The second response is trickier. Of course not all of us are genius enough to grok and appreciate surprisal hidden in depths of the advanced math of quantum mechanics and stuff. But here's the thing: demystifying a subject to drain it of surprise is FAR easier than working in it
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Good pop science/math that is decently challenging can demystify a subject for you without giving you the mastery. And a taste of mastery is enough to tell you that there isn't as much surprise there as you might think.
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The illusion of having "seen it all" is like the illusion of having found a "formula" for prime numbers that works up to some point. Of course the number of primes is infinite, but you can convince yourself you've seen them all if the next one is too far away for you to count to
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Half of all meditation techniques are about regaining the easy-to-surprise beginner mind so ordinary magic of life can surprise in delight you again.
The other half of meditation techniques are to console yourself because the first half doesn't work as well as advertised 😆
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But "beginner mind" idea is right in essence. Except you have to generate the surprise within yourself. Thanks to our enormous capacities for denial etc. some of the deepest reserves for mystery and surprise are within you. You just have to be willing to look foolish to tap them
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People dimly recognize this and try to pick up new skills and brave early-learning-curve awkwardness as a way to inject freshness into life again. That's not quite right. If you're an advanced pianist, fumbling at tennis won't really help rediscover the surprisability of age 9.
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What WILL help is to blow up things where you think you already know it all and find ways to go all fumbling and awkward again. So our notional pianist has to find a way to be a fumbling beginner *at the piano* again.
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Self-disruption basically. Trying to inject novelty into your life by learning unrelated new things is like trying to do 3 undergraduate degrees instead of 1 PhD. A series of degrees is a scripted series of self-disruptions. MS mind disrupts BS mind. PhD mind disrupts MS mind.
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Doesn't work very well, but the more informal, less scripted version of developing a sense for when you've plateaued in some activity and blowing it up at the right time, to make it new again, but WITHOUT losing the experience earned... that's the real skill of surprise-seeking
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Thank you for reading my long-winded justification for my writing mostly sucking this last year 😆
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I suspect this thread is gonna get you some DMs offering you psychedelics
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Psychedelics don’t really address this problem. They just make you care about it less. My limited experience plus observation of those who do a lot more suggests that (as with meditation) the effects are mostly wishful thinking. Unpopular opinion. You can’t cheat this problem.
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Have you read Pollan's How to Change Your Mind? He talks about the use of psychedelics to get unstuck from the middle-aged sense of having seen it all, and to clear the 'plaque' of experience from your brain. If not to regain surprise then at least to see things with fresh eyes
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Many people claim this. I’ve seen no evidence from their behavior that it’s actually true, and a good deal that it can make things worse.
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Done! We've saved this tweet to your Readwise library so that you can revisit/remember it 🧠📚
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This thread c'est moi.
This situation prompted me to start exploring Twitter in Fall 2017, followed by 18 months of getting in sync with modern times.
The only place I have found significant traction is by converting my ordinary patterns of life into fun mastery challenges.
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Does surprise arise as we discover the universe or as we discover ourselves through our interactions with it? Or does the lack of surprise later in life come from our assumption that we can and do know ourselves? Perhaps it’s about relentlessly unlocking new aspects of self.








