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Rain comments on The fallacy of work-life compartmentalization - Less Wrong
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It's "firefighter labor." Supposedly, if the system I support goes down, it's $1,000,000 per hour, which would mean if I save an hour of downtime, I've paid my salary for several years. But the number was likely a wild guess in the first place, and I received it 5th hand, so I have no idea as to the truth of the matter. All I know for sure is that it's an important and costly system.
I can't feel that number at all, and certainly no one around me seems to care much about it, either. Everyone I work with on problems with the system cares more that there's a "red light" that our Big Boss will see. Big Boss gets upset with red lights, not that anyone ever gets blamed, punished, or held accountable. Must be a status thing.
Potentially because I'm idealistic, and realize that I have "untapped potential" and other buzz-phrases. More likely, I have emotional problems dealing with an on-call, firefighter position, and inappropriate low self-esteem. This is not helped by the fact my bonuses are not linked to actual events, nor are the awards. My supervisor lies on the applications for political reasons (quotas, etc.).
I don't have an exclusivity contract preventing me from doing additional work, but I do have rigid security on my work computer, and I don't have any projects I feel like contributing to at the moment. "Meaningful work" is an elusive concept to me.
I'd rather be reading a book, but that's too blatant to get away with.
Fire up a VM then, or shell out somewhere. You're technically competent enough that any network access - much less unfettered recreational web-browsing access - is enough.
I feel like you're not even trying. There genuinely are no FLOSS project you want to contribute to? Well, I suppose that's possible. Then why not become an auto-didact and start working through textbooks? SICP may be too elementary for you, but SICP is far from the only textbook available online. Why not pick up a productive hobby like Wikipedia editing, or proofreading for Project Gutenberg? Or, or, or...
If you have plausible rationales for all of these, I think I would diagnose your real problem as akrasia or general depression/lack of energy.
I would like to explain that, intellectually, I understand that I have severe akrasia and likely clinical depression. However, it primarily manifests itself in the form of the phrase, "I don't care," and it is a recursive lack of caring, such that I do not care that I do not care; at least, that's how it feels. I find it very difficult to acquire motivation under such conditions.
How does one start to care? I've thought about it a great deal, and never came up with an answer outside of, "you just do."
I don't know about you, but if I eat too much high glycemic food, I get "I don't care, I don't care" running in my mind, and it's very hard for me to do things.
I've got akrasia problems anyway, but too much refined carbs makes it worse, and it took me quite a while to find out that the "I don't care" soundtrack wasn't just an emotional problem-- I was poisoned.
The other traps in this are that it's hard to remember that I need to eat more carefully if I'm knocked out, and the taste of sweetness does a good job of briefly cutting through the depressive haze.
I'd be surprised if anyone who doesn't care has cared enough to figure it out.
That said, you might start examining the things you do care about. You bother to go to work every day, after all. And you eat food rather than poison. You might try to examine those for general categories of things you care about.
I'd already thought of that: looking at implicit cares and attempting to shift them into a position of explicit cares, but it's not easy, especially since most of it feels arbitrary and is carried out through habit or aversion to discomfort. If all I "really" care about is present physical comfort, I'm in bad shape.
This made me think of what pjeby calls the pain brain. In short, our actions can be motivated by either getting closer to what we want (pull) or away from what we try to avoid (push). Generally, push overrides pull, so you may not even notice what you want if you're too busy avoiding what you don't.
It may be useful to explore your goals and motivations with relaxed mental inquiry and critically examine any fears or worries that may come up.
I'm surprised no one has suggested it, but if you think that you have clinical depression I would strongly suggest seeking help. I have been depressed, I sought help and life moves on.
Congratulations.
?
I hardly needed a sad person's false praise. Not being in pitiful emotional state, that has been described more lucidly that I could by others, is all the reward I need.
You asked for advice, I gave some. If you're a jerk to others in a similar situation you may not have much to care about afterwards.
Oh. Well, I suppose if you already understand and accept it, then there's nothing more for me to argue for.
One of my side projects is trying to figure out whether programs in a self-maintaining computer architecture I'm in the middle of designing would be pushed to foom. If they would, obviously I wouldn't build it. If they wouldn't it might have a fairly big affect on the future trajectory of computer systems.
Be warned though making it and making programs in it to make it actually useful is far more than a two man project.
Fancy wrapping your brain around that?
No, thank you. I'd rather suffer where I am.
ETA: I've become uncomfortable with this line of conversation, and feel that people are putting too much pressure on me in an attempt to other-optimize. Thank you for your attempts to assist, but I would rather that this thread end here.
No requirement for moving, just something to do rather than surf pointlessly during you job.