people are self-interested jerks is built in. People are expected to not see eye to eye, the "checks and balances" are in place not to make us all agree, but to keep things functioning well enough that we don't turn violent.
To stop complaining to others, on internet, and to my self, it kicks starts cycle of medicority.
Phrase next Facebook won't look like Facebook really settled in when I saw rise of twitch despite there being YouTube.
Very few actually want to do startups or at least sacrifice that a founder ought to make.
There are no Junior jobs in tech. Skill gap is either imaginary or only applicable to senior Dev jobs.
It further cemented that having a degree from ivy college is an extreme advantage to every state of startup... Except maybe finding product fit. Definitely a plus when trying to get funding, find cofounder, get University perks, even in b2b getting them on board.
Realization I don't have enough life experience to know of problems that could be startup idea... And I don't know how to solve it.
Telling someone you're going to do something is great way to never do it.
Haha, as a dabbler I tried React quickly realized it's meant for big teams who can take their own sweet time gluing components to routers,routers to services and so on.
Angular on the other-hand provides everything under one single framework which is a huge advantage if you are the only one working.
> It further cemented that having a degree from ivy college is an extreme advantage to every state of startup...
> Telling someone you're going to do something is great way to never do it.
This is very interesting and unexpected. I'd always thought that telling someone would help with follow-through since you're now committed. On a side-project I was working on, it started out well, but as I kept discussing what was next, I found myself completing less and less. The trick here must then be just to discuss what you've completed and any discussions of next steps should be open rather than 'decided'.
it's like getting that satisfaction and after you have had it by telling someone then relatively speaking actually doing it isn't going to make you look that much better.
it's like when you tell someone you get 70% social boost.
When you do it it's only 30% short term boost in social status, but who cares about 30%. You already got the most out of this whole deal BEFORE the hardwork.
I've found even telling people when you 95% done affects hugely. Don't tell, dont brag, dont show off, in fact try to hide so people can't connect dots and find you on linkedin.
I deferred design decisions to people I thought knew more than me, due to still being relatively new to the field, and it turns out I was (probably) right, and just didn't have the confidence to assert my reasons.
Outside of HN topics, I learned that nothing really matters outside of the health of your family.
I learned I'm more capable than I imagined. I was a mediocre student through HS and undergrad, and managed to talk my way into a really good PhD program I started this fall. All the other students were stellar students and just seemed so much more qualified, and I really doubted if I could make it.
I did well enough in my fall classes (hardest math I've ever taken, skipping multiple pre reqs) to move on and I feel I've found my research interest at least for now. I'm excited every day to work on my research/coding and honestly am 100x happier than I was at my old job even though I'm working about 5x the hours.
I was really worried from the get-go I would not be able to pass the hard classes. But shit, I did it! I feel I can just do so much more.
Awesome dude! I was in a really similar situation last year. I still felt I was unqualified until earlier this year (oh I passed that class but it was supposed to be easy etc etc). But I passed the “screening exam” that many very qualified driven students fail the first time. That definitely helped with the imposter syndrome.
1. Relationships:
After surviving my divorce, I was more grateful than ever to live the bachelor life but it was not until I decided that I never want to enter another relationship that I was able to fully redirect my energy towards other areas of my life.
2. Diet:
- Carbs: People are becoming obese because excessive sugar has become a normalized addition to their diet.
- OMAD: Not only is it possible to eat once a day without adverse side effects, it's actually healthy to do so.
- Extended fasting: It's even possible to go for multiple days without eating if you manage your electrolytes (look up snake diet on youtube) and this also has great benefits.
3. Listen to more music: It's one of the simplest ways to alter your mood for the better.
I was thinking of saying the same thing about item 2. It goes along with my book recommendation from the book recommendation thread: The Obesity Code, by Jason Fung M.D. (And/or his Aetiology of Obesity YouTube videos.) For one thing it made me realize why my original "scientific" (I thought) plan for weight loss by counting calories compared to what FitBit thought my calorie expenditure was didn't actually work. For one thing, I didn't know that if you're eating insulinogenic foods (which isn't the same as high glycemic foods), eating frequent, small meals, your energy expenditure actually can decrease. That's something those BMR calculators don't consider at all. But if you are fasting, it actually goes up.
Ah, I see you are also familiar with the snake diet guy. He's a bit out there sometimes. (Last weekend he did a live video of eating several pounds of raw beef.) Where he is aligned with Jason Fung, I can get behind him.
As a former fat guy, on number 2, it's more than just sugar. It's quantity. Skinny/normal people really just don't get how much food a fat person eats. It's insane. Like the thing you mention about skipping meals, fat people don't do that unless it's to skip the fifth meal.
Most people do not count calories. They eat until they feel full and this usually worked out okay.
But now things like white bread, cereal and pancakes have become a regular staple of their diets. These high carb, low fiber foods have a lesser effect on satiety, so people consume more calories before they feel full and the excessive level of carbs in their system discourages their body from burning the fat they already have.
An important thing to realize is that the physical fat that you have on you is fuel. When/what you eat determines whether or not your body uses that source of fuel.
I learned that I need coworkers and a proper work community. Joining a good company as an employee after running my own business from home feels like such a great breath of fresh air.
I went the same route. After six years of freelancing and remote work, I decided to head back to a permanent job and into the office to seek out the community that it offers.
