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I'm an addict

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Re: I'm an addict

#41

Knowing that HN is generally against it, I say it anyway: I recommend religion and religious teachings which address this and many other daily worldly issues perfectly. Christianity and Judaism both have excellent resources. Religious scholars have actually been the best psychologists but are generally dismissed by non-believers. Edit: for those asking for specific recommendations. It’s always best to find your own p…

Can you be a little more specific?

Re: I'm an addict

#42

Knowing that HN is generally against it, I say it anyway: I recommend religion and religious teachings which address this and many other daily worldly issues perfectly. Christianity and Judaism both have excellent resources. Religious scholars have actually been the best psychologists but are generally dismissed by non-believers. Edit: for those asking for specific recommendations. It’s always best to find your own p…

I'm not against religion, but you just want to add you don't need religion to get what I think is the good core of religions: healing stories and narratives, texts, mantras, rituals that help you in the moment, a community which shares your perspective and in the end, an explanation for existential dread, horrible things happenings and a way to get meaning.

You can find it in humanism, you can find it in secular philosophy, you can get therapy, you can find it in social political communities, it's in many places. You can even get some old bearded dude tell you what to do if that's what you need.

Religion is just one way to have faith.

Re: I'm an addict

#43

Knowing that HN is generally against it, I say it anyway: I recommend religion and religious teachings which address this and many other daily worldly issues perfectly. Christianity and Judaism both have excellent resources. Religious scholars have actually been the best psychologists but are generally dismissed by non-believers. Edit: for those asking for specific recommendations. It’s always best to find your own p…

I’m sure I’ve read a few dozen of the same old AA debates on HN, but, yeah it worked for my old man. AA, in particular the serenity prayer, has at least some overlap with the more tech friendly pursuit of Stoic philosophy. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

My issue with AA is that people can seek attention by relapsing. Going cold turkey and never drinking again is the simple solution and it doesn't require all the drama.

Re: I'm an addict

#44
post #39

Knowing that HN is generally against it, I say it anyway: I recommend religion and religious teachings which address this and many other daily worldly issues perfectly. Christianity and Judaism both have excellent resources. Religious scholars have actually been the best psychologists but are generally dismissed by non-believers. Edit: for those asking for specific recommendations. It’s always best to find your own p…

Got anything more specific to recommend? I'd like to read the main books of the main religions eventually out of personal culture, but they won't get to the top of the reading pile any time soon. Meanwhile, I'm sure procrastination, motivation and discipline are behaviors that religious scholars had to develop even in a pre-Internet world so I'm sure there are interesting takes written on the subject. I recall some r…

Check out this essay https://renovare.org/articles/self-denial-without-self-hatre...

Re: I'm an addict

#45

This hits hard. I recently counted hours watched on YT (via history export) and OH MY GD, it averaged around 3 hours daily throught the year, for several years. I just imagined WHAT IF I have spent this amount of effort and time on ANYTHING else: playing an instrument, learning a new language, coding a side-project. The thought scared me so much, aka the difference between current me and "potential" me that I have ab…

> I just imagined WHAT IF I have spent this amount of effort and time on ANYTHING else: playing an instrument, learning a new language, coding a side-project This is a very unfair set of "ANYTHING else". I am sure you can come up with more real world list of what other people actually do after work, and that might make you feel a little more lenient about your own choices and needs. > Any other ideas besides cold tur…

I even have cron job which over writes /etc/hosts with an /etc/hosts.bak with that content and i have disabled any dns caching in firefox (don't ask me how). Yet .... Sigh ....

Re: I'm an addict

#46

Knowing that HN is generally against it, I say it anyway: I recommend religion and religious teachings which address this and many other daily worldly issues perfectly. Christianity and Judaism both have excellent resources. Religious scholars have actually been the best psychologists but are generally dismissed by non-believers. Edit: for those asking for specific recommendations. It’s always best to find your own p…

Islam also has significant things to say on the issue. Hinduism and Buddhism likely have insights as well.

Zoroastrianism may also have something to offer here. Maybe it's time to revive it.

Re: I'm an addict

#47

Consider talking to a doctor about ADD? (Alternatively, get some Adderall somewhere and experiment.) Executive control is a distinct mental capability.

