= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Mental models - giving people personhood and taking it away
Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/giving-people-personhood-and-taking-it-away
This post is about the Kegan levels of self development. If you don't know what that is, this post might still be interesting to you but you might be missing some key structure to understand where it fits among that schema. More information can be found here (https://meaningness.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/developing-ethical-social-and-cognitive-competence/)
I am not ready to definitely accept the Kegan levels as a useful model because often it makes retrospective predictions. Rather than predictions of the future. A model is only as useful as what it can predict, so if it can't be used on the fly when you want to explain the universe you might as well throw it out. Having said that, this idea is interesting.
When I was little, people fell into different categories. There was my parents - the olderClass humans (going to refer to them as Senior-humans), my siblings - which, as I grew up turned into my age-group humans and through school - my peergroup humans.
People like doctors fell into SeniorClass, Dentists, Vets, Plumbers, PIC (People In Charge) - all fell into the SeniorClass of humans. A big one was teachers - they were all PIC. A common trope among children is that the teachers sleep at school. Or to use a gaming term - we feel as though they are the NPC's of that part of our journey in life.
As far as I can tell (from trying to pinpoint this today); the people I meet on my own terms become peergroup humans. Effectively friends. People I meet not on my terms; as well as strangers - first join some kind of seniorclass of humans, if I get to know them enough they transition to my peergroup. Of course this is a bit strange because on the one hand I imagine I want to be friends with the PIC, or the senior-class humans because of the opportunity to get ahead in life. the good ol' I know a guy who know's a guy. Which is really not what a peergroup constitutes.
Peergroup humans are not "A guy with skills" much as we might hope for; they are (hopefully) all at our own, or near our own skill level. (on Kegan's stage 3) people who's opinions and ideas we care about because they are similar to us.
Recently I have noticed events that have taken some of my long term SeniorClass and shift them into my peergroup. Effectively "demoting" them from "Professional" to "human". When I think "person has their shit together" or "person doesn't have their shit together". I guess there were always people who seemed to have their shit together. Now that I am an adult it's clear that less and less people are competent and more and more people are winging it through their lives. It's mildly uncomfortable to think of people as being less "together" than I thought they were.
The other place where it's been an uncomfortable transition is in my memory. I will from time to time think back to a time when I deferred judgement, decision making capacity, or high-level trust in someone else having my own best interests at heart - where now looking back retrospectively they were just as lost and confused as I was in some of those situations, but they had a little kid to take care of/be in charge of/be in seniority to.
What I wonder about this process of demoting people is - what if instead of demoting my adults as they prove their humanity; I instead promote all the humans to Senior-Class. What would that do to my model of humans? And I guess I don't really know where I stand. Am I an adult? Am I a peer? I have always been an observer...
I'm not really getting at anything with this post. Just interesting to observe this reclassification happening and fit kegan's stages around it. Obviously some of the way that I sorted Senior-class humans is particularly relevant to a stage 3 experience of how I managed my relationships when I was smaller. I also wonder that given the typical mind - whether this is normal or unusual.
Question for today:
- Do you divide people into "advanced" and "equal" and "simpler" - (or did you do it when you were younger?)
- Do people ever change category on you? In which direction? What do you do about that?
- Assuming I am on some kind of path of gradually increasing understanding and growing and changing models of the world around me - what is next?
Meta: this took 3 hours to write over a few days.
Setting up my work environment - Doing the causation backwards
Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/doing-the-causation-backwards/
About two years ago, when I first got my smart phone (yes, later than most of the other humans). I was new to apps, and I was new to environments. When I decided on what apps should be on my home screen, I picked the ones that I thought I would use most often.
My home screen started with:
- google bar (the top of the page)
- calendar
- notepad app (half the page)
- ingress (because I play)
- maps
- camera
- torch
My home screen has barely changed. I don't play ingress very often these days, but that's by choice, however I was seeing the facebook notifications far too often. Ending up on facebook far too often for what I wanted.
Recently I decided to try out some tracking systems that include 1/0 metrics. It looks something like this:
I wanted this in a place where I could see it and fill it out every day, and at the same time I began to question why I have my facebook app on my front page. This link is now on my front page and I easily fill it out once a day (a win for a habit successfully implemented).
The concept that I want to impart today is that the causation goes the wrong way. Instead of wanting apps that I regularly use on my front page so that I can easily access them - I want apps that I want to use regularly on my front page. That way I will tend to develop habits of regularly using them instead of the other ones.
Fridge
This applies to the refrigerator too. Instead of the things you use and eat all the time being at the front (assuming they might be different), you want the foods that you want to eat most readily accessible and at the front. If this means healthy foods at the front - do that. If this means having a fruit bowl on the table - do that.
TV
This applies to TV too. If you find book-reading more interesting than TV watching but find yourself watching a lot of TV all the same; put the remotes in a harder to reach place and leave really good books lying around.
Computer shortcuts
Want to play less games? Get to Reddit less? Maybe put the games in slightly harder to access places. Buried in other folders. Delete the auto-fill in your browser that completes to Reddit. Want to do equations by hand more often than using a calculator (for practicing math purposes) - make the calculator slightly harder to get to, and make sure you have a pen/paper handy around the computer.
Junk food
Do you have a candy cupboard? Find yourself eating too much of it. A simple answer would be to empty it, and don't fill it again. But an alternative that still lets you have candy in the house is to place slightly healthier and tasty food choices in front of the candy. for example dried fruit - still sweet and bite-sized, in a similar class of choices to Candy, but significantly healthier. Some days you will reach past the dried fruit for the chocolate, and many more days you will reach for the dried fruits.
The meta strategy
Without creating more examples. There are often behaviours you want to do better, actions that you want to take instead of other actions, or behaviours that have a "better form" than you might otherwise be doing.
The strategy is:
- Take 5 minutes writing out what you usually do on a daily basis
- For each one, consider if this is the optimum form of the action, (or one that leads to acceptable levels of results) - don't be afraid to dream of the possible optimal actions.
- Make the better option more available in your life.
- Make it easier for yourself to do the better option.
- Check progress in a month (put a reminder in your diary) and iterate on solutionspace
- Winning!
We know about System 1 and System 2. We live some of our life in S1 and some in S2. S2 know's it's not always going to be "in charge" and making deliberate actions but it does have periods of lucid thought in which to set up S1 with better easiest-path behaviours and actions. This applies to planning, setting up a workspace, avoiding the pain of paying and many more.
Think: How can I set this up so that I do the better possible path in the future with the least effort?
Meta: this post took 2hrs to write.
Low hanging productivity - improving your workspace
Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/low-hanging-productivity/
Tl;dr - Simple changes to workspaces like a big screen can make a big difference.
This week I spent a few days away from my usual desk. I have been house sitting. I didn't think too much of it; I tend to carry with me a portable lifestyle. My laptop, some power blocks for my phone, and various supplies that make for easy "office"-ing around the place. I usually don't carry a charger with me because when I know I will be gone a while I will take it with me.
I have always liked a portable office. The ability to stop, and continue later at ease was always important to me. However recently I moved into a new place and set up a desk. I figured I would tryX where X is workspaces (a post for the future). I never set up a workspace for the reason of it not being portable. The interesting thing that has surprised me this week is that I miss my big screen (which was a gift - I might have never bought myself a big screen).
For whatever reason, the ability to view more space at once makes me more productive. Combined with Linux's natural tendencies to have several desktop environments with simple switching. My laptop screen is about 19in. Which is plenty. The new screen is about 1.5x that. I never thought it would be useful, it took me years to do it. If it broke today, I would be willing to spend up to $900 to get it back (which is more than six times the price of a new screen). Right now I wonder how productive I might be with a 3rd screen... Or a 4th. (or a 3D virtual reality work environment with screenspace limited by my eyeballs not my screen resolution...)