There is so much inertia in a big organization if you want to do something, it is better not to ask and work on it and keep pushing things forward until someone explicitly ask you to stop. It is not productive and possibly dangerous to be waiting for approval or even guidance, when there is so many things to do and no one offer to help, stop looking for guidance, dive deep into the code, solve the problems and make a defense of your solutions.
That was a life changing lesson. I became more productive I got rejections a couple of times, but the rate of success was way more than I expected.
I'd been an atheist since 14 and have spent the majority of my life an atheist. I believed that there was insufficient evidence for the existence of God.
In many ways I still believe that. I dont believe in a magic transdimensional entity most people believe in when they talk about God.
However, much like you feel the spirit of celebration when your team scores a goal, or the spirit of accomplishment when you complete a difficult task, or the spirit of Ares when your kid dumps a cup of water on your computer and laughs in your face, God is the spirit of knowing the right thing to do.
God is, at least, a very real force that exists, in part, within us all in Western culture. We've inherited God. That's my conclusion anyway.
To be clear, I'm Christian now, as of August. I take the Bible seriously now. But to be extra clear, I believe it's all metaphor. Metaphor that tells you deep truths about yourself.
For those interested, the catalyst for me was Jordan Peterson's series "The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories", available in full for free on YouTube
I know what you mean. JP's biblical lectures were the first thing that made the concept of "God" as a framework for conduct and interacting with the world into something that was accessible to someone that doesn't believe in fairy tales.
I wouldn't call myself a Christian – I'm athiest, or at least uninterested in prioritizing any diety concept above any other – but being able to finally "get" what (some) religious people see in their texts was awesome.
The biggest help was basically learning to steelman the texts. Rather than viewing them as default stupid and looking for chinks in the armor, viewing them as containing something abstract but useful that I didn't understand and attempting to meditate on what that might be and why it might work has been valuable.
> To be clear, I'm Christian now, as of August. I take the Bible seriously now. But to be extra clear, I believe it's all metaphor.
Isn't that an odd position to take when parts of the Bible insist that it is not metaphorical? (e.g. Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15 about why he believes in Jesus' bodily resurrection and his conclusion that "If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.") I can understand those who believe the Bible to be true (mixed in with some metaphor) and I can understand those who do not believe it to be true. It seems odd, though, to believe that it is entirely metaphorical and decide to take it seriously, given some of what it says.
In Romans 7, Paul makes the argument that he cannot set himself free from sin and he needs God. If you believe the Bible is entirely metaphorical but take it seriously, do you believe you are setting yourself free?
I realized I may not have directly addressed your comment, and I definitely didn't address your last question. In reverse order,
I do believe God is the one setting me free. God, in my view, is at least (and maybe more) a cultural spirit we have inherited. Much of the condition I've been born and raised into was not my choice, God included. I believe I am recognizing and embracing that which is a part of me, and a part of the Christian West in general, at least. Something I've ignored or resisted for most of my life.
With respect to the specific claims of the reality of the legends and metaphors, I try act as if God is real and Christ was resurrected, sure. But I'm not burdened by the question of the nature of the god of Job, for example. It's clear to me that that story is about dealing with tragedy, when it feels like God and Satan are conspiring against you.
Thanks for your comments. It would certainly be hard for me to share as openly as you have here.
I understand from your comments that you have turned to some concept of God (cultural inheritance) in order to find meaning in your life. Different people find meaning in different ideas, people, projects, etc. I don't mean to belabor the point, but I think you have invested meaning in a set of writings that explicitly say that they are meaningless (or worse than harmless) unless certain key parts are historically true, and you explicitly deny the historicity of those parts.
As I have understood your situation, it's a little like a cancer patient being presented with several different options, all with varying probabilities of success and none with any guarantee. After much research and deliberation, the patient knowingly chooses the placebo option. There are obviously some benefits to the placebo option; it just seems that most people in that situation wouldn't choose that option. If you're interested in talking more synchronously, I can be reached via contact information in my profile.
I do believe it is extraordinarily likely that the Bible describes a legendary account about real events or people (and their beliefs) from time to time.
With respect to resurrection there is no end of depth to be extracted from the theme. As a general summary, Christianity introduced the notion to the world that one could even be redeemed at all. When someone returns from the pit of nihilism and jealousy and transforms themselves into a person that faces the world forthrightly, you bet your ass I believe in Resurrection of the Dead. Not the least of which because aforementioned nihilism is a key source of suicide and violent crime. But even metaphorically, there is no life in the pit of nihilism, of hell. When people describe hell as maximal distance from God, what they are saying is true.
If you haven't seen it yet, this video might lend an interesting counterpoint to your "all metaphor" perspective, it has a discussion from Jonathan and Matthieu Pageau who claim "there are no metaphors in the Bible". It tends to fit better with a more traditional/orthodox Christian view.
To offer an alternative viewpoint, have you watched Sam Harris talk about religion on YouTube? He even debated Jordan Peterson about topics such as morality. I like Peterson a lot, but similar to Ben Shapiro, when they talk about religion...all logic, rationality, and objective truth seeking goes out the window.
The so called spirits you talk about are merely emotions.
Religious beliefs are prevelant in Western culture for historical reasons, such that it has become a tradition. Can you imagine the anger, sadness, existential dread, and perhaps violence that would occur if all religious folks found out that their beliefs are perhaps false?
I heavily disagree with you saying that it reveals “deep truths”.
I absolutely have. The four part series between the two was enthralling.
I'm not sure how you could you think logic, rationally, and objective truth seeking go out the window in Jordan's case. I know that sentence is a shibboleth of the secular community, I've said it myself. But it's just inaccurate.
