Hey, I’m 21 and went through all of this a year or so ago and no longer feel stressed, anxious or graspy about possible (likely?) impending doom. If you’d like to chat I’d be happy to. Reading this I’m worried you’ll burn yourself out and get incredibly depressed like I did.
The first step is not believing psychological pain is a necessary reaction to the situation we find ourselves in. I’m quite confident it isn’t, but the coupling goes deep for some. The brain is fully creating your psychological reality, there are many intervention points.
Roughly speaking, what changed was I worked very hard on my mental health after depression and a breakup where I saw clearly how my poor mental health effected the people I love the most. I did this through a combination of various kinds of meditation, coaching, and a lot of first principles thinking and experimentation about how my mind works + trying to match on to what master meditators and emotional coaches were saying.
I’m still ambitious as ever, actually significantly more and more effectively (more energy and better judgement) compared to when I was in fight or flight. That really harmed my rational thinking. Deep okayness really helps with strategic thinking and coherence it turns out, though it’s far from everything (oh, to have the textbook from the future. or from future me hehe)
Anyways, I caution you to not try and learn from those who are not skilled in calmly dealing with situations like ours with a smile. Eliezer is excellent at what he does but this is an art he does not know (and sadly, does not know he does not know.)
Learn to punch from those who are excellent at punching. Learn to kick from those who are excellent at kicking. For what I’m talking about, I recommend Joe Hudson and Shinzen Young, and can personally testify it all works. (Well, to the level I’ve reached, I’m not classically enlightened yet. I am capable of extrapolation though.)
Romeo Stevens and Roger Thisdell are great for more rationalist treatments of these topics. Romeo’s post “mistranslating the buddha” for an excellent intro. Roger’s talk at EAG about perception being the foundation for epistemology might be interesting to people as well! They speak in a bit less woo and more rat, though Joe and Shinzen are fairly good too.
Thanks for the link and advice! Based on some reactions here + initial takes from friends, I think the tone of this post came off much more burn-outy and depressed than I wanted; I feel pretty happy most days, even as I recognize things are Very Strange and grieve more than the median. I also am lucky enough to have a very high bar for burnout, and have made many plans and canaries of what to do in case that day comes.
I think for me, and people in my cluster, getting out of the fight-and-flight mode like you mentioned is very important, but it’s also very important to recognize the oddity and urgency of the situation. Psychological pain is not a necessary reaction to the situation we find ourselves in, but it is, in moderation and properly handled, a reasonable one. I worry somewhat about a feeling of Deep Okayness leading to an unfounded belief in “it’s all going to be okay.”
That’s great to hear! Yeah it can certainly lead to less action than is rational if you’re not careful. These things can be decoupled but you have to actually do the decoupling :)
Hey, I’m 21 and went through all of this a year or so ago and no longer feel stressed, anxious or graspy about possible (likely?) impending doom. If you’d like to chat I’d be happy to. Reading this I’m worried you’ll burn yourself out and get incredibly depressed like I did.
The first step is not believing psychological pain is a necessary reaction to the situation we find ourselves in. I’m quite confident it isn’t, but the coupling goes deep for some. The brain is fully creating your psychological reality, there are many intervention points.
Roughly speaking, what changed was I worked very hard on my mental health after depression and a breakup where I saw clearly how my poor mental health effected the people I love the most. I did this through a combination of various kinds of meditation, coaching, and a lot of first principles thinking and experimentation about how my mind works + trying to match on to what master meditators and emotional coaches were saying.
I’m still ambitious as ever, actually significantly more and more effectively (more energy and better judgement) compared to when I was in fight or flight. That really harmed my rational thinking. Deep okayness really helps with strategic thinking and coherence it turns out, though it’s far from everything (oh, to have the textbook from the future. or from future me hehe)
Anyways, I caution you to not try and learn from those who are not skilled in calmly dealing with situations like ours with a smile. Eliezer is excellent at what he does but this is an art he does not know (and sadly, does not know he does not know.)
Learn to punch from those who are excellent at punching. Learn to kick from those who are excellent at kicking. For what I’m talking about, I recommend Joe Hudson and Shinzen Young, and can personally testify it all works. (Well, to the level I’ve reached, I’m not classically enlightened yet. I am capable of extrapolation though.)
Romeo Stevens and Roger Thisdell are great for more rationalist treatments of these topics. Romeo’s post “mistranslating the buddha” for an excellent intro. Roger’s talk at EAG about perception being the foundation for epistemology might be interesting to people as well! They speak in a bit less woo and more rat, though Joe and Shinzen are fairly good too.
Hope everyone’s happy!
Thanks for the link and advice! Based on some reactions here + initial takes from friends, I think the tone of this post came off much more burn-outy and depressed than I wanted; I feel pretty happy most days, even as I recognize things are Very Strange and grieve more than the median. I also am lucky enough to have a very high bar for burnout, and have made many plans and canaries of what to do in case that day comes.
I think for me, and people in my cluster, getting out of the fight-and-flight mode like you mentioned is very important, but it’s also very important to recognize the oddity and urgency of the situation. Psychological pain is not a necessary reaction to the situation we find ourselves in, but it is, in moderation and properly handled, a reasonable one. I worry somewhat about a feeling of Deep Okayness leading to an unfounded belief in “it’s all going to be okay.”
Hope you’re doing well :)
That’s great to hear! Yeah it can certainly lead to less action than is rational if you’re not careful. These things can be decoupled but you have to actually do the decoupling :)