Addiction in a nutshell.
I’m not sure. Addiction seems more like a clock than spoons.
The Spoon Theory (2003)
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Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)
#22Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)
#23> I explained that the difference in being sick and being healthy is having to make choices or to consciously think about things when the rest of the world doesn’t have to. The healthy have the luxury of a life without choices, a gift most people take for granted.
What choices do you mean? I'd say that healthy people have more freedom so they have more choices to make. When you come down to it health is about freedom. Freedom from preoccupying pain, constricting impairment, freedom to do whatever. Choices are a symptom of freedom. We must have a different definition somewhere in here. Haven't read the article yet. Edit: Having read the story, the spoons are a metaphor for unit…
>What choices do you mean?
Hard choices. The "Should I do X, or it will hurt me?", "Is it worth feeling bad for doing Y?" related to the disease and its impact.
It's not about choice as in a healthy person having a selection of 10 fun sports to decice which to play in a sunny day.
It's about difficult choices, like "I want to do this sport activity today, but should I do it and feel depleted for the rest of my day? I should double think about doing this"
In other words, we could say that healthy people have more options, but sick people (of the variety of the article, not somebody in a come e.g.), have more hard choices on what to do each day, even simple things (e.g. play with the kids).
Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)
#24> I explained that the difference in being sick and being healthy is having to make choices or to consciously think about things when the rest of the world doesn’t have to. The healthy have the luxury of a life without choices, a gift most people take for granted.
What choices do you mean? I'd say that healthy people have more freedom so they have more choices to make. When you come down to it health is about freedom. Freedom from preoccupying pain, constricting impairment, freedom to do whatever. Choices are a symptom of freedom. We must have a different definition somewhere in here. Haven't read the article yet. Edit: Having read the story, the spoons are a metaphor for unit…
Choices like “Do I shower or change the bed today, because I only have energy for one.”
Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not sure. Addiction seems more like a clock than spoons.
It is a brain disorder: a diagnosable illness where the delta-FosB protein is overexpressed in the prefrontal cortex.
But that doesn’t prove that this story, spoon theory, is “addiction in a nutshell.”
Edit: my point is this story doesn’t match what I know about addiction at all. The woman consciously and deliberately allocating her energy (spoons) is not the life of an addict. Addiction is generally a life lived unconsciously.
If I was going to put it into spoon terms, it’s that you start your day with 30 spoons. Everything you want to get done that day requires a total of 20. But, you still end up short because you spent most of your spoons on drinking/blow/porn/games and in your moments of lucidity you just think “what the fuck”.
Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)
#26One of the effects of society is to reduce the number of 'spoons' any person needs to 'spend' a day. This is probably a good argument against those who are anti-automation. As a more efficient automated society slowly lowers the 'minimum spoon bar' that is required for net contribution.
I don't think this is true.
I once spent some time at an Amish community, and I saw their elderly and sick all living relatively productive lives. They were cooking, cleaning, watching children, and performing other small tasks that made everyone's life a bit nicer. The only reason these "menial" jobs were available to them was the deliberate inefficiency of the Amish lifestyle.
Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)
#27"Most people start the day with unlimited amount of possibilities"
I think the comments to this post testifies that no one has unlimited spoons. Most people struggle. Some more, some less.
Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)
#28I used to work with someone who used to say “I’m all out of spoons today” when it was a bad day. I understood, but I take it that it’s from this. The article doesn’t say when it was published but it looks quite old. Interesting that it’s surfaced here, now.
The linked PDF says 2003.
Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)
#29I work by effort/benefit ratio. Many programmers start ambitious projects with very high effort and low benefit, like e.g. a browser/os/videogame/library which they maintain at expense of their health and limited time. Low effort, small-scale projects with immediate benefit/utility are much less taxing on health and don't require constant maintenance. Unix way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy#Do_One_Thin…
> Many programmers start ambitious projects with very high effort and low benefit
I would argue that they are actually high benefit, or at least appear as such to the person.
I don't think many people would willingly choose to engage in high effort/low benefit activities.
> Low effort, small-scale projects with immediate benefit/utility are much less taxing on health and don't require constant maintenance
They are also much less fulfilling and interesting to many people.
Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)
#30I used to work with someone who used to say “I’m all out of spoons today” when it was a bad day. I understood, but I take it that it’s from this. The article doesn’t say when it was published but it looks quite old. Interesting that it’s surfaced here, now.
I guess we are all out of spoons..