With Sam it's funny. He says he wants to extract the good from the past and in the same breath rejects the good in religion explicitly because it has all this baggage that Jordan explicitly rejects.
I have merely accepted Jordan's assertion that within religion are rational, logical, objective truths about ourselves and human psychology that are not found anywhere else.
I await with bated breath the day Sam can write a story as powerful as Job, teaching the principle that when tragedy strikes it will feel like God and Satan are plotting against you; but the Right Thing to Do when tragedy strikes you is not to reevaluate your foundation, as we are wont to do. There are many other stories in the Bible about what to do you are suffering because of your own choices.
It’s iffy, I think religion is a good bridge to morality, with the storytelling, metaphors, and whatnot. I just don’t buy this as “truth”. We have to consider that morality is not real and it’s a human/social construct to encourage desirable and cooperative behavior. I’m happy that we did create moral and ethical values though, it’s an excellent way to further the human race and ensure future survival without having to constantly worry about chaotic behavior, similar to (good) government laws.
I take the practical and actionable approach. When tragedy strikes I feel sad. That’s it. We can certainly describe the feeling in different ways using our wonderful literary methods such as metaphors, similes, etc. but at its basic core is the emotion of sadness. But what do you mean not re-evaluate the foundation? When tragedy strikes we should probably figure out how it happened and then take steps to prevent it from occurring again, a simple cause and effect analysis.
One more thing: there's an important distinction I should make more clear: tragedy and hell.
Tragedy is your environment. Its the tornado, or whirlwind [in which the God of the story of Job appears]. It's car accidents and health problems and kidnappings. These can lay you low. But the wrong thing to do in the despair of tragedy is to blame your foundation for them.
Hell, you create. You own it. You acheive it. It's your fault. And your foundation is the cause. Reevaluate when you find yourself in hell. It's the only hope of a way out.
You know, people, including myself before I understood, like to cite Matthew 19, the famous "eye of a needle" admonishment, as evidence that Christ wants you to be ascetic and Christians aren't real Christians. What a careless and ham fisted reading. When I returned to that scripture with the eye of (a) first taking it seriously, and (b) taking it in context that scripture teaches me about myself, it became very clear.
A rich man comes to Christ and asks, more or less, "I believe and am doing the things you said but haven't acheived peace yet. What should I do?" Christ says to sell your riches and try again. The teaching of this scripture is that if you find yourself approximating Hell, look into yourself and find your highest aim. If that aim, your highest ideal, is not God, strike it down. It's not working for you. Reevaluate. When it's your fault.
People with empathy naturally don't want to inflict unnecessary pain on other people. Sure, you could argue that empathy is a human construct, but then you might argue that the very nature of our reality has been evolutionarily hewn to maximize our species survival. And you'd probably be right. But does that allow you to escape the nature of our reality? No, not if you yourself are human. Being able to offset our perception in this way is extremely powerful and is in the roots of the scientific method and what has led us to be such an advanced society. But continuing to apply this perception to every aspect of your life is essentially nihilism. What makes us who we are can't be shoved under the rug like that and every emotional attempted to be processed analytically.
Nihilism may be too extreme, but we need to discern what parts of society are man-made (laws, ethics, morality...all principles that we generally converge and agree on to be civilized and orderly) vs. objective reality.
Calling laws, ethics, and morality absolute or divine truths only serves our own ego. It’s dangerous and misleading when religion defines human constructs as truths, since they are only characteristics of our society.
We definitely should acknowledge who we are, that’s why the study of human psychology and human nature are fascinating. We should also take a third-person view of the world and deeply analyze actual, natural phenomena.
I don't quite take your point. There are truths about being a human. Psychological realities of how the human brain works in ways that are distressing to someone who assumes they have control and are capable of being objective when they think they are being objective.
Then there are ways of dealing with those truths. They cannot be right or wrong, because the fitness of those ways depends on what you're optimizing for. And there are many different things to optimize for which have no objective way to weigh them as such.
I can say to you that the best society is one that emphasizes maximally the consequences of what you choose, while deemphasizing maximally that which you do not choose. I can point to Christianity and capitalism and the West in general as systems that align with that aim and, empirically, have the highest standard of living.
But that's not objective. All I can do is say what you should do in my estimation of what I think will maximize your fulfillment in your own life in the long term.
The Bible is a guide built on thousands of years of people trying to figure out what our aim should be, and how we should act in accordance with that aim.
It's fine to reject it. But there is no objective discovery to be made in this realm. You must choose your subjective values for yourself. And if the world is just, you must experience the systemic consequences of that choice in your own life.
Could you list some of the truths of being human? Also give some examples of psychological realities of the human brain?
The only ones I know of are biological in nature, as we are living, breathing, conscious, sentient organisms. I used to think us humans were all skeletons, but in reality we're just brains. And our brains, like all matter, are made out of atoms. The body parts are just the physical layer. Think about that next time you talk to someone face to face, you're two brains communicating with each other.
See, the above statements are what I mean when I talk about seeking objective reality. I analyzed us as creatures and stripped it down to the bare bones characteristics, no metaphors involved.
When you speak of fulfillment and having an aim, it's an attempt to rationalize a meaning to life. But the premise may be false, that people assume there is a meaning to be found in life in the first place. And supposedly the answer to what our aims should be are found in a book known as the Bible, which we should interpret as deep, grand metaphors.