This. Even with all the addictive technologies around, this essay makes problems sound too extreme to not be at least worth evaluating for ADD. Especially the consistently poor working memory is a dead giveaway.

People forget AD(H)D is fairly common, regardless of if you think it's overdiagnosed or not. And with how technology has been turning everything into dopamine slot machines it will exaggerate the symptoms even more.

Re: I'm an addict

#48

Knowing that HN is generally against it, I say it anyway: I recommend religion and religious teachings which address this and many other daily worldly issues perfectly. Christianity and Judaism both have excellent resources. Religious scholars have actually been the best psychologists but are generally dismissed by non-believers. Edit: for those asking for specific recommendations. It’s always best to find your own p…

> Religious scholars have actually been the best psychologists

Any sources that will back this claim? Oh wait, you don't need facts. Do you give this sort of unsolicited religious advice to everyone or do you specifically choose people who are troubled?

Re: I'm an addict

#49

Knowing that HN is generally against it, I say it anyway: I recommend religion and religious teachings which address this and many other daily worldly issues perfectly. Christianity and Judaism both have excellent resources. Religious scholars have actually been the best psychologists but are generally dismissed by non-believers. Edit: for those asking for specific recommendations. It’s always best to find your own p…

Religious beliefes provide a strong moral compass as a semi-coherent set that lets you define stances about a lot of things in your life without having to gs through the hassle and difficulties of building them. As long as it's a serious belief and adherence to the provided guidelines and not just posturing used to justify decadent conducts.

I am not religious and personally i think is best to develop this on your own than taking a prepackaged system, but the utility and practicality of having ssmething already done and battle-tested is undeniable.

Just like you don't need to reinvent the wheel and write a complex library on your own when there's one available, sometimes is best to just use a prepackaged beliefs set and moral system to follow.

Many people are even unable to produce that on their own and epd up disparaged, aimless, living their lives without any understanding of right, wrong, good, bad, moral, immoral.

For what religions are and what they do provide, i personally think some branches of buddhism are better, like the Sokka Gakkai International's approach provides.

I don't agree with the sentence that religious scholars are the best psychologists because they only can provide guidance inside what fits this prepackaged framework-for-living they adopted, and in many many cases (i.e. mentall illnesses, deep issues, moral hardship in grey areas, etc) they are unable to effectively help in any significant way.

Good news is that psychology isn't incompatible with religion and both can coexist peacefully, and one can get the best of both worlds wathout thinking one is best; they work in different ways and provide different things, and IMO they aren't directly comparable, as a psychologist cannot help you very well in terms of religion, and a religious scholar cannot help you very well in terms of psychology (except for the thinfs that fit witin the religious framework chosen).

So all in all, i agree that religion as a valid choice and should be part of discourse, as sometimes it can very well be the best course of action.

Just don't agree with throwing blanket statements of what's best or not in a world as plastic and complex as the one we live in.

Re: I'm an addict

#50
Quietly turning back on the noprocrast hacker news setting

Getting out of Facebook or before watching TV was rather easy, it was mostly uninteresting stuff I did not choose to watch.

Youtube and Hacker News got me. The quality, sometimes life-changing, content I have had access to there is really hard not to get into. Augmenting friction in accessing the content in the only way I found that works when I succeed convincing myself it is a real problem. This way it tilts the tediousness of accessing them towards the tediousness of boring tasks, which I have learned to find ways to make less tedious in turn. Trying to find balance in the addiction. Restraining from it in order to give time to interesting content to bubble up.

Also I have also been distancing so much from social activities only because they were slightly dissatisfying but instead of working on fixing them (which feels to me impossible because I lack the communication skills and I have an irrational core belief that no one can withstand even slight criticism) I'd rather spend time reading/watching about stuff that interests me on the internet. I manage to keep my life in order but I am not really investing in making something out of it. All the things I'd like to do irl, build a ecological passive house, build low tech devices, I lack the economical resources and social bonds to even start even though I am competent.

I don't know if I was always was a nerd (not the brilliant nerd type) or if I became one. Anyways I am doomed until this really becomes a hard problem in my life.

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