Group Rationality Diary, June 1-15

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for June 1-15.

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.

Previous diary: May 16-31

Next diary: June 16-30

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for June 1-15.

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.

Previous diary: May 16-31

Next diary: June 16-30

Rationality diaries archive

Had a realization while on a campout; A major motivator behind my actions is a feeling that I'm constantly behind in my understanding of things. Without an understanding of the situation, I have no control. I feel like I can't even formulate a calm and steady reaction when I don't know what I'm dealing with.

This became clear when I got all out of sorts because no one would follow my clever ideas for campout activities. I foresaw a lack of a predictable structure bothering me, I set out to enforce a structure, and still wound up in the middle of confusing random noise. And then with neither laptop nor quiet, comfortable place to think I had no way to process any of that confusion.

This week:

Still haven't done that habit murphy-proof.
Took on a challenge to do some items from a self-chosen theme every day for a week, and if you fail to do a day then you have to complete that plus the next day's task in order to check it tomorrow. I chose Summer Solstice Party planning as my theme. I did the first day and then things started to backlog.
I'm trying 20 minute zazen every morning. It is maddeningly boring. As a side note, there is something about buddhist philosophy (at least, as rendered by an anarchist author I'm reading) that appear

... (read more)

0hamnox12y

This week: * I've changed from going through 1 Lojban lesson a week to ensuring that I actually PRACTICE what I've learned so far. * I have a to-do to murphy-proof my GTD/habit process. Things are backing up, so I want to think of ways to avoid that in the future. Hopefully I'll actually get to that brainstorm at some point. * I did some offline training for my morning routine today.

0Luke_A_Somers12y

How did that work out after your realization?