Religion and the Bible give people an easy way out of asking the tough questions about the nature of our reality, preventing critical thinking and logical thoughts. It provides comfort for the aimless, lest they have to confront existential dread.
Laws, ethics, and morality are human/social constructs that are characteristics of our society. There are no divine, absolute, or deep truths to be found there. It just defines basic human behavior so society remains civil.
> Laws, ethics, and morality are human/social constructs that are characteristics of our society.
Uncontrovertibly true. And I am infinitely grateful for that. We are truly privileged. Almost everybody reading this is, even those in the developing world. History was a lot worse in too many ways for the vast majority of the globe.
> There are no divine, absolute, or deep truths to be found there.
Absolute... Facts are absolutely true or false, so I disagree to the extent that we're talking about facts. I agree to the extent we're talking about opinions, interpretations, and the realm of the subjective.
Divine? Depends on your definition of divine. For me, since I view Christianity in a purely material/temporal context, divine means that which is worth saving above all else. So surely, there exists divinity under this definition. Indeed, the entire West is predicated on the idea that everybody, even the worst of humanity, has divinity within them. Even Nazis deserve a trial before a sentence. Thank God we all believe that. Well, we used to. These days it's common to hear people convicted that Nazis should be punched in the face. That a mere belief deserves violence, no matter if any action is taken on that belief. shudder
As for deep? Hard one to define, but let me try: Let's say... deep is a qualitative relative measurement of literary prowess from which useful abstractions can be drawn out. The Bible is almost unfathomably deep compared to House of Cards, Game of Thrones, and Avengers. Compared to high quality stand-up comedy, the aforementioned texts are so deep the Mariana Trench is jealous.
Truths, that's a tough one. We often use the word "proof" in different contexts. Legal proof is different from mathematical proof, for example -- the former being highly convincing evidence, and the latter being absolutely, 100%, correct. So, for example, is it true that Mercury is closer to the Sun than the Earth right now? Yes. Is that deep? No. Is it true that before you die you will change the lives of thousands of people? Probably. Is that deep? Yes. Is it true that when your ego is defeated your brain, and thus your entire perception of the world will reconfigure itself permanently in a way you cannot control? Yes. Is that deep? Little more is deeper for the invidividual who is defeated, and the Bible will help you understand what happened and help you through it.
> It just defines basic human behavior so society remains civil.
I can't find any way to read this that isn't the assumption that this is kind of... a given. You stand on the shoulders of giants. Be careful not to treat civilization so flippantly. It wasn't so long ago that the basic human behavior we take for granted did not exist. And it may not in the future, objectivity and science notwithstanding. Hell is a long way down.
Indeed, Auschwitz and the Gulags and Maoist China show us that "basic human behavior" wasn't a given merely 80 years ago. And it might not be tomorrow.
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And now, we return to the beginning.
> Could you list some of the truths of being human? ...
You asked. This may be pandora's box for the reader. If so, I hope you're ready.
Without an aim, you will find it exhausting to do a good job at anything because your mind will be pulling you in a thousand different directions at once. Humans without an aim are more vulnerable to anxiety and depression and suicide.
You are not a different kind of human from the Nazi citizens, soldiers, or leaders. You're not a different kind of human from the slave abusers. You're not a different kind of human from the Israelites who developed the oral tradition of the Torah. All the same neurochemical processes govern you that governed them. Let that one soak in. There's nothing about your meat that would prevent you from being a Nazi cooperator or perpetrator. The largest, and probably only reason you're not, is the context of the environment you were born into.
Jealousy is one of the strongest driving forces of the human brain. Almost everything you do is because of your reaction to a shrinking feeling you get when you observe those who are more competant or lucky than you having better lives than you. Be grateful most of the time your reaction is to try harder. That bit gets flipped fast, and it's hard to notice. Before you know it, you're Cain shouting "Why isn't my work good enough!?" and desiring revenge.
> Also give some examples of psychological realities of the human brain?
When you are defeated, let's say your boss fired you when you screwed up and you spent three months unemployed while you try to regain your ego and find a new job. Your amygdala grows. It will never shrink again, if you're healthy. You will forever fear the world more, and you will release stress-related adrenaline more often which will trigger fear and hatred of those you suspect are trying to hurt you again, even if they're not, because...
Your perception is dependent on your predictions. Most of what you think you see, hear, think, and read is not even close to an accurate depiction of reality. Additionally...
Most of your actions are dependent on your predictions. You predict the cup is in your hand, and your brain fills in the details without you even thinking about. Almost everything you do has abritrarily close to zero thought behind it. Which sucks because...
Humans are hard wired to be worried about everything all the time. We have to be ready, at all times, to know what to do when we don't know what to do. Prediction is the force that calms this urge. The more the world follows your predictions, the calmer you will be. When the world doesn't conform to your predictions, you'll ignore it or rationalize it, or find yourself in the pit of anxiety trying to reconfigure your deepest predictions about the world. You cannot escape this. Worse,
Enough about prediction, how about this: You are not, nor ever were, nor ever will be neurochamically capable of ethically evaluating almost every action you take. You will summarize and abstract. Without an abstract aim and system to guide you, you will fall short in your own estimation eternally as your brain randomly assigns actions prescribed by your previous experience.
Given the HN demographics, most people are not as smart as you, and do all of this more poorly than you do. But they think they're at least as good, if not moreso, than you are at this.