I feel like (along with other habits) I am probably working at 120% of what I was working before. A fair chunk of which I owe to the extra screenspace.
Questions for today:
- What part do you remember adding to your workspace to help you be more productive.
- What's the coolest most awesome or productive workspace that you have seen in action? How hard would that be to get for yourself?
- How can you make your current workspace a tiny bit more productive in anticipation for things you have to do tomorrow?
Meta: This took 45mins to write.
People who lie about how much they eat are jerks
Originally posted here: http://bearlamp.com.au/people-who-lie-about-how-much-they-eat-are-jerks/
Weight loss journey is a long and complicated problem solving adventure. This is one small factor that adds to the confusion. You probably have that one friend. Appears to eat a whole bunch, and yet doesn't put on weight. If you ever had that conversation it goes something like,
"How are you so thin?"
"raah raah metabolism"
"raah raah I dont know why I don't put on weight"
"Take advantage of the habit"
Well I have had enough. You're wrong. You're lying and you probably don't even know it. It's not possible. (Within a reasonable scope of human variation) Calories and energy are a black box system. Calories in, work out, leftovers become weight gain, deficit is weight loss. If a human could eat significantly more calories for the same amount of work and not put on weight we would be prodding them in a lab for breaking the laws of physics on conservation of mass and conservation of energy.
So this is you, you say you gain weight no matter what you eat and that's scientifically impossible. Now what? You probably don't mean to break the laws of physics (and you probably don't actually break them). You genuinely absentmindedly don't notice when you scoff down whole plates of food and when you skip dinner because you didn't feel like it (and absentmindedly balance the calories automatically). It's all the same to you because you naturally do that.
This very likely is about habits, and natural habits that people have. If for example John has the habit of getting home and going to the fridge, making dinner because it's usually the evening. Wendy doesn't have the habit. She eats when she is hungry. Not having a set mealtime sometimes means that she gets tired-hungry and has a state of being too exhausted to decide what to eat and too hungry to do anything else that would help solve the problem. But for Wendy she doesn't get home and automatically cook dinner. (good things and bad things come from habits.)
Wendy and john go to a big lunch together. They both eat 150% of the calories they should be eating for that meal, and they don't mind - enjoying food is part of enjoying life. It was a fancy restaurant with good food. Later that evening when Wendy gets home she doesn't feel hungry and goes off to read a book or talk to friends on the internet. Eventually she has a light snack (of 10% of her "dinner" calories) and heads off to totalling 160% of the calories for the two meals. Effectively under-eating for the day. John on the other hand, has his habit of heading home and making dinner. Even after the big lunch, his automatic systems take over and he makes and ordinary dinner of 100% of his calories for that meal. John's total for that day is 250% for two meals or effectively half a meal extra for that day.
If W and J do this every week (assuming the rest of their diets are perfectly balanced), John will have an upwards trajectory and Wendy will have a downwards one. John might ask Wendy how she stays so skinny, and Wendy wouldn't know. After all they eat about the same amount when they are together.
No one understands this.
What can we do about it?
1. We can hire scientists to follow both J and W around for a week and write down every time they eat something. (this is impractical - maybe if we are in an isolated environment like a weekend retreat it would be easier to do this)
2. We can get them to self report via an app (but people are usually pretty bad at that)
3. We can try ask more specifically, "what do you eat in a day?", or "what have you eaten since this time yesterday?" and gather data points to try to build a picture of what a person eats.
4. We can search for people with similar habits around food to us and ask them how they stay healthy.
5. We can look for people with successful habits around food, ask them for advice and then figure out why that advice works, and how to make that advice work for us.
On the noticing level. You should notice that every single thing that you eat adds to your caloric intake. Every single piece of work you do adds to your burn. It's easier to eat another piece of chocolate (for 5 seconds) than run another 15minutes to burn that chocolate off. If something is not working towards your dieting success it's probably working against it.
Meta: this took one hour to write.
Open Thread, Aug. 8 - Aug 14. 2016
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "
The meta-strategy
Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/against-the-five-love-languages/
You are in a relationship, someone made some objection about communication, you don't seem to understand what's going on. Many years later you find yourself looking back at the relationship and reflecting with friends. That's when someone brings up The Five Love Languages. Oh deep and great and meaningful secrets encoded into a book.
The 5 languages are:
- Gifts
- Quality time
- Words of affirmation
- Acts of service (devotion)
- Physical touch (intimacy)
Oooooh if only you had spent more energy trying to get quality time, and less effort on gifts that relationship could have been saved. Or the other way - the relationship was doomed because you wanted quality time and they wanted gifts as a show of love.
You start seeing the world in 5 languages, your coworker offering to get you a coffee is a gift. Your boss praising your good work is words of affirmation. You start thinking like a Man with a hammer. Strictly speaking I enjoy man with a hammer syndrome. I like to use a model to death, and then pick a new model and do it all again.
What I want you to do now is imagine you didn't do that. Imagine we cloned the universe. In one universe we gave you the love-languages book and locked you in a room to read it. In the second universe we offered to run you through a new relationship-training exercise. "It's no guide book on how to communicate with your partner, but it's a pretty good process", we lock you in a room with a chair, a desk, some paper, pens (few distractions) and order you to derive some theory and idea about how to communicate with your partner.
Which one do you predict will yield the best result?
When I ask my system 2, it is fairly happy with the idea that using someone else's model is a shortcut to finding the answers. After all they pre-derived the model. No need to spend hours working on it myself when it's all in a book.
When I ask my system 1, it thinks that the self-derived system is about a billion times better than the one I found in a book. It's going to be personally suited, it's going to be sharp and accurate, and bend to my needs.
Meta-strategy
Which is going to yield the best result for the problem? Self-derived solutions to all future problems? Book-derived solutions for all problems?
I propose that the specific strategy used to answer the problem, depending on the problem (obviously sometimes 1+1 will only be solved with addition, and solving it with subtraction is going to be difficult), is mostly irrelevant compared to having the meta-strategy.
In the original example:
My relationship has bad communication, so we end the relationship.
The meta-strategy for this case:
My relationship has bad communication, how do we find more information about that and solve that problem.
In the general case:
I have a problem, I will fix the problem.
the meta strategy for the general case:
I have a problem, what is the best way to solve the problem?
Or the meta-meta strategy:
I have a problem, how will I go about finding what is the best way to solve the problem?
I propose that having the meta strategy, and the meta-meta strategy is almost as powerful as the true strategy. On the object level for the problem example, instead of searching for the book in the problem field that is the five love languages you could instead search for any book about the problem area. Any book is better than no book. In fact I would make a hierarchy:
The best strategy > a good strategy > any strategy > no strategy
The best book > a good book > any book on the topic > no book on the topic
You encounter a problem in the wild - what should you do?
- Try just solve the problem
- Try any strategy (with a small amount of thinking - a few seconds or minutes)
- search for a better strategy
Depending on the problem, the time, the real factors - the best path forward may be to just "think of what to do then do that", or it may be to "stop and write out a 10 page plan before executing 10 pages worth of instructions".
Should you read the five love languages book? That depends. What is the problem? and have you tried solving the problem on your own first?
Meta: this took an hour to write.
