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The Spoon Theory (2003)

butyoudontlooksick.com

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Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#81

Post by treeman79 »

Congratulations, you have earned the achievement “chronic condition”. Your rewards are as follows. You have max exhaustion at all hours of the day! Exercise recovery is bumped from next day to 2 weeks!

Your pain level is now on par with dying cancer patients!

Everyone now considers you lazy and incompetent! Doctors now blame all symptoms on anxiety! You gain +1 to medical research ability. But -20 to Reputation.

You now get spontaneous and useless medical advise from people that believe in essential oil. You are now on timer with your job until sympathy runs out!

Disability now can mock you openly as clearly your faking and don’t have a real condition! You are now a burden to your family!

+10 sneak score; you quickly learn to hide your suffering!

+20 to loneliness!

-20 to persuasion! Asking for help means doctors think your a hypochondriac.

+10 Planning! Your kids may be orphans soon, make plans, read fine print on death benefits. ——-

Spoon theory is a great way to reduce guilt people who suffer, and simply can’t do as much on a day to day basis.

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#82

Post by chromanoid »

notatrumper wrote: post #78
padolsey wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBQH I have a real dislike for the relativistic thinking that people apply to this. Everyone does struggle, yes. But the degree of struggle, for some, is exponentially more. To just participate in the smallest parts of life... eating, cleaning, emptying one's bowels, is a daily challange. What if you could only afford energy for one outing to the shop? What if taking a shower felt like running a marathon? What if mak…

Some people have it even worse - they die. So again, what is the point? I acknowledge that some (many) people have it worse than myself. Now what? It is also a common recommendation to meditate on ones inevitable death daily. Maybe thinking about the fate of sick people could have a similar effect. And of course one can wonder how to improve things for sick people. But that's only useful to some extent. I think it ma…

When you bond with somebody with Lupus or another severe illness or who generally has it worse than yourself you can now better understand how they live their life. Many people don't know how such things affect a person on a daily basis. You just learned something about the human condition. Isn't that something?

You don't have to do something at all.

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#83

Post by rpaddock »

rpaddock wrote: post #80

If you want to understand the day to day issues of real people then please watch the documentary *Pain Warriors* that is about Chronic Pain. It is five stories, four of people with Chronic Pain, two that ended in suicides. My late wife Karen being one of them. The other story is of a doctor that the Medical Establishment destroyed for helping those with Chronic Pain. It is *NOT* a warm and fuzzy movie to watch. For f…

For more details check these sites. They cover some of the things that have happened after the release of Pain Warriors:

http://www.kpaddock.com/pw

http://www.kpaddock.org

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#84

Post by taneq »

blauditore wrote: post #54
taneq wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should always be either at the edge of your traction circle or at the full limit of one of your controls. Anything less is wasting time.

That's the theory. In practice, it's more complex and subtle: - Not are limits are made equal. Some are okay to be approached from both sides, while others will make you crash very quickly. Racing is a lot about finding and feeling those limits, rather than just knowing that they exist and need to be applied. - Changing gear, breaking, and applying gas all are physical actions that need some dexterity, to quickly swi…

> In practice, it's more complex and subtle

If ever there were a statement more universally applicable, I've not encountered it. :)

Racing is, of course, about finishing the race (or maybe the season) first (along with all of additional considerations that implies), not just lapping fast.

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#85

Post by WanderPanda »

I can remember when I had a severe flu / fever last year (in February so probably not covid) that I only had juice to work (code) for like 30min and then had to lay down for 2h. The strange thing is, I can only remember the numbers but not the true feeling. It is kind of surreal. I should be grateful every day that I am not in that condition and have much more juice/spoons available. Another thing is, no matter how many spoons you have, there is always Parkinsons law to burn through them in an unreasonable way.

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#86

Post by elteto »

fidrelity wrote: post #44
J-dawg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a similar anecdote about a legendary F1 driver (possibly Michael Schumacher, but I can't remember). During practice the drivers talk to their team over the radio about the car's setup. Most drivers would stop talking in the corners and come on the radio during the straights. This driver would apparently just keep talking all the way around corners. Driving the car was basically automatic, leaving him free…

I can't find the video but I'm pretty confident this was in fact Ayrton Senna.

Another fantastic Senna story is The Moving Wall:

http://www.ayrton-senna.net/the-story-of-the-moving-wall/

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#87

Post by chromanoid »

notatrumper wrote: post #52
padolsey wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBQH I have a real dislike for the relativistic thinking that people apply to this. Everyone does struggle, yes. But the degree of struggle, for some, is exponentially more. To just participate in the smallest parts of life... eating, cleaning, emptying one's bowels, is a daily challange. What if you could only afford energy for one outing to the shop? What if taking a shower felt like running a marathon? What if mak…

And what exactly is the point of complaining about that?

It's like complaining about people who claim they live under a fascist regime because they have to wear masks in the supermarket. It's making a point about human decency.

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#90

Post by WanderPanda »

taneq wrote: post #32
FrozenVoid wrote: post #17

I 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…

I do something a bit similar with learning new tech. I used to just soak up whatever new thing I found interesting, but these days I don't have time to do this and so I have to make sure that every new thing I do learn "pays rent". It has to not just be immediately useful (unless there's no other way to solve the problem with my existing toolkit) but also to generate value in an ongoing manner for it to be worth the…

This sounds like a life one would avoid when consciously thinking about it, yet this will be the destination for most people. I am constantly amazed by how people like geohot seem to escape this. And I am thinking if that could be a model for me, but then again I am maybe ~5-10 times less productive so that might be the limiting factor. And btw. I love that in english you say “to spend time” it really captures the investment perspective that you mention.
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