Okay, religion time: You're an imperfect human being. But you almost never say out loud, even in private, when you fall short of your own view of morality. The process of saying your own screw-ups out loud, however, is the most powerful psychological tool for (a) recognizing that there's something wrong, and (b) fixing it. Practicing religious folk that pray are light-years ahead in moral self-improvement because they are constantly saying out loud [to the ether, to God, it doesn't matter] how they fucked up. And then they ask [themselves, God, it doesn't matter] how to fix it. And the "voice of God" or "spiritual confirmation" that speaks to them is [almost certainly their own mind] helping them discover how to fix it. But your brain will usually not actually react to you trying to fix anything until you say it and want to actually know the answer for how to fix it. This is Repentance, back to front.
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I hope that helped you understand my perspective. Thanks for reading.
Here's a quick parting thought: Why is every society religious? Why did religious societies out-compete non-religious societies. I submit to you, because religious societies are more "fit" than non-religious societies. The reasons may be complex, but they are real, and true.
The start of my journey was this question: "What if I'm missing out on something huge, something that a deep, animal part of my brain needs, something that is whatever religion provides; but it can't tell me that's what it needs because that part of the brain doesn't communicate in words..."
I read both of your comments, this has been an interesting discussion and I'll keep these views in mind as I explore the topic some more.
I'm trying to craft an objective reality/worldview filled with objective truths. I need an accurate model to work off of so I don't make any errors in judgement. My main goal is to further mankind in the most significant matter possible, like you said, we're standing on the shoulders of giants.
Although, fame and money is not what I seek, I only wish contribute immensely in terms of work. I'm not trying to create something small like a social media site for pets, I'm trying to aim for innovations like the discovery and harnessing of electricity.
Good luck. It's a tough world. You know, Christ was born under an order for his death with soldiers knocking on doors killing babies, born into a rickety wooden construct for holding animal feed, full of snot and spit. Even the greatest man is born into a world of threats of death, disease, and eventual death. We all share this burden together. And whether Christ was real doesn't actually matter. Almost every historical figure is a legend, an abstraction, and history shows us who we are nonetheless.
You know, there's a lot of videos of Jordan Peterson being randomly harassed in public by people with a political agenda trying to make him look bad. Even though it's an obvious bad faith harassment situation, he takes the time to answer the questions anyway. Likely because he has full knowledge that even if his answer isn't for the "interviewer", many others will see it too.
I want to be extra clear: All the things I believe about religion are rooted in a belef in neurochemical reactions in meatbrains in a purely, exclusively, hard-materialistic perspective.
I also want to state that I'm trying to see what you're written in the best possible light. I mean that. But I might fail, and for that I apologize in advance. I'm not trying to straw man, and if you think I am, know that's not my intention and feel free to clarify.
> Could you list some of the truths of being human? Also give some examples of psychological realities of the human brain?
Sure. This is going to take quite a bit of effort to unpack. But first, let me address the remainder of your post because I think it's important context. But my answer to this question is at the end.
> The only ones I know of are biological in nature, as we are living, breathing, conscious, sentient organisms. I used to think us humans were all skeletons, but in reality we're just brains. And our brains, like all matter, are made out of atoms. The body parts are just the physical layer. Think about that next time you talk to someone face to face, you're two brains communicating with each other.
Indeed. In fact, while the center of our perception might be our brains, what we are at a deeper level is worms. Coelemates, to be precise. We are incredibly sophisticated survival systems for a digestive tract. In any case, the things you said are probably true, and I do accept them as true with a high degree of confidence. All things I think religion has to teach me are biological, or more accurately, mental. But to be clear, I believe mental things are merely emergent from biological things and non-supernatural.
> See, the above statements are what I mean when I talk about seeking objective reality. I analyzed us as creatures and stripped it down to the bare bones characteristics, no metaphors involved.
What you've done is the easy part. All mentally capable people can trivially get where you arrived with minimal thinking. And they have for millenia, since the first body was literally and metaphorically carved up by makeshift spears and knives.
> When you speak of fulfillment and having an aim, it's an attempt to rationalize a meaning to life.
I do not think I'm rationalizing anything, but...
> But the premise may be false, that people assume there is a meaning to be found in life in the first place.
I think what you're trying to say is that people try to construct unbelievably false narratives, like "this life is a test" or "God will judge you in the afterlife", so you can attain a level of comfort that "everything has a purpose". These are comforting thoughts. And by the way, who are you to say people shouldn't have these comforts? Or that you shouldn't have these comforts? Maybe you shouldn't have a couch because the ground under it is hard. But in any case. It's extraordinarily unlikely that these comforts accurately describe reality. But there's much, much more meaning to life than believing fairy tales. Ever helped a struggling child solve homework problems? Ever helped an old lady across the street? Ever contributed to a project where you solved what seemed like an impossibly complex problem at the outset? That feeling is good. And it's meaningful.
If what you're saying is that there is no personal meaning to your actions, then that is exactly what nihilism is. Nihilism is stupid. It's worse than heroin. And it's empirically known to be a gateway to unncessary suffering including depression, anxiety, malicious behavior, suicide, and other undesirable things. Is it objective that those things are undesirable? No. But that doesn't matter. If you do not want these things, then you ought to find meaning, because meaning is the only weapon you have to fight nihilism.
As Jordan Peterson was struggling for over a decade to find a singular axiom, one from which he could begin to understand the human condition at a fundamental level, as he was deeply studying totalitarianism with the aim of preventing it from ever happening again, he found it.