My table of contents: lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/mp2/my_future_posts_a_table_of_contents/ (which needs updating)
The Problem (TM) - Part 2
From part 1: http://bearlamp.com.au/the-problem-tm-analyse-a-conversation/
part 1 on lesswrong: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/nsn/
(this) part: http://bearlamp.com.au/the-problem-analyse-a-conversation-part-2/
I had a chat with a person who admitted to having many problems themselves. I offered my services as a problem solving amateur, willing to try to get to the bottom of this. Presented is the conversation (With details changed for privacy).
I had my first shot at analysing the person's problems and drilling down to the bottom. I am interested in what other people have to say is the problem. Here we study the meta-strategy of how to solve the problem, which I find much more interesting than the object level analysis of the problem and how to solve it.
I don't think I got to the bottom of the problem, and I don't think I conducted myself in a top-notch capacity but needless to say I wonder if you have any comments about what IS TheProblem(tm), how did you come to that conclusion and what can be done about it (for the benefit of this person and anyone with a similar problem).
What is actually the problem? I have a theory, but I also wanted to publish this without declaring my answer. I will share my ideas in a few weeks but I want to know what you think and how you came to that answer.
This is a new style of post so I expected some responses along the lines of:
I considered downvoting. I opted instead to ignore after reading the preamble. - buybuydandavis
That's fine. It was literally a chat log. Not for everyone.
I also got some interesting and relevant responses. There are several and they overlap so I decided it's best to answer with another post.
Many people narrowed down to a few particularly alarming examples:
- The most alarming part of that conversation for me was "A few weeks ago I punched a housemate in the face ten times, breaking her nose;" - Strangeattractor
- Is it really the most alarming part? I would think suicide ideation more so. - Romashka
- Treatment for mental illness (and possibly organic brain trauma) seems priority #1 here... -CronoDAS
- Zebra was extremely bad at imagining good outcomes in a way which led to him taking action-- in other words, probably depression. - NancyLebovitz
And then this:
There are lots of problems. If I had to pick only one, it would be that you seem to think there is a single, simple problem that can be identified from this transcript. - Dagon
It sounds a bit as if you are implicitly proposing a principle like "there is always a single underlying problem, if you can only find it" - gjm
To gjm first:
I present "The Problem (TM)" because I suspect in this case there is an underlying problem. Not always. Often when problem solving we try to figure out what is the lowest hanging fruit, or what one thing can be changed first.
There was a scene in Doctor Who - The ends of time Part 2 where the doctor is trapped in space on a spaceship that doesn't work. Instead of giving up he just (knowing what he is doing) starts fiddling with the heating. Other characters insist that everything is hopeless and lo and behold; as he fixes the heating; that fixes the engine and the computers and everything whirs back to life and we continue to the next epic fight scene!
Now, generalising from one fictional example. As rationalists we wish that there really was one thing that you could fix, which would cause the fixing of the next thing and a chain of events that fix everything. When we look at the accelerating factors, we wish this is how it happens:
We'd be dreaming to think that such a thing can actually happen. After 41 days we are at 1.5x where we started. After 70 days 2x, and 111, 3x. Which is just nuts. What if I told you that in a month of nudging 1% you'd be nearly 1.5x from where you are. Not likely, not going to happen.
| 1 | 1.01 | 51 | 1.6610781401 |
| 2 | 1.0201 | 52 | 1.6776889215 |
| 3 | 1.030301 | 53 | 1.6944658107 |
| 4 | 1.04060401 | 54 | 1.7114104688 |
| 5 | 1.0510100501 | 55 | 1.7285245735 |
| 6 | 1.0615201506 | 56 | 1.7458098192 |
| 7 | 1.0721353521 | 57 | 1.7632679174 |
| 8 | 1.0828567056 | 58 | 1.7809005966 |
| 9 | 1.0936852727 | 59 | 1.7987096025 |
| 10 | 1.1046221254 | 60 | 1.8166966986 |
| 11 | 1.1156683467 | 61 | 1.8348636655 |
| 12 | 1.1268250301 | 62 | 1.8532123022 |
| 13 | 1.1380932804 | 63 | 1.8717444252 |
| 14 | 1.1494742132 | 64 | 1.8904618695 |
| 15 | 1.1609689554 | 65 | 1.9093664882 |
| 16 | 1.1725786449 | 66 | 1.9284601531 |
| 17 | 1.1843044314 | 67 | 1.9477447546 |
| 18 | 1.1961474757 | 68 | 1.9672222021 |
| 19 | 1.2081089504 | 69 | 1.9868944242 |
| 20 | 1.2201900399 | 70 | 2.0067633684 |
| 21 | 1.2323919403 | 71 | 2.0268310021 |
| 22 | 1.2447158598 | 72 | 2.0470993121 |
| 23 | 1.2571630183 | 73 | 2.0675703052 |
| 24 | 1.2697346485 | 74 | 2.0882460083 |
| 25 | 1.282431995 | 75 | 2.1091284684 |
| 26 | 1.295256315 | 76 | 2.130219753 |
| 27 | 1.3082088781 | 77 | 2.1515219506 |
| 28 | 1.3212909669 | 78 | 2.1730371701 |
| 29 | 1.3345038766 | 79 | 2.1947675418 |
| 30 | 1.3478489153 | 80 | 2.2167152172 |
| 31 | 1.3613274045 | 81 | 2.2388823694 |
| 32 | 1.3749406785 | 82 | 2.2612711931 |
| 33 | 1.3886900853 | 83 | 2.283883905 |
| 34 | 1.4025769862 | 84 | 2.306722744 |
| 35 | 1.416602756 | 85 | 2.3297899715 |
| 36 | 1.4307687836 | 86 | 2.3530878712 |
| 37 | 1.4450764714 | 87 | 2.3766187499 |
| 38 | 1.4595272361 | 88 | 2.4003849374 |
| 39 | 1.4741225085 | 89 | 2.4243887868 |
| 40 | 1.4888637336 | 90 | 2.4486326746 |
| 41 | 1.5037523709 | 91 | 2.4731190014 |
| 42 | 1.5187898946 | 92 | 2.4978501914 |
| 43 | 1.5339777936 | 93 | 2.5228286933 |
| 44 | 1.5493175715 | 94 | 2.5480569803 |
| 45 | 1.5648107472 | 95 | 2.5735375501 |
| 46 | 1.5804588547 | 96 | 2.5992729256 |
| 47 | 1.5962634432 | 97 | 2.6252656548 |
| 48 | 1.6122260777 | 98 | 2.6515183114 |
| 49 | 1.6283483385 | 99 | 2.6780334945 |
| 50 | 1.6446318218 | 100 | 2.7048138294 |
Nonetheless we pursue. It might be important too, to look for the problem at the bottom, otherwise we might find ourselves bikeshedding about the trivial problems.
This week while making the emergency room project, I spent some time looking at other data. Specifically the (Australian) National Drug Strategy Household Survey data. Where the first question on the survey was; "When people talk about “a drug problem”, which is the first drug you think of?". What kind of information is that likely to yield? Is it going to return the drug which is the biggest problem in the country? Or maybe it's going to yield whatever the media feels makes a good story, (say ICE because it's dangerous) (weed because it's controvertial) (or alcohol because it's the most common)? Or is it going to yield the one with the most personally damaging reputation (tobacco > alcohol)?
In reality, is the government going to take action on what people think is the biggest problem drug? Or should the government instead take action on the drug actually killing people? Are we bikeshedding on this issue?
What actually is the biggest problem, it's a relevant question, certainly not every time. but sometimes it's worth digging into.
