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The illusion of being stuck

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Re: The illusion of being stuck

#111

Post by paulryanrogers »

ufocia wrote: post #28
noufalibrahim wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the point you're trying to make. However, my general experience of attempts to take "useful" parts of of religion and then sanitise them for secular mass consumption is that they're at best useless and at worst harmful. Sure, there might be some proximal benefits to (say) meditation but these are things that were done in a larger (often spiritual) context and I'm not sure that pulling them out of that is…

Don't kill and don't steal seem pretty useful and are embedded within many if not all secular laws.

Sometimes with massive caveats like stone adulterers and homosexuals.

Re: The illusion of being stuck

#112

Post by jerrygoyal »

indigoabstract wrote: post #82

Every time I read about these mind hacks that are supposed to transform your life and attitude, I'm reminded of the Novelty effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_effect It's the best thing ever, until you get used to it, than it becomes the same old. Sometimes I think the human race is completely ruled by this effect, ever chasing the next new thing as it seems so much better than the boring old thing.

what makes us feel good is dopamine and its cousins. Repeatedly doing the same thing produces less dopamine. This is how we are hard-wired, but it's essential for our survival.

Re: The illusion of being stuck

#113

Post by noufalibrahim »

physicles wrote: post #109
noufalibrahim wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the point you're trying to make. However, my general experience of attempts to take "useful" parts of of religion and then sanitise them for secular mass consumption is that they're at best useless and at worst harmful. Sure, there might be some proximal benefits to (say) meditation but these are things that were done in a larger (often spiritual) context and I'm not sure that pulling them out of that is…

I sympathize. As someone who used to hold essentially fundamentalist views, I'm now deeply suspicious of anything supernatural. When I left, I didn't even try to smuggle out any of the good parts. However, there's now tons of secular support for meditation. Sam Harris, a neuroscientist and one of the most anti-religion and anti-supernatural people out there, is basically leading the charge. I think that says somethin…

Interestingly, my main disagreements with the approach came primarily from the way Harris (and to a smaller degree Alain deBotton) attempted this.

Re: The illusion of being stuck

#114

Post by Dessesaf »

ericmcer wrote: post #55

Don’t people have partners, kids, aging parents, hell even pets that depend on them? The authors version of being stuck seems like a luxury, an inward exploration to find out how you are holding yourself back. To even approach it from that angle you need to have no one depending on you. I can’t “shake things up” by trying a new career or taking impulsive vacations because other human beings rely on me being “stuck”.

I think you overestimate how strongly those ties bind people to their current situations. I don't know your situation, so don't take this the wrong way. Maybe your ties truly do bind you. And maybe that's perfectly fine.

But I think for the vast majority of people, simply having a pet or a partner or a kid does not really tie them to their current situation. It's just about what you value more. Of course all of these ties change the tradeoffs of your choices. But every circumstance in life is a constraint on your choices. And large scale changes are possible even with all those things, should you desire it. There are plenty of people that take impulse vacations, change careers, countries, friends, partners, while having all of the dependents you list.

And if you consider all those tradeoffs and decide change isn't worth it, that's perfectly fine. But I see people use this to state that they had no choice in the matter. No, you had a choice and you chose from a constrained but still massive set of potential life situations. This is simply the one you prefer.

To bring this back to the article:

Take this and keep asking the same question. You’ll get to the root of it soon enough. In this instance, your feeling of being stuck is less about the external circumstances and more about internal barriers—fears, beliefs, and assumptions that keep you tethered to the familiar, however unsatisfying it may be.

If you keep asking the question, but your underlying answer is "It is actually more about the external circumstances than internal barriers", then that's your answer. You're not really stuck, you just made your choices and are where you wanted to be.

Re: The illusion of being stuck

#115

Post by indigoabstract »

jerrygoyal wrote: post #112
indigoabstract wrote: post #82

Every time I read about these mind hacks that are supposed to transform your life and attitude, I'm reminded of the Novelty effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_effect It's the best thing ever, until you get used to it, than it becomes the same old. Sometimes I think the human race is completely ruled by this effect, ever chasing the next new thing as it seems so much better than the boring old thing.

what makes us feel good is dopamine and its cousins. Repeatedly doing the same thing produces less dopamine. This is how we are hard-wired, but it's essential for our survival.