The reality of pain. Everyone feels it. You can say it has no meaning, but you're wrong. Goddamnit when you are in pain, your life suddenly has an aim, a meaning: Stop the pain. You cannot dispute this (yeah yeah masochists, but they have a relatively low ceiling for "pleasurable" pain compared to what you can do to them). The reality of pain and the meaning behind it is universal, a fundamental axiom. And, to your earlier point, it's nothing but nerves and brainmeats passively doing their neurochemical thing.
> And supposedly the answer to what our aims should be are found in a book known as the Bible, which we should interpret as deep, grand metaphors.
Supposedly, they say. I didn't. Now I do. It took me a long time to take the Bible seriously. Once I did, it started to become more clear, with the guidance of Jordan Peterson's study. I can say you'll never see it if you don't look yourself. Or, actually, take the easy way out like I did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w
> Religion and the Bible give people an easy way out of asking the tough questions about the nature of our reality ...
I'm not sure what you mean here. What you say sounds dramatically incorrect in a way that you must be completely ignoring (or ignorant of) the philosophical shoulders on which you stand. But, maybe I'm reading that incorrectly. Text is hard.
Theology and philosophy in general has always been the practice of asking the hardest of questions about the nature of our existence. But you said nature of our reality. I think you might be referring to facts that we believe with a high degree of confidence like "We're alone in the universe" and "The Earth is the center of nothing but itself". I think history does a pretty good job of showing that religion prevents neither the investigation nor acceptance of such extraordinarily likely facts. Here we are in a religious world, after all. However, I do think that religious tradition has caused quite a large minority of believers to unfortunately reject many facts in lieu of purely religious explanations, such as Young Earth Creationism. But these things die, even if they die slowly.
> ... preventing critical thinking and logical thoughts. ...
Again, I think what you're describing is a minority of believers, even if the minority is large. And it's shrinking over time. These things take time. And the record of history pushes us in the right direction.
What I hope you're not saying is that religion actually does prevent critical thinking and logical thoughts in general. Clearly this is not the case. The scientific method, and most all scientific discoveries in history, have been due to religious people -- largely Christians and Jews specifically. So that's just empirically wrong.
> It provides comfort for the aimless, lest they have to confront existential dread.
I don't know what you mean by aimless. But I am certain that everybody (above a rather low level of mental capacity) confronts existential dread. There are two things I learned about faith prior to being converted: (a) everybody, everybody who believes struggles with faith. Everybody, even the faithless, have times in their life where they confront the question of whether they're wrong about everything, "maybe nothing has any meaning", and the dread that follows. There is no blind follower. Merely people who, for a short time, aren't considering the question right now. And (b), there's a large number of believers who have never had a spiritual experience, no "special knowledge". Merely people who have reasoned their way into their beliefs for one reason or another.
There are better ways to address tragedy than merely feeling sad.
Religious tradition and ritual is full of psychologically useful things. In the LDS tradition, priesthood blessings are getting many men together in solidarity with the victim, stating the problem out loud, and asking the spirit of God what the right thing to do is. In Catholic tradition, family and friends get together set aside time, and do their prayer beads and chants. It's a vehicle to bring people close together in times of tragedy, and let the victim know that their loved ones are there for them and on their side.
Sadness is the response to a tragic event, not how we address it. I said that we can address it by being practical and seeing what caused the event and how to prevent it in the future.
In terms of the human who experienced the tragic event, yes they are probably traumatized and will have to reflect on it.
In your second paragraph, all you’ve described is a coping mechanism, which makes total sense because humans are social creatures.
Sure, I think everyone agrees that some wisdom is to be found in ancient texts. Along with a whole crock of false claims.
When you say you believe in God, you are making claims which are unproven, such as recurrence of souls, heaven, and hell. You also are making claims that are verifiably false, such as Earth being 5000 years old, Noah saving species in a boat etc. Finally, you are choosing to ignore a lot of harmful dogmas in these texts, such as homophobia or killing of non believers.
I do not make any claims about souls or afterlife. I explicitly stated that the Bible is metaphor. Almost nobody is a young earth creationist anymore, including myself. Almost nobody who isn't Muslim believes in killing non believers anymore, including myself.
> “Almost nobody is a young creationist anymore... Almost nobody who isn’t Muslim believes in killing non believers anymore...”
Wow, not sure where you live but come check out rural Texas. I’ve lost friends to Christian extremism here. These guys are stockpiling weapons and organizing. Also, I’m sure you caught the last presidential election? Even if they don’t directly believe those things, they support someone who does. It’s a serious situation when people use belief to disprove science and empirical data man.
Strange claim. From what I can tell Trump has likely never practiced and would probably be an "agnostic" if not for seeking the Republican nomination. He might be the first atheist president actually. It's hard to tell.
As someone who "stockpiles" weapons and ammunition and with a large number of religious friends who also do so, I can say religion plays no part. It's about readiness to defend the country against totalitarianism.
That being said, I'm truly interested in what you think the demon is here. And I'm also interested in the mechanism behind losing friends to Christian extremism. I don't doubt that it happened, but I have no reason to believe you were innocent in the exchange either.
The issue for me is that both Trump and his followers operate off of belief. In my opinion, belief is the most dangerous force in the universe. It leaves infinite room for manipulation. No amount of evidence can change the mind of someone that just believes and that’s truly terrifying. Sure, Trump may not actually believe everything he claims to but his followers absolutely do and that makes them easy to manipulate and control. When I say “I’ve lost friends to Christian extremism”, I mean that I’ve watched them slowly lose there cognitive abilities and become vantriliquist dolls spewing whatever they hear on Fox News without question. I prefer to talk to people that can have their minds changed based on new evidence. These friends used to be capable of this. This happened when they started identifying themselves as extreme right wing Christians. These used to be decent people but are now entirely consumed by a perceived attack on race and religion. Christianity in itself is not bad but what it enables is: Belief.