To Strangeattractor, Romashka, CronoDAS, NancyLebovitz:
You are not wrong. The violence, mental health, potential head wound, depression, inability to leave the house, lack of friends, weight problems, exercise problems. Are all very very important problems to tackle. And I will come back to this.
Some analysis:
I started with simple background questions. History, etc. knowing that anything being brought up is probably being brought up because it has special relevance to the topic. It's almost like a job interview, when they ask you for your top 10 characteristics, they don't expect you to tell them about how you can fry a perfect egg (if that's not relevant to the task at hand). There is a need to make certain assumptions about the truth and about the validity of the information.
I was previously very depressed, and then recovered for a few years.
Definitely relevant, sets the scene. I asked, "So you are currently feeling depressed"
Yes. Possibly as a symptom of bipolar disorder (I’ve recently started having manic episodes), or possibly not–I’ve never been diagnosed with that, and until recently had never had issues with mania.
A while back I tried reading the DSM. While it really doesn't tell you much about reality it is one instance of a Map of the world, Just like legislation, instruction manuals, guide books, Guides to how a project was done (this is an example of a map of how my process works), and more. The interesting thing about what the DSM has to say about bipolar diagnosis is that there is a requirement for mania in both the upwards and downwards directions, often affecting sleep, and giving people feelings of godliness or invincibility.
So who cares. Well; on the one hand; using this knowledge here to ask about sleep is a signal that I at least know a little bit of what is being talked about. On the other hand I think I got lucky about whether sleep was relevant. (and on the third hand - sleep is a very common problem for people generally and worth asking about.)
I guess immediately I feel quite isolated, very stressed, and don’t know how to proceed forward.
The idea of "feeling stressed" is a complicated one. On some level, you have an understanding of what "I feel stressed" means. But on another level - if you spend enough time around different diversely stressed people. You get the feeling that there is some kind of miscommunication going on.
Kind of like this one here. It's a map and territory problem. One person's map of stress is not the same as another person's map of stress.
ELiot: Is there a specific stress?
I guess; loneliness, numerous tensions with my girlfriend, some financial issues (to a large extent a symptom of the recent mania), extreme dissatisfaction with myself and especially my own appearance, frustrations with daily life, and a general dissatisfaction with the world.
So there's a list. But the problem I find with vague lists is it's easy to see there's a problem here but harder to address any part and make a difference. I personally have list making habits. Something I will one day make a post about. Which is where this comes from:
I am going to write the list out
1. Loneliness
2. Girlfriend tension
3. Financial issues
4. Self + appearance
5. Daily life
6. Dissatisfied with the world
Which grew a bit by the end of the conversation.
ChristianKl Rightly criticised me for saying this:
ELiot
Would you like to pick a specific one from the list to talk about?
I can pick one if you like
(Why do you offer to pick the specific issue? Agency is important for getting out of depression.) Unfortunately I stripped out time-stamps which would explain why I offered to pick one. There are three parts to this problem.
- Not picking one would likely lead to more complaining about the issues without solving anything. If Z was unmotivated enough to be unable to pick one (a worse failure mode) then picking any would be better than nothing.
- Leading with any of them would be fine, because I planned to cover a few of them and the conversation would naturally tend to flow onto the bigger problems anyway (as it did)
- If one cannot decide between them, they are probably all equally relevant-challenging-problematic and equal gains would be made on any of them from a bit of effort.
As it was - it was relatively easy for Z to pick one. I generally wouldn't pick one - even if I suggested that I would. and well done ChristianKl for spotting this.
Is that bad?
I often find myself not eating until nighttime, or sometimes not eating at all, due to wanting to avoid those stressors.
An important question - is that a bad thing? I repeat this whenever I see an unjustified badness. In the sense that it should be up to the individual to decide what is or is not bad. In theory; not eating is a bad thing. Possibly to lead to mood swings from hunger or sugar levels, and who-knows what else. But, that's what I think; not what Z had to say about why it's bad.
Is this correct: you feel stressed about not wanting to leave to go buy food. Then you feel stressed about not buying food as well.
And I guess I’m kind of lonely.
later
When I go out sometimes it’s ok, and sometimes I realise the people around me are crap and I am too and I get even sadder.
later still
And really I don’t want to be staying at home, as that’s also very stressful.
later still.
There’s nothing much I can identify that I really want to do.
and then:
Also I’m frequently very exhausted, and it’s often hard to work up the energy to do those things.
and on:
Well, I really dislike being alone, but I don’t much like most people.
(I think that's enough for now)
So Z is lonely, but doesn't want to go out because sometimes it's crap, but doesn't want to be staying home, but doesn't have anything they really want to do, but is also very exhausted and doesn't have the energy to do things, but really dislikes being alone....
If we looked at the loneliness it wouldn't really improve the state of The problem because the loneliness isn't the big deal. If we looked at the going out problem, that wouldn't be it, because Z wants to go out, but also doesn't like staying home, but also if we solved the going out problem that wouldn't do it because they don't really have anything they want to do, but if we found something they want to do that wouldn't fix it because they don't have the energy to do that thing. So what if we solve the energy problem?
In the hope that once we solve the desire to go out they will have the energy, and they won't need to be stuck at home and they won't feel alone and they can go on to live a happy and prosperous life. No. That's not it. Once we dig to the bottom of the energy problem we get to an absence problem:
I kind of zone out, frequently. People find that scary.
And down the rabbit hole we go.
I want to be clear that each of these problems are valid problems, each are the most important problem and each need to be solved to dig Z out of the hole. I want to not disparage the ongoing discussion and identification of problems until we can really get to that root of all things; fix the heating and whirr the spaceship into action!
That's not how problems work. Or at least - not how this one works. At the bottom of every problem is another problem (reminds me of a poem - There's a hole in my bucket - this is not a coincidence). We also have a term for getting side tracked from the real work at hand - Yak shaving.
But wait! What is the real problem we should be working on? If all this talk is just yak shaving our way down the river - how do we know what to actually work on?
The problem
In this case - certainly not repeatable. I can't say how often it happens but I wanted to identify this very clear problem as it sneakily tries to evade capture. This problem is exactly the process of solving the problem has become part of the problem. We can't solve the loneliness without first solving the home problem, but first - having nothing to do, but first energy, but first absence feelings. It's a problem spiral.
What next?
Let's say you or a friend has a problem spiral. You start talking about it and you spiral downwards, every problem being worse than the one before until you feel absolutely terrible, develop an ugh field and resolve to do nothing at all. (probably a familiar pattern)
You get in this pattern and nothing gets solved. To break out of this pattern; I propose a known solution (the scientific method). Pick one of the problems, set a 5 minute timer (or a 20minute pomodoro, or a whole day to work on it). Your task is to improve the state of this problem, conduct tests, observe what happens. It's the loneliness problem, and it sucks because you don't want to leave the house. But that's okay. Keep trying. Don't try to solve the house-leaving problem right now, just work on the loneliness. Try talking to people about it, try therapists, try leave the house, try online forums, try anything and everything you can think of. Take notes.
Notes are evidence, evidence is how we make progress.
Your task, should you choose to accept it - is to focus on making some kind of progress on any one of the many problems. Then when you are sick of this one, or tired, or done, or successful, pick the next one. repeat, fail, repeat, succeed, repeat. Iterate.
I propose the 3 part solution to this one meta-problem is:
- pick something to work on
- work on it
- iterate
It's unlikely that you solve any one problem the first time around. If you did - take your winnings! Walk away! On to the next one. But if the situation is (as can be expected) a complicated problem - one that you already couldn't just solve - which led to the stacking up of layer upon layer of problems. It's going to take some time.
Keep at it. Good luck.
