Group Rationality Diary, December 16-31

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for December 16-31.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Immediate past diary: December 1-15

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for December 16-31.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Immediate past diary: December 1-15

Rationality diaries archive

I'm highly risk-averse, and took a rather big step out of my comfort zone recently and got laser eye surgery on the thirteenth of December.

It's turned out very well so far. The post-care management and discomfort is rather manageable (eyedrops 12 times a day, face shield at night, ban on touching eyes), discomfort is minimal and mostly just light sensitivity).

I had irregularly shaped eyes (astigmatism and perhaps more) before surgery, and correcting that has been amazing. Combined with getting more and better peripheral vision, and it's a huge cognitive load off. Multiple people have remarked that I've seemed much happier after getting lasik done. I've had to re-train my hand-eye coordination to not compensate for the wacky geometry I was compensating for, and it's a very unique feeling. Very hard to describe.

It's also gotten much easier for me to keep track of my surroundings, notice and comprehend more things and more details, line things up and use more accurate lengths, and find objects. As far as I'm aware, uncorrected astigmatism is a big contributing factor to clumsiness in general, and I had a big tendency to figure out how to carry large objects through hallways and staircases by braille. Too soon to tell how much that all is fixed, but I fully expect it to get much better.

I've vaguely wanted to go through with it for just over a year, and I'm a little sad that I didn't earlier. But it's fixed now, and I'm already moving towards being less overcautious, so there's really no point in beating myself up over it.

rather manageable (eyedrops 12 times a day

What?

1Tripitaka12y

Have you used glasses or contact lenses before? I'd guess glasses, from what I have heard from friends who switched to contact lenses they get a similar feeling of cognitive unloading.