What do you mean by belief? This is going to get deeply epistemological really fast. But if I can summarize millennia of great thinkers trying to figure it out: all you have is belief. We cannot know what the fact is. We merely believe something is a fact with high degrees of confidence. And this is not a trivial distinction. Is it true that that Neptune is closer to Earth than Alpha Centauri is if this is a simulation? Things we think are facts are merely beliefs in context of assumptions.
Again, I know very little about your experience. But it sounds like they became something that digusts you. The fact that you could not tolerate your friends transitions to self-professed right wing extreme Christianity is a you problem, not a them problem. Your lack of tolerance isn't their fault. Just as their supposed lack of tolerance isn't your fault. You might lament losing the person they were, but that doesn't make them wrong and you right.
> I mean that I’ve watched them slowly lose there cognitive abilities and become vantriliquist dolls spewing whatever they hear on Fox News without question. I prefer to talk to people that can have their minds changed based on new evidence.
Rest assured that many people on both sides believe this about each other (though arguably more lefties take this view than righties). Is by no means one way. I have been a right winger with friends on both sides for a very long time, and the same sentiment you expressed about losing cognitive abilities is expressed by the right wingers about left wingers. Ever heard the epithet NPC? It's aimed at SJWs specifically, calling out the supposedly unthinking, dataless parrotting of CNN talking points.
I don't use dehumanizing terms like NPC because they are not constructive, and neither is assuming your ideological opposition is a cognitively degenerate enemy.
> These used to be decent people but are now entirely consumed by a perceived attack on race and religion
I wonder what that means. That being said, surely you can see they might have reasons to fear a near-future problem, if there is no problem today, right?
True, there are believers on both sides. Also I agree that network news is saturated with falacious content meant to do nothing but divide and manipulate. I honestly can’t remember the last time I watched network news of any type but I assume it’s as bad as I remember. I can see that you’ve rationalized your opinions thoroughly and you believe you are correct so I’ll leave it at that.
I'm genuinely interested in what you think belief is. I've talked to thousands on the internet and about a hundred in person deeply about epistemology and religion, and read even more, and you're the first person I've read that disparages the concept of belief in general.
Belief is similar to an idea but a little different. An idea is similar to a theory while belief is more similar to an absolute. This is why belief goes hand in hand with religion and faith; which are two other concepts that I dislike. Thinking an idea may be true is vastly different than knowing so. When someone “knows” something is true they can almost never be convinced otherwise. Belief in a religion or an inherent superiority has enabled the great atrocities of our world and that is the main reason for my dislike of the concept. I would be naive to think that I do not have beliefs and it’s important to note that I am not devoid of belief but it is something I work towards eliminating in my life. Ask any militant, religious fanatic or terrorist what they BELIEVE in and you’ll quickly realize that people are willing to die for some pretty ridiculous things. Someone has taken their trusting demeanor and convinced them into the belief that they are righteous and justified in their actions. Today in America that force is Network Television. They repeat and repeat until one believes. I was raised in an evangelical Christian community and I’ve seen first hand how senseless things can become when belief is involved. My first love is computer science but my muse is philosophy/political science so I’m not surprised you haven’t run into my ideas yet; I’m often on the edge of what is mainstream. I’m actually writing a book on the concept of belief, which I’m happy to share with you when it’s done. My hope is that we can step away from the concept and usher in a new era of science and exploration because right now we’ve stagnated.
Fair enough.. I’ve honestly never read those guidelines and appreciate you pointing them out.
I found the parent comment to my reply very disturbing and thought it needed to be called out because it’s a dangerous point of view that enables very real atrocities both here and abroad. A belief in an inherent superiority is what led to historical events like the holocaust. It’s very difficult for me to stand by and not comment.
To us living on the border, this a very real issue that affects us daily not only socially but economically.
Well I learnt to take nothing for granted at work. I've seen long-standing equilibriums crumble in a short timespan, after having been in place for eons.
I've also learnt that while money is not everything, it's definitely something that should be kept high on the list of priorities.
There is something like too much devotion, to anything. I have learnt to not lose your health to a cause, a career or a person. Secondly, family is everything.
So many. Really good year. Lots of them feel like I've been in a cave for awhile and am just coming back, so maybe these are table stakes for other people.
1) Intentional vulnerability
Intentional vulnerability is really good stuff. Withholding emotions to look stoic, or out of shame that it's "not manly" to feel them, or because feelings are somehow lesser for being irrational.. all really toxic ways of being, and the irony is that they'll keep you right in that place where you don't want to be. This year, I've made a point of trying to connect with people by being honest about the shit that's hard in my life, especially when people extend tiny branches of their own hardships. Leaning in, and showing that you're available to talk about sensitive things gently gets other people to open up so much more, and then they're relieved to have someone to share those parts of their life with, and it becomes a positive cycle of intimacy instead of a negative cycle of tentative emotional withholding. The depth and breath of my relationships has exploded since I've started doing this.
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2) Don't try to make relationships things they're not. Meet people as who they are, where they are.