Credit goes to Dagon - There are lots of problems. If I had to pick only one, it would be that you seem to think there is a single, simple problem that can be identified from this transcript.
Well done.
Meta: this took two days to write, and the better part of 3+ hours.
If you are interested in a conversation, send me a message. No guarantees we can solve your problems, but maybe we can try.
This has been a new style of post, not for all - thanks for reading.
Open Thread, Aug. 1 - Aug 7. 2016
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "
The Problem (TM) - Analyse a conversation
Originally published here: http://bearlamp.com.au/the-problem-tm-analyse-a-conversation/
Part 2: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/nt8/the_problem_tm_part_2/
Part 2: http://bearlamp.com.au/the-problem-analyse-a-conversation-part-2/
I had a chat with a person who admitted to having many problems themselves. I offered my services as a problem solving amateur, willing to try to get to the bottom of this. Presented is the conversation (With details changed for privacy).
I had my first shot at analysing the person's problems and drilling down to the bottom. I am interested in what other people have to say is the problem. Here we study the meta-strategy of how to solve the problem, which I find much more interesting than the object level analysis of the problem and how to solve it.
I don't think I got to the bottom of the problem, and I don't think I conducted myself in a top-notch capacity but needless to say I wonder if you have any comments about what IS TheProblem(tm), how did you come to that conclusion and what can be done about it (for the benefit of this person and anyone with a similar problem).
Zebra
Hey
ELiot
Where would you like to start?
Do you want to share about your history?
Zebra
I was previously very depressed, and then recovered for a few years. While I'm glad I was able to have those couple years, I don't think they were worth suffering through the depression, and I didn't at the time, when I didn't think it would return.
Zebra
(Though it hasn't returned as bad as it was.)
ELiot
So you are currently feeling depressed
Zebra
Yes. Possibly as a symptom of bipolar disorder (I've recently started having manic episodes), or possibly not--I've never been diagnosed with that, and until recently had never had issues with mania.
ELiot
How much are you sleeping? One Indication of bipolar swings is total sleep
Zebra
The last couple days I've slept okay, but when I had more manic symptoms sleep was very intermittent. A few weeks ago I punched a housemate in the face ten times, breaking her nose; at that point, I'd not slept in two days.
ELiot
Sounds like a bad event.
Zebra
I guess immediately I feel quite isolated, very stressed, and don't know how to proceed forward.
ELiot
Is there a specific stress?
Zebra
I guess; loneliness, numerous tensions with my girlfriend, some financial issues (to a large extent a symptom of the recent mania), extreme dissatisfaction with myself and especially my own appearance, frustrations with daily life, and a general dissatisfaction with the world.
ELiot
Manic up should correlate with little sleep, manic down with extra sleep. Manic up should also come with a variation on _feeling invincible_
Which of the things in that list do you think can't change?
Zebra
I suppose they're all changeable if you apply enough effort, but that seems like a lot of work, and frankly I've never seen much in the world that seems worth it.
As I said, I've gotten better, to some extent, previously.
Even after I had already gotten better and I no longer wanted to suicide, I wished I had previously, because even though life then was fine, it just wasn't worth what had gone before.
I don't feel invincible really.
ELiot
When in manic up states?
Zebra
When in manic states I still don't feel invincible.
ELiot
If you could remove the problems listed do you think you would want to live?
Zebra
All of them? Yes, if I could do some magically, or at a reasonable cost.
ELiot
I would say that is a good thing. But it depends on your goals.
I can offer ideas about working with those problems to make them better, but not if you don't want that.
Zebra
Well those would be good.
ELiot
Would you like to pick a specific one from the list to talk about?
I can pick one if you like
Zebra
Uhm, you can pick. I'm not sure which one would be most imminently solvable.
ELiot
I am going to write the list out
1. Loneliness
2. Girlfriend tension
3. Financial issues
4. Self + appearance
5. Daily life
6. Dissatisfied with the world
Zebra
Yep, that's most of it.
ELiot
What burdens do you currently have on your life? I. E. Supporting a child, have to show up at work each day. Etc.
Thinking about number 5 - Regular commitments
Zebra
Not a whole lot really. I've no job or school (family money, though not a large amount). My girlfriend is financially dependent on me at this point, though she's supposed to be starting a job this month.
To be honest even going downstairs to buy food, or really even to talk to a delivery person on the phone, feels like a huge burden.
ELiot
So in terms of pressure on your daily life?
Zebra
I often find myself not eating until nighttime, or sometimes not eating at all, due to wanting to avoid those stressors.
ELiot
Is that bad?
Zebra
Well, yeah. It feels very negative and causes me stress and I really don't feel life has much to offer in return for even minor inconveniences.
ELiot
is there a reason that not eating is a bad thing to do for you?
Zebra
I don't see life as particularly positive, really, and just want it to be over with so I don't have to bother with this crap every day. On the other hand, actually going about killing yourself is fucking scary.
So I guess I'm trying to find some way out of that conclusion so I won't have to face the immediately distasteful action of actually offing myself, even though it's probably preferable to suffering through a lifetime of even minor annoyances.
ELiot
Is this correct: you feel stressed about not wanting to leave to go buy food. Then you feel stressed about not buying food as well.
Zebra
Yes.
And I guess I'm kind of lonely, and even minor inconveniences, when they have no positive aspects in between, eventually get you really, really down.
I feel like what I do most days is just wait, be sad and lonely, be slightly annoyed, and wait and cry and be lonely more.
When I go out sometimes it's ok, and sometimes I realise the people around me are crap and I am too and I get even sadder.
ELiot
Here is how I see this very limited problem. Without looking at other things just yet.
When making the first choice, either stay home and not buy food or leave and buy food you choose the less stress option. To stay home. I see that as a win. You successfully made the right choice to avoid the immediate stress. Then later you decide that going out is more important/useful/(Less stress) than staying home and not having food. Seems like you also win by carrying out the choice to leave and get food have less stress.
You appear to be stressing yourself out over two reasonable choices. I would suggest that you have done well to make both the choice of staying home and later the choice to leave for food.
Zebra
The stress of not going is physiological rather than psychological, so I don't think looking at that differently can really fix it.
And really I don't want to be staying at home, as that's also very stressful.
I'm just not sure what else to do...
ELiot
In terms of where to go? Or in terms of how to spend your time?
Zebra
Both
There's nothing much I can identify that I really want to do.
ELiot
I can suggest options down those paths
Zebra
ok.
ELiot
I don't know where you are gegraphically, but if we consider specifically where to go and what to do near where you are;
I would look at; google, "things to do in *city*" as well as looking at meetups in city. As well as looking for parks, museums, monuments, walks, local history, pretty geography, public spaces I. E. Libraries, evening classes, sports to play
Zebra
I'm in Hong Kong.
I go to meetups sometimes.
ELiot
Generally the idea of exploration of the place
Also temples, religious places, hikes
Zebra
As for meetups, sometimes you meet interesting people, but often it's stressful dealing with idiots. And most people are idiots.
ELiot
You are mostly allowed to do what you like with your time. In terms of going places and later going home to sleep etc.
A large fraction of people are idiots
Zebra
And the more interesting people are often difficult to connect with more than superficially.
ELiot
"Allowed to" is a funny idea. No one needs to give you permission to do what you like.
Going to add 7. Social strategy
Zebra
True. I just don't feel like I _like_ much.
Also I'm frequently very exhausted, and it's often hard to work up the energy to do those things.
ELiot
Do you think you have tried to find many things you like or do you think the bottle neck lies before that? In trying to find them?
