= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
achiral comments on Open thread, August 5-11, 2013 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (307)
Would it surprise you to learn I'd recently spent two weeks swing dancing in a pop-up shanty-town in rural Sweden? That I clock up around thirty miles a week on foot in one of the world's largest metropolitan conurbations? That I nearly joined a travelling circus school a few years ago? That I've given solo vocal performances on stage for six nights a week in front of hundreds of people?
With respect, you have no knowledge of my "situation". Please don't presume to offer me advice on the basis of whatever assumptions you've incorrectly conjured up.
Those all sound like some pretty awesome activities!
My question to you, with respect, is this: why not just reduce the amount of hours per day you spend on serious, solitary intellectual work and fill the balance with externally oriented, social activities till you find a maintainable balance of sociability vs. studying?
Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but it seems you're essentially saying that when you (temporarily) hyper focus on solitary, intellectual activities you (temporarily) encounter more difficulty in conversations. This doesn't surprise me and it seems evident that the only real solution is to find the right balance for you and accept the inherent trade offs.
It's not like I have some slider on my desktop, with "sit in a box, autistically rocking back and forth, counting numbers" at one end, and "rakishly sample the epicurean delights of the world" at the other. I have time and work and study commitments. I have externally-imposed scheduling. I have inscrutable internal motivation levels that need to be contended with.
It's a case of resource management, and occasionally when managing those resources I'll have to focus on one area to the exclusion of another. That's fine. It's not something there's a "solution" to. It's a condition all moderately busy people have to operate under.
For certain people that's not an option (“phdcomics is a documentary” -- shminux).