Another thing I've learned is that not everybody is going to want to play that game. Fair enough! It's scary, and intimate, and it's unreasonable to try and make every relationship that particular brand. Sometimes the move is to leave it alone and let people open up on their own schedule, if ever, and just meet them where they are. Other times, I've discovered that people who've been in my life a long time have really toxic aversions to self inspection and self improvement, and that had never come to a head because we were both content being dishonest about our inner lives, but once I started being more open, it made sense to phase them out because the relationships didn't feel healthy.
"Fuck yes or no" is a thing I got from Mark Manson[1]
I made some messes by pursuing, and sometimes settling for, romantic relationships that were mediocre fits. Life is too short.
3) Therapy. Not just for crazies. Best use of money in 2018.
Therapy is in the top 5 things I ever did for myself. Probably behind getting a computer and going to college, in terms of transformative outcomes. I had a lot of ideas about how my mind worked, and where my problems started, how I behaved, and how I could behave, and most of them were wrong to some degree. Exploring this stuff with a professional really pays for itself in a hurry. Recommended for all people, even if you don't think whatever you have going on is "worth" going to therapy over.
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4) Taking the first leap, giving trust space to grow
OP, while I can understand your situation, I worry that your stance there is too hard-line in the other direction. "Provider Hero" doesn't sound like a healthy thing to be – it's not your responsibility to be the sole source of stability or resources for the people in your life, especially if they're making the kind of messes that call for Heroes. But to be the opposite, or to never be able to step into that role, feels like a bad thing too. It can be immensely meaningful to provide for people who are genuinely in need, and who are grateful. I know I've got friends who have done that for me and it's meant the world.
I might be reading too far into your mood from just a single sentence, but don't make the mistake of burying that part of yourself just because it got burned once. It could be that you're making the world better, and it's the people on the otherside that should be modifying their behavior.
I was going through some stuff with a friend that really tried my trust. I had told him some pretty private stuff, and tried to set some boundaries, and he had behaved intentionally in a way that violated them – a few times. I met for tea with our mutual friend, told him the situation, and asked what I could do. I really didn't want to leave my friend behind, since he was really great in every other way, but this boundary issue was an absolute dealbreaker.
His advice was really helpful: He told me to go back and have a serious conversation, and reassert the boundaries, because there's a chance I wasn't clear enough the first time about what my needs were, and what my expectations were, and that's on me. It's my responsibility to make sure there's no ambiguity between me and my friend about how things are supposed to be. And then after that? I was terrified to put my friend back in a situation where he could cross that line again, because it hurt a lot, but I had to let him back in. It only works if you give them the space to prove that they're able to respect the boundaries. If I kept trying to avoid situations where I'd have a problem, I'd be stuck living in doubt about whether my friend really had my back. I took his advice. We had a great conversation, it's gotten better since. I'm glad I listened.
I tell that story not so much for the part about letting these people back in your life – maybe they really exploitative – but more for the bit about needing to put yourself on the line instead of shying away. In order to have trust grow, you have to give people opportunities to be trustworthy, and that means giving them opportunities to be untrustworthy, and maybe getting hurt.
It sucks to play that game and lose, but even if you lose a lot, learn stuff and play it again. Don't quit.
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I don't know if this is something people found useful. One of my goals in 2019 is to write more, so if things in here resonated and you'd like expansion, please feel free to let me know. Likewise, if I'm longwinded and annoying, please let me know that too :)
> I've discovered that people who've been in my life a long time have really toxic aversions to self inspection and self improvement, and that had never come to a head because we were both content being dishonest about our inner lives, but once I started being more open, it made sense to phase them out because the relationships didn't feel healthy.
I came to same realization and it's heart breaking to let go.
> I might be reading too far into your mood from just a single sentence, but don't make the mistake of burying that part of yourself just because it got burned once.
I don't think I am so much scared but I will weight my options before jumping into that role and I will be especially careful when it involves money.
> I tell that story not so much for the part about letting these people back in your life – maybe they really exploitative – but more for the bit about needing to put yourself on the line instead of shying away.
I think your advise is good. I will try to mend the relationships but as equals. May be I should try next year.
Immigrated to a new country and went back to school. Both academically and socially, learnt the same lesson - don't quit. Also learnt that there's a time and place for everything - if you miss that window of opportunity, it doesn't matter how hard you grind later on.
This year was my first year in a paid job of any kind. I was 27, 28 now. That's relatively late in one's life to have one's first job, but I was a professional student — I kept studying post-grad until there was nothing left for me to do.
I really enjoyed working, and I don't know why I put it off for so long. That said, I miss academia, too. So, life goal, maybe get a job in a uni or college so I can dip my toes back into academic stuff when it's feasible to do so.
Probably idealistic, but I feel invigorated and ready to take on whatever challenges lie ahead to achieve my goals, something I was a bit scared to do before this year.
As a very task-oriented person, this is a lesson I've known for years I ought to learn, but only really understood this year. Of course, executing a task well is important - but in the end, if you don't do it to help other people, what's the point?
I've been a leader and a teacher this year, two jobs whose technical aspects/tasks I very much enjoy. And yet I found the most fulfilling thing about them to be the input I get to have into other peoples' lives; the fact that I get to invest myself into others. Because it's all about the people.
This is an interesting one. Mind going a bit deeper? I read it as: 360 feedback can provide a narrow view or extreme view in either direction, and you are not beholden to the self-image that others label you. Respect what you know about yourself and take the 360 as a data point to reflect upon. Not sure if I read that right though.