If you do nothing (because you are tired) is that a problem?
Zebra
Yeah, doing nothing all the time sucks. If I stay home I feel like I'm in jail...
but if I go out I feel like I've been sent as a labourer to Australia.
ELiot
At some point the desire to stay home because you are tired should weigh up against the desire to go out and feel like you are not in jail. That is a fine time to leave, feeling bad about both staying at home and leaving the house sounds like a recipe for displeasure either way... Does that make sense?
Zebra
Well it is, obviously, which is why I feel like I'm in a no-win situation, and want to die.
(or at least part of it)
I mean, occasionally there are meetups and stuff which I go to, and those are ok, but really I have so much free time and since my mental health issues started I've alienated almost everyone I knew.
And that just increases the stress and makes it difficult to make new friends.
ELiot
I would be going down the path of tracing that feeling of bad to its source because it's not really about staying or going it's about that bad pressure that appears self imposed.
Do you feel like you _should be doing_ things?
I.e. Going out
Zebra
Well, I really dislike being alone, but I don't much like most people.
I think that's what it boils down to.
And yes, I get that that might not be a healthy state to be in, but again, that I'm not in a healthy state has already been established.
ELiot
Do you know what part or kind of social interaction you like? When you say "dislike alone" what is "not alone"
Zebra
Well, I like talking with friends and drinking and doing stuff, but often it's difficult to make new friends.
ELiot
Conversation with new people is "not alone"
And you sometimes feel alone when you hang around old friends
Zebra
Yes, that's true.
ELiot
Can you financially afford to go drinking and doing stuff?
Zebra
I guess new people I meet are often very disappointing, and more than that, even when they aren't, I myself have a lot of recently developed mental issues it takes a lot of effort to control.
I kind of zone out, frequently. People find that scary.
ELiot
What kind of new people would you like to meet?
Zebra
Uhm, I dunno. It's hard to specify really.
ELiot
Is your zoning out actually absence or is it more like daydreaming?
Zebra
Absence
Or sometimes I just sort of feel sad.
But usually no internal thoughts associated.
I can sort of afford to go drinking and stuff.
ELiot
Do you recall things that happen while you are absent?
Zebra
Mostly not. I can sort of remember it happening but super vague.
ELiot
Do you feel like you are an automa - following a path you were on, and then you zone back in?
Zebra
It's not like in the middle of a sentence, but people notice that I look dead and then sometimes I don't respond until they call me a couple times, though sometimes I can respond immediately.
More like my energy's just gone, I guess.
Sometimes I'll lose track of the conversation, even when I myself am speaking.
That's not as common recently, though.
ELiot
I was going to say I suspect an absent seizure. It came up in the lw open thread this week. Let me get you a link
Zebra
My mother claims I told her I was hospitalised for a head injury around the time my mental health problems started worsening.
I can't remember the incident, though, and she has not much in the way of specific details.
ELiot
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/niv/open_thread_apr_18_apr_24_2016/d8ow
If you have something like that I am sure it makes everything worse
Zebra
I had depression before that, but as I said, it had mostly gotten better. On the other hand, there were a lot of issues in my life around the same time which may have led to the recurrence of symptoms as well.
ELiot
Okay, what kind of person would you like to meet?
Zebra
Hmm, previously I wanted to see a neurologist because my symptoms were much worse, but they've lessened now.
ELiot
There is medication to reduce seizures to nearly nothing
Which might help
Zebra
Well, an intelligent person, but those are rare; or someone who's fun, but finding one who's willing to put up with my lethargy and depression is hard; or someone who's nice and not a complete idiot.
ELiot
It also might help to keep a diary of what you do each day to try to keep track of how often they happen
Zebra
Maybe. I'm not at all certain I'm having seizures, though.
I have pretty bad memory, too.
ELiot
Where might you find intelligent people?
A brain scan would tell you if you are or are not having seizures
Zebra
I have no idea. I guess some of the intellectually-focused meetup groups have some, but not all that many.
Yeah, I've been meaning to go to a neurologist, but I frequently fail to get around to stuff.
ELiot
I would suggest university campus as a viable place
To find smart ones
Zebra
Maybe, but I'm not in university and probably don't have the effort to enter.
Also, somewhat smart, but not very smart, people really annoy me.
Universities have a lot of those.
ELiot
Campuses here are just places you can walk into, not sure what it's like there
If you want to get out of the house and see something, universities are a nice place to visit
Zebra
Hmm, I guess I could try.
Many offer classes to the public very cheaply.
ELiot
You can probably also work out how to sneak into a lecture anyway - they usually don't check the roll
Any topic of study fancy your interest? To sneak into a lecture about
Zebra
Hmm, not sure. Linguistics or history might be fun.
CS would probably just be a recap of basic material.
ELiot
You can usually find course details online and work out where the lectures are and just kinda walk in and sit down - For a bit of fun
Zebra
How does that translate to meeting people though?
(If it's not obvious, I've never been to uni.)
ELiot
Chat to people if you want to. Lectures have breaks, uni tries to encourage social groups too usually, barbecues and stuff
If you make yourself look approachable and friendly people will talk to you. It's how I avoid approaching others. I wear funny hats and strangers talk to me
Zebra
Really? Haha, what sort of hats?
ELiot
Pirate hat, top hats, Stetson,
I have about 50 hats
Different ones all the time
That's on the topic of appearance tho
Zebra
I don't look very approachable now :( Since I became ill again my personal health and hygeine have done very poorly.
ELiot
Do you like being hygienic? Indifferent?
Zebra
Well, I like being hygenic, but getting to that state is difficult.
Also, I've probably gained 40kg since then, so even if I was it's probably all for naught.
ELiot
What contributes to that state? For me it's having a shower and brushing my teeth.
Maybe deodorant too. And clean clothes
Zebra
Well, those things.
Now I've got so fat it's hard to buy clothes :-/
ELiot
I would say you can work on that
Both the fat and the clothes
If you want to
Exercise would help you, leaving the house to go for a walk would help you, you don't need anywhere to go other than around a block or something
Do you track your weight?
Zebra
Yes, but it's very difficult.
ELiot
Is it still climbing or staying where it is?
Zebra
I've tried some stuff. Fasting, methamphetamine, etc., but I was never able to really reduce it.
ELiot
Difficult to track? To walk? To exercise? To buy clothes?
Weight loss is difficult, Yes
Zebra
I just don't have the energy to excercise. Even when I was taking methamphetamine I didn't have the energy for it.
ELiot
Would you consider paying for a service that helped you lose weight?
Zebra
Right now I think it's not climbing, but I didn't buy a new scale when my last one broke.
Yes, if I thought it had reasonable chance of being effective.
ELiot
An option would be to look at what is available
Near to where you live
Zebra
I don't think there are any drugs that work as well for weighy loss as meth, though, and that was not effective enough.
I don't know what else such a service could provide really.
I mean, I _know_ you need to excercise and eat healthy, but I just haven't been able to do it.
ELiot
Commitment, a gym, a trainer setting a program
There are greater experts in the field of weight loss than I
Zebra
Honestly, I've tried so much, I do not realistically think I would continue to follow through with that.
ELiot
Okay
Zebra
Other than the very deepest depths of depression (which I still haven't fallen to this time around), I've never experienced anything as unpleasant as excercise.
ELiot
I can offer ideas about weight loss and exercise but maybe another time.
What types of exercise?
Zebra
I suppose there are some illnesses which might do better than meth, but trying to induce those makes me feel very squeamish.
Pretty much anything.
It'a just so hot and icky and tiring.
