DeVliegendeHollander comments on Can we talk about mental illness? - Less Wrong

39 Post author: riparianx 08 March 2015 08:24AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 10 March 2015 02:23:15PM 0 points [-]

i think I am inadvertedly doing something like this. Here is what I started recently:

  • stop drinking, the evening reward is only non-alcoholic beer
  • fairly heavy exercise, boxing 3 times a week and 100 pushups on other days
  • instead of feeling like fighting my addiction or laziness, doing the opposite, stopping fighting my better judgement (to work out and to not drink) even when I don't feel like doing so. I don't know how better to explain it. I am reinventing the bicameral mind basically: everything decided rationally is casted into an "upper self" that gives orders, and my normal self can only sigh and follow its orders even when it makes me feel not comfortable, still it is a submission to and not fighting the decisions of the upper self, instead of fighting the urges and instincts of the lower self
  • when having little to do at work, and spend a lot of time on LW or Reddit, schedule the day so that productive work is in the last 1-2 hours so I can go home with some pride and not feeling the day was worthless
  • counter-act the complete lack of socialization during work by listening to vocal music with interesting lyrics in the evening

However I have no idea if I am depressed or not and I strongly suspect that if your upbringing or culture is not exactly optimistic it is not such a clear cut case. I have clear anhedonia, but it does not make me passive or dyfunctional: I am able to do my duty in a "shut up and soldier on, feeling good is not required" way. I think if people don't really expect happiness, it is hard to tell if they are depressed, if they find anhedonia normal and can function in it.

Comment author: Nick_Roy 10 March 2015 03:12:27PM 0 points [-]

The similarity between our approaches is as you say: the realization that akrasia defeats frontal assaults with heavy casualties. The difference is that you are doing something like the "take right action without resistance" approach that I've encountered before in Buddhism, which matches up nicely with anhedonia (personally I am a hedonist, so this does not work for me); while I am attempting to root out the basic causes of my akrasia, down to the very sources, to change the way I feel in the first place. Both approaches have their merits, and I agree that proper choice of approach relative to the individual depends on factors like personality and culture. Have you encountered any other indirect approaches to defeating akrasia, as we are attempting at present?

Comment author: [deleted] 10 March 2015 04:02:36PM *  0 points [-]

The difference is that you are doing something like the "take right action without resistance" approach that I've encountered before in Buddhism, which matches up nicely with anhedonia (personally I am a hedonist, so this does not work for me);

That is interesting - you correctly predicted I was exposed to Buddhism (indeed practiced it for years, although this non-forced-action, wu-wei is from my earlier exposure to Taoism.

But it has nothing to do with anhedonia! First of all anhedonia is not enjoying stuff, not not wanting to enjoy stuff. It is not a choice or attitude, it is the illness. If you have or used to have depression you had it too - it is rather part of the definition itself. Second, if anything, the attitude I gleaned from Buddhism was very optimistic about fun and joy, my teacher is almost extremely hedonistic. This has more to do with my parents being blue-collar, and my cultural background is Mitteleuropa - I tried to hint on that with "shut up and soldier on", it is a direct translation from "Maul halten und weiter dienen" (BTW my first language is not German but this saying describes the region rather well). Basically this is what you get from blue-collar parents. Don't like your job? Shut up, you have a family to support. Soldier on. And so on.

Finally, do you think wu-wei prevents hedonism? I think if enjoyment means resting effortlessly in the here and now instead of hoping for or worrying about something in the future, it is more like a precondition for it.

Comment author: Nick_Roy 10 March 2015 08:46:33PM 0 points [-]

Where this chain of reasoning breaks down for me is in the "without resistance" phase of "take right action without resistance". If the resistance, both conscious and unconscious, is too strong, there will be no right action taken, whether I will it or no. So what I do instead is undermine the resistance itself. This is my precondition for taking right action. Do you see what I mean? Wu-wei prevents hedonism if wu-wei is essential to hedonism but there can be no wu-wei.

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