mattnewport comments on The ABC's of Luminosity - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Alicorn 18 March 2010 09:47PM

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Comment author: reaver121 18 March 2010 10:44:13PM *  6 points [-]

Additionally, take note of any interesting absences. If something generally considered sad has happened to you, and you can detect no sadness in your affect or telltale physical side effects, that's highly relevant data.

This one (and the opposite, i.e. have an emotion where it's considered inappropriate) happens to me a lot.

For example, my room is usually total and utter chaos which doesn't disturb me in the slightest. For some reason anything that isn't moved in the last 3 or 4 days just becomes background, like trees in a forest. On the other hand, as a programmer, I tend to be very precise in my code & database (Codd help you if I find that you forgot a foreign key).

Another one is weather and sunlight. I prefer an overcast sky and 10 - 20 degrees Celsius and truly hate summer. Travel is another one. I never got why people have to move over 500 miles to relax. Is it really that difficult to relax at home ?

About emotions in general, I never understood how people can consider them (in)appropriate. For the large part, I don't control how I feel so why is (not) feeling something my fault ? Off course, I mostly control how I react to those feelings so I'm still responsible for my behavior but if I simply say that I do/don't have an 'appropriate' feeling, why are some people always shocked ?

Comment author: mattnewport 18 March 2010 11:40:00PM *  3 points [-]

I never got why people have to move over 500 miles to relax. Is it really that difficult to relax at home?

This may be a confusion over the meaning of 'relax'. I find a vacation away from home more energizing than one spent at home partly due to the 'a change is as good as a rest' phenomenon.

I think for me being removed from environmental cues that are associated with the stresses of day to day life is also helpful. I found climbing a mountain on my vacation last year more 'relaxing' in this sense than spending the same amount of time sitting around my apartment despite it being physically taxing for example. I also find myself more relaxed/replenished if I've gone snowboarding on a Sunday than if I've sat around my apartment all day watching TV.

This may be a 'personality type' thing.