ELiot
Oh! Yes, a problem with your geography
Other geographies are not as hot and sticky. Even that has solutions. My exercise is walking, running, swimming, unicycle, circus skills, rock climbing, ice skating, laser tag, and trampoline, I also did pole dance for a while. Also I would kayak and hike more if I had more opportunities...
Zebra
True. I had some fun doing outdoor type stuff in the Southwestern US.
Moving has its own host of problems, though.
ELiot
Other sports I have done include table tennis, actual tennis, archery...
Zebra
The primary one being that I don't know anyone anywhere else.
ELiot
I don't imagine moving will solve all your problems
Zebra
Except my mother in Florida, USA.
ELiot
Yes I was going to say, it would certainly make loneliness harder
Especially when you don't currently know how to make new friends very well
You can exercise at night, find an indoor pool to swim in maybe.
Zebra
Yes. I did the moving thing once, and it was probably good at the time, but I had fairly exceptional circumstances then which I don't have now.
There's a pretty nice pool in my condo, but I get tired. Swimming is exhausting.
And very self-conscious doing excercise around others.
ELiot
Yes.
Zebra
That's probably equally as serious an issue as the exhaustion.
ELiot
Night time for self conscious
Take a friend or girlfriend?
Moral support?
Zebra
Makes me more self conscious :(
ELiot
You need support network not criticism
Do you trust these people?
Do you think you could track how far you swim and try to increase laps or so?
The idea being to measure progress and feel like you are going somewhere
Zebra
I don't think I've ever actually trusted anyone, even as a child.
ELiot
That is a different problem
Zebra
Yeah. I have a lot of problems. :(
ELiot
That is okay for a place to be
Better to know than not know.
To be more specific you have a lot of problems *at the same time*
Which is making it hard to work out what the biggest one is, and where to start
Zebra
Yes. That kind of sucks.
ELiot
It appears that at the bottom of each problem there is a slightly different problem, also with a solution but one that too needs implementation
I am confident that this can all be fixed, I am also confident that you can enjoy the journey of doing so.
Perhaps you might benefit from writing down the problems until you have a clearer picture for yourself
Zebra
Yes, that's how it feels to me too. There's a large web of problems which are fixable with enough effort, but inter-related so hard to fix one at a time, and I don't really feel like I have the effort to do it all at once, nor that it would be worth it.
ELiot
As you talk to me you are clarifying the problems, I imagine that can help to identify them to help solve them.
If I were in your position I would pick the first one that I encountered and try to make a little progress on it before the next one hit me, and trying to make progress on the next one too.
I firmly believe in the concept of _making it easier for future you_.
Zebra
Sometimes I feel that all of them could be fixed in one go with a more radical change, but that's a rather scary thing to do.
ELiot
It is. Especially without experience in radical changes.
Zebra
Well, I moved alone to a country I'd never been when I was 18. So I guess it's not entirely unfamiliar.
ELiot
A change of scenery would probably change the problems. Not necessarily fix them
Zebra
Yeah.
ELiot
It could be the motivation you need to help make it easier for you to make progress
But it could also leave you exhausted and worse off
Zebra
I've looked some into moving to the Republic of Georgia.
But I do have friends here, even if there are only a few remaining and I feel increasingly alienated from them.
ELiot
You might benefit from a time management system
Zebra
Why? I don't have enough to even fill one activity per day...
ELiot
A list of problems, followed by a list of ways to solve the problems followed by a plan of how to spend your next 168 hours towards solving those problems while also not making new ones...
Each week
Energy limited? That's also a problem. With a solution. You do need sleep and rest
Zebra
I usually sleep a lot, but it doesn't feel restful.
I try to go on holidays, but again, usually come back more stressed than before.
ELiot
That too has a solution. Are you getting enough light when you wake up?
Zebra
I typically keep the blinds closed.
I don't like light :(
ELiot
Bright light when you wake up will help you feel awake more. Only when you wake up.
Zebra
But then what do I do?
ELiot
Pick something you want to change and go for it.
The strategy of: "Try X"
It might help to have a notebook paper trail of ideas you have tried
Or thoughts you have had about each problem and how to solve it
Zebra
Most of the things I want to change are hard to change, computer related (and this not really helpful to not feeling terrible and alone), or things I don't have a good plan for how to change.
ELiot
You have as much to do as you want to. You can make a plan.
Zebra
I guess if I did something computer related it could make money, maybe, but I'd still feel awful. In the longer term it may be helpful, but I've tried this before and it is difficult to not get depressed and quit to go cry all day after 30 minutes.
ELiot
Even the meta strategy of "trying to plan" can help
You should write down that idea
It also seems like you apply pressure and expectations above what you have evidence of yourself being capable of.
Zebra
The idea of trying to plan, or?
ELiot
Yes and the "computer thing" idea
You should update on the estimation of your capabilities to be more of a reflection on what you have recently observed you are able to do
Zebra
I have a lot of computer thing ideas. I know pretty specifically how to do them, but sitting it down and typing it out is harder.
Well, I can walk to 7/11 if I put a lot of effort into it.
That's about it...
ELiot
Which is a way of saying to start small. Reset from the beginning (which is not easy)
Zebra
That doesn't seem helpful.
ELiot
That's what your baseline is
Anything upwards is now impressive.
Including this conversation
You have come a long way already
Zebra
Doesn't feel like it. Starting from walking to 7/11 sounds kind of exhausting and not very enjoyable.
ELiot
But that's where you are right now
I would say try habit RPG, but I never found it useful to me
Zebra
Yeah, but I mean, back on to the original point, all this seems much harder than trying to work through my hangups about suicide.
ELiot
Possibly, Yes.
All these problems are solveable, But perhaps
What about the possibility of solving the most immediate discomfort at any time?
What is the most immediate discomfort right now?
Zebra
I feel stressed about life being shit generally, I guess.
Which is generally how I feel when I have nothing specific to be stressed about.
ELiot
What can you do about that right now? How can you make life less generally shit for the you that lives 10 minutes in the future?
Or maybe make yourself feel less stressed about it
Zebra
I guess I could try to do some meditation. That used to work, but hasn't been so much recently.
For the stress part, at least.
I have no idea how to make life immediately less crap in the next ten minutes.
ELiot
I would suggest your environment or hygiene
As they are usually quick low hanging ideas.
Zebra
What sorts of things are you thinking of specifically with regard to those that could be accomplished within 10 minutes?
ELiot
A shower, a little cleaning up your space, changing clothes
Taking out the trash
Zebra
I guess that's doable.
Zebra
Welp, done that. I suppose I do feel mildly better...
ELiot
That particular strategy is called success spirals. Successfully doing a thing to help the you of the future slightly. One bit at a time.
I should add - if you want to talk about death we should have that talk too
Death, dying, pain
Zebra
Well, death seems somewhat scary in the immediate sense.
Especially death by falling, which is the most low-effort solution for someone living in a high rise building.
ELiot
You need at least 10 floors to be confident of a sudden death
Zebra
More high-effort strategies, like pentobarbital or such, seem more palatable, but not quite as immediately actionable.
I'm on the tenth floor, and I think there's 20 something.
ELiot
And it depends whether you want to impact others I. E. Seeing you fall and or the body
Zebra
I don't really care, though obviously I wouldn't want anyone seeing me "on the ledge" if I couldn't go through with it.
OTOH, nighttime is a thing.
ELiot
Yes
Zebra
But it's ... scary.
Have you ever been with someone during suicide?
