I wonder sometimes how many people feel this way.
Especially in Meditation Land, I get the sense everyone wants "More, more, more" all the time, and I have to say ... I'm not sure I want to play that game anymore
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Feel like this is a holdover from the whole rationalist culture that's bled into this bizarre overlapping lattice of "postrats".
Life optimization is mostly a bullshit game for bullshit people. Life doesn't have deterministic utility, and it's a soulless way to view things.
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Yeah I think you're right! There's a rationalist ethos that stuck around for the post- part
I wonder how many people aren't sure if they can opt out. I feel unsure of it myself - will I be able to support myself, enjoy life, get married, &c. if I stop
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In a pith phrase: "Stop optimizing so hard"
There's probably a lot of specific details within that that might be hard to explain. I think for me personally the optimization ethos got way down into extremely low-level habits of perception, expression, &c.
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It's kind of unanswerable as formulated, to be fair. I'm exploring here
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Offering my own opinion: I think the heart of the matter is that our societies have been undergoing extremely rapid decay of the social fabric.
Therefore, most young people grow up lacking a whole bunch of basic frameworks that, in most times, come prefabricated.
Rest is cope.
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Yeah that's the conclusion I've come to as well, roughly. A lot of rationalist-y meditation-y people are lost for that exact reason
Next question: How to build up or grow a stable life where I'm not miserable?
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You work on it by yourself, for yourself, figuring out the framework as you go along.
Nobody else can hand you the keys to your own gate. Let me see if I can dig something up...
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Oh yeah, that made it sound like it was a question directed to you. Curious if you do dig something up, but I more meant it in the spirit of "This is the question I'm working on right now"
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kafka-online.info/before-the-law
I think Kafka was working on much the same thing. Make of this what you will.