Always fun when geeks discover basic philosphical concepts like it's a new thing and not something greeks nailed 2000 years ago.
But its on substack.. so its way different.
And.
Its worded,
Like This.
#Deep
Thin desires are eating life
181–190 of 285 posts
Re: Thin desires are eating life
#182I can't help but feel that this article was written in a format that is the textual equivalent of thin desires… Every sentence is separated into its own paragraph, like each one is supposed to be revelatory (or maybe tweet-worthy). It's pretty common design knowledge that if you try to emphasize everything, you end up emphasizing nothing. The result is that reading the article feels choppy, and weirdly unsatisfying,…
Reading, I knew someone would comment on it. I actually prefer the style - maybe because my attention span is shot. But I think it’s more because the author made sure each sentence was content heavy. No verbose paragraphs. And paragraphs made of dense sentences are themselves dense and become harder to read. Reflect on the structure of your own comment. I suspect you were not intentionally trying to be ironic. Edit:…
> "my attention span is shot"
Maybe you like being restricted to reading in the ad-copy register, in which case go ahead and make virtue of vice, but otherwise: this lack is well within your power to remedy.
Re: Thin desires are eating life
#183This resonates. I work in web dev, and a little over 2 years ago I hit a wall. Everything was a screen. All day at work, at home, on the go. Everything felt hallow and unrewarding. I'm an introvert, so outside of my family, I didn't have many relationships. Of course, I was depressed. I began working on it by going to therapy and then one day I decided to try sculpting. This changed everything. I found I was pretty g…
Kudos on your evolution. But this gets me thinking, remember when computing didn't felt "thin" ? even screen had a different feel. I don't know if it's our brain getting used and losing a kind of magic filter. Anyway, I should probably imitate you, every time I see some people crafting real things I have a little blip of envy.
I still get that feeling sometimes, even after 25 years with computers at home. But it is so dependent on what I do. I get this feeling when I create stuff on my own terms, like making a game or a website. I also get this feeling when discovering other people’s personal creations online.
Re: Thin desires are eating life
#184This resonates. I work in web dev, and a little over 2 years ago I hit a wall. Everything was a screen. All day at work, at home, on the go. Everything felt hallow and unrewarding. I'm an introvert, so outside of my family, I didn't have many relationships. Of course, I was depressed. I began working on it by going to therapy and then one day I decided to try sculpting. This changed everything. I found I was pretty g…
Kudos on your evolution. But this gets me thinking, remember when computing didn't felt "thin" ? even screen had a different feel. I don't know if it's our brain getting used and losing a kind of magic filter. Anyway, I should probably imitate you, every time I see some people crafting real things I have a little blip of envy.
It was before the invasion of late stage capitalism in computing, creating the attention economy.
Computing was a thing by geeks, for geeks. It was revolutionary. It was fun. Now it's the lowest common denominator. Instagram.
Re: Thin desires are eating life
#185Even with thick desires, I sometimes find myself day-dreaming about the state when I have mastered a skill or understood a topic deeply. At the same time, I know from experience that the process never ends. Even when one does master a skill, one is deeply aware of what one doesn't know or understand or what one is not good at within that domain. What helps me is to focus on today. If I can spend even an hour on a top…
David Epstein calls this "desirable difficulty" in the book Range.
Interestingly he recently discussed how using LLMs tends to remove this desirable difficulty: https://davidepstein.substack.com/p/a-risk-of-cognitive-conv...
This means that the results (both of the task and of the learning by the student) are lower if the student uses an LLM first, but slightly improves if they use it second
Re: Thin desires are eating life
#186I can't help but feel that this article was written in a format that is the textual equivalent of thin desires… Every sentence is separated into its own paragraph, like each one is supposed to be revelatory (or maybe tweet-worthy). It's pretty common design knowledge that if you try to emphasize everything, you end up emphasizing nothing. The result is that reading the article feels choppy, and weirdly unsatisfying,…
That's not always the intention behind that style of writing.
Often, when I'm communicating with someone who is either dyslexic, or uses English as a second (or even third or fourth) language, then I make an effort to shorten sentences, and almost make bullet points of them.
It's actually a good exercise for the person writing too. Less can indeed be more.
Re: Thin desires are eating life
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kudos on your evolution. But this gets me thinking, remember when computing didn't felt "thin" ? even screen had a different feel. I don't know if it's our brain getting used and losing a kind of magic filter. Anyway, I should probably imitate you, every time I see some people crafting real things I have a little blip of envy.
It was before the invasion of late stage capitalism in computing, creating the attention economy. Computing was a thing by geeks, for geeks. It was revolutionary. It was fun. Now it's the lowest common denominator. Instagram.
the small culture aspect is something i think about too, it was the outcome of a certain group of people liking a similar idea and way of doing things. now it's diluted in all of the social issues (privacy, fame, short term attention)
Re: Thin desires are eating life
#188Nice to see that some people still feel the difference. I’m not sure whether the next generations will experience it as strongly, having grown up with much thinner lives. In my experience, deeper desires tend to emerge outside the comfort zone — a place fewer and fewer people seem willing to enter today.
Re: Thin desires are eating life
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just you. I've read this person's stuff before. Every sentence comes off as if they are presenting the results of a major epiphany. You can write things which sound pretty. It's the equivalent of wordy sugar. It's much harder to to write things you've learned from life experience or thought deeply about. Subject your beliefs to the Socratic method. If they've survived your own criticism to the fullest extent…
I agree with the general sentiment of your comment, but not this: > then maybe they've got an inkling of truth and they're worth writing about. Ideas don't have to be infallible to be worth writing about. It's a slippery slope to not writing at all.
"inkling of truth" != "infallible"
#strawmanning
Re: Thin desires are eating life
#190This resonates. I work in web dev, and a little over 2 years ago I hit a wall. Everything was a screen. All day at work, at home, on the go. Everything felt hallow and unrewarding. I'm an introvert, so outside of my family, I didn't have many relationships. Of course, I was depressed. I began working on it by going to therapy and then one day I decided to try sculpting. This changed everything. I found I was pretty g…
Oh that's cool ! Bravo !
I lived exactly the same thing also two years ago.
What changed everything to me was, impulsively, enrolling myself to a rollerblading course in a skate park. I was 34, overweight (still am) and never did anything like this (I never did barely any sport at all tbh). Oh boy was this transformative.
I'm still in the course every week and like you, it feels good because it's tangible : not in the material way like sculpting but rather by doing things with my body (and my brain) I would'nt believe I could do at all even when I was younger. That's an amazing feeling after decades of watching things on screens (yes, I know how that sounds pathetic, but that's my story).