ELiot
No, I recently discouraged someone from taking action in person. They were making rash decisions at the time
Zebra
Ah
ELiot
At least 3 people in my life have come close. They are not all better yet, still in limbo of up and down
I would still encourage you to do the things that you want. Have you read the guilt series by nate soares?
Zebra
No. What is it about?
ELiot
Why we have guilt and defeating it where it's not appropriate
Zebra
I don't think I experience a significant amount of guilt.
ELiot
Guilt in the sense of, "should be going out" but "should stay in". The conflicting desire of parts of you to do different things. And sorting it out
Zebra
Ah, hmm
I will read the Guilt series then...
ELiot
I also went through a period of time when I felt purposeless, I described it as, "everything is meaningless" and it's bothering me. As distinctly different to, "everything is meaningless and it doesn't matter"
Zebra
Everything being meaningless doesn't bother me. I don't think meaningfulness is a possible thing in any universe. Everything being shitty and empty bothers me, but that's rather different.
http://mindingourway.com/dont-steer-with-guilt/ <- this?
ELiot
Yes, but that's the middle of the series, better to start in the beginning
http://mindingourway.com/guilt/
That's the table of contents
Zebra
Hmm, it's a pretty good read.
------------------------------------ Later in time...............
Zebra
Finished it. It was long!
I liked it more than Eliezer's writing. It may even have been potentially useful irl, maybe.
ELiot
do you think you can apply things to your life?
Zebra
Maybe. I've been trying to do the breaking things up part.
I made a small amount of money with stupid computer things... I guess that's a modicum of progress, maybe.
I liked the last part about changing goals. That might be useful.
Visualising bad things seems like a potentially helpful strategy as well.
Zebra
A lot of the techniques do seem effective. Hopefully it will make a positive difference.
---------------------A long time later--------------
ELiot
hey
I promised to get back to you.
how are things?
Zebra
Hi
ELiot
it's been a while..
Zebra
I'm doing somewhat better. Got on meds for bipolar disorder, which has helped a lot.
Yeah. Been trying to actually do things now, so I feel less stagnant.
ELiot
Oh! great!
Zebra
Hopefully life will end up in a better place than before.
The Problem TM
What is actually the problem? I have a theory, but I also wanted to publish this without declaring my answer. I will share my ideas in a few weeks but I want to know what you think and how you came to that answer.
Meta: this conversation happened over 6 months ago, this took 2 hours to collate, tidy and publish.
Originally published here: http://bearlamp.com.au/the-problem-tm-analyse-a-conversation/
Should you change where you live? (also - a worked “how to solve a question”)
Original post: http://bearlamp.com.au/should-you-change-where-you-live-a-worked-how-to-solve-a-question/
It's not a hard question, but it potentially has a lot of moving parts.
This post is going to be two in one. The first is whether you should move geography, the second is how I go through a problem. In red.
First up - brainstorm ideas:
Meta-level
- Make a list of relevant factors of staying or going (then google it to check for any I missed)
- Decision making strategies
Object level
- Why did this come up?
- Make a list of things you wish were different with how you live now
- Make a list of features of your current geography
- Make a list of features that you know of in other geographies that you would like to obtain.
relevant factors
- Family
- Friends
- Relationships
- Population density
- Population diversity breakdown
- Local safety (bad neighbourhoods)
- Religion
- Politics, country-scale political climate
- Government structure, public welfare
- public transport
- cost of living
- qualify of food, variation of food, culture of food.
- exchange rate
- Normal temperature/weather/climate (rain, cloud, sun, heat, cold, wind)
- Extreme weather risk. (i.e. cyclones, earthquakes, bushfires)
- Work (and commute)
- Salary
- Pollution (Light, Air or noise pollution)
- Residential or natural environment, parks, trees, tall buildings...
- Ocean (if you swim, or like beach culture)
- Landmarks
- native plants, animals, diseases.
- culture, art.
- difficulty in moving
- opportunity/plans
- language barrier
- public amenities
- Education
- Dwelling -> upsize, downsize, sidegrade...
- Sleep - are you getting enough of it
- postage costs
Why did this come up?
Usually you are thinking of a seeding factor; a reason why you are moving. It will help to keep it in mind when planning other things. Is there something wrong or pushing you out, is the current location stagnant, is something pulling you? Write that down. Keep it in mind. Considering the context of the event may help you make a more informed choice, it's also why it's often hard to ask for advice without being more specific about what seems to be the difficulty.
Factors
When you move you will be exchanging your current set of these factors for a new and different set of these factors. Sometimes you might move with your family, sometimes you might be moving across town and still have the same public transport network but just pay cheaper rent.
Your job; should you choose to accept it: work out which ones are getting better, which are getting worse, and which are staying the same. Some of them will do both.
Example: you live in a small town with a few friends. you are moving to a big city where you know nobody but you expect to make many more friends quickly. friends are getting both worse and better at the same time.
How?
There should be some instruction set to make it easier to actually come to an answer. Not everyone could have automatically generated this list, and not everyone will know what to do with it now. So what to do with the information is listed here.
- Take the list above - best of copied to a spreadsheet, make two copies of the list, for each point; write a few words about what you have now in your current location.
- If certain points seem irrelevant to you then don't worry. Cross them out.
E.g. If the weather doesn't bother you much then you can skip it. - For each point, out of 10, rate - how much do you care about this factor? and also out of 10 - How well do you fulfil this need right now. (this is where it's necessary to understand which ones you don't care about)
- On the second copy, fill out the details of the place you want to go. If you don't yet have a destination; look at the first list and find the things that you care about a lot with a low rating. to start your search, make a list of places that you expect will have a high rating in those area, or search by that thing (i.e. places of religious significance).
Of course there are ways to do this badly. for example, as above - you live in a small town with a few friends. you are moving to a big city where you know nobody but you expect to make many more friends quickly. friends are getting both worse and better at the same time. If on pondering you realise that no place ever will have more friends than the place you are now, because everywhere else is foreign, then that makes it a not-great metric to go on. However (in this example) you might benefit from considering instead where might have the potential to have good friends, (or crazy ideas like taking your friends with you)
- Use your newly laid out knowledge as a guide on where to go and what to look for.
Consider the inverse proposal
Heuristic thinking strategies that might help you. There are generic ones for problems and then there are questions that suit certain problems very well. These are relatively generic but I have heard great success in applying them to moving decisions.
This is very generic. If you are leaving a place for an obvious reason (for example political unrest), it would take a lot to convince you to stay. This is where the idea of thinking of the inverse proposal comes in.
Example: your work has offered you a promotion. It's $20,000 extra. But you would have to leave your friends and family and work in a city several hours away for at least a year.
Example in reverse: I am going to offer you a $20,000 pay cut and in exchange you get to live in a town with your friends.
*it can be hard to generate the reverse example from your own perspective.
Some people can easily say, pay "$20k just for my lousy friends, hell no". Other people can easily say, "listen boss, $50k and you got a deal."
Is there an alternative solution
This is a fully generic question to ask.
Before you convince yourself that the factors are out of your hands, consider if you can take it into your own hands. If you don't at least ask, you will genuinely never know if it could have gone differently. Can you take your friends with? Can you take the pay rise but not move for work? Can you still have a nice lake even if you don't have an ocean? Who knows. At least consider it.
How can you make it easier for yourself?
This is a fully generic strategy for getting things done.
As with many decisions in life, they are big, they are hard, they are scary. Are there things you can do to make the decision easier for yourself?
Meta: this took three hours to research and write.
Have I missed any factors? I went through this very fast because I am trying a new productivity method; which means less polish but more posts, but also the understanding that I might have missed something.
= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d){kind=logo}