That's largely true. Still, there seems to be a difference between what we think we want and what we actually want, but we can't usually tell the difference in the moment, only in hindsight.

Eventually we find out, because we stick to what we actually want and discard what we thought we wanted.

Re: The illusion of being stuck

#116

Post by TomaszZielinski »

It appears to me that quite of few people in this thread seem to criticize the concepts from the article on the ground that it's some kind of "self-help mumbo jumbo" (for the lack of a better term).

I quickly skimmed the article and whereas I can't tell if it makes sense as a whole (I would have to persue it and think for a while), the individual concepts there resemble tools from ancient philosophies.

For instance, the mannequin issue is basically a stoic concept of "testing your impressions", i.e. check whether they are what they seem to be.

Basically, your mind is constantly receiving so called impressions (sensory inputs), along with quick attempts by the brain to classify them (thoughts). And then one's task is to either assent, dissent or suspend the judgement of the impression.

In the case of the mannequin from the article, the (false) impression is the image, along with a quick thought "it's a man".

Obviously the situation is very low stake, so it doesn't matter that much if we assent to a false impression, but in high stake situations assenting to false impression might be the cause or factor of anxiety or depression.

(Also, this is similar to challenging your thoughts in CBT, although I don't think CBT deals with trivial stuff like classifying mannequins. Whereas in Stoicism there's this classic example of misidentifying a wax apple as a real thing, so it was a better fit.)

Re: The illusion of being stuck

#117

Post by pier25 »

cess11 wrote: post #68
pier25 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It explains psychological addiction. You grow attached to a familiar and seemingly safe numbing sensation. Physical addiction is another thing.

OK, so this is a model relevant for people that believe in a dualist worldview? Kinda like a soul that needs to be kept pure or something?

How come? Psychology is entirely physical.

Physical dependence is a technical term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_dependence

Re: The illusion of being stuck

#118

Post by copperx »

spxneo wrote: post #87
paulgerhardt wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "Atomic Habits" doesn't sit with you (I found the endless anecdotes about the author's high school baseball career detracting) I recommend "Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals" - it's slightly less targeted to fans of Ryan Holiday/Tim Ferris and slightly more targeted to productivity hack tooling reformed/burnt-out individuals.

he only talks about his experience through his rehabilitation in the first chapter the rest of the book he draws from real world examples from other industries and history to illustrate the specific point. i think they are very practical as it is easier to remember stories than recalling step by step points

I couldn't take the book seriously after the "you just need to improve 1% every day" as if improving 1% constantly was somehow attainable by mere mortals. If I can bench press 20 lbs today and improve 1% every day, I'll be bench pressing more than 700 lbs a year from now. Yeah, it doesn't work that way.

If I read 10 pages a day, and improve 1% every day, by the end of the year I will be reading a 370+ page book every day!

This is perhaps one of the dumbest things I've read. And that was supposed to motivate me!?

Re: The illusion of being stuck

#119

Post by patcon »

sdwr wrote: post #30
rwasco wrote: post #4

> I impulssively bought a plane ticket to Panama: > I cried. Haven’t done that in years. > I had the uncomfortable conversation with my business partner to tell them I no longer have passion for it and am leaving them the decision to continue or quit. > I forced myself to talk to strangers every single day. These also could be explained by someone entering hypomania. How would you distinguish stuck/unstuck from depre…

There's a big grey area in the middle. How you want to label it is influenced by the outcome and whether you think it's a good idea. Quitting your job and flying to Central America is risky. If his life improves from there, then it was getting unstuck. If it gets worse or goes back to the same, then it was a manic episode. History written by the victors!

> The illusion of being stuck

Agree. Assigning pathologizing is mostly based on whether it affects your life in a negative way. If it doesn't (and it's not simply deferring or hiding the bad outcomes), the it's not the pathology. Harm to self and others is where hypomania gets distinguished

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