Maybe you should try some music other than Wagner, then? Oddly enough, one of the few things that can consistently snap me out of a bad mood is spending an hour listening to one of my favorite CDs from beginning to end.
What kind of AGI are you?
How do you do the things you do-o-o?
Could it be our utility you maximi-ize?
What kind of AGI are you?
Are you Friendly through and through?
Please tell me paperclips don’t int’rest yooou
What kind of AGI are you?
I do use music, but it works inconsistently for me, so I wasn’t sure if it was good general advice.
I do have one dramatic example. This summer, a friend of mine suffered a loss and had several personal worries, and I was considering cutting him out of my life completely because it seemed daunting to try to comfort him. I found a recording of the Prisoners’ Chorus from Fidelio and I had an epiphany—“Hey, that would be an incredibly shitty thing to do! I care about my friend, after all!” And, of course, I stayed in touch with him. It was really a remarkable change: the song actually made me more caring and motivated.
This is something that I often forget and have been trying to keep in mind recently. I don’t listen to music most of the time and am not very passionate about it, but it’s still a surprisingly good way of improving my mood.
… although I have to choose it carefully. Of my two recent favorite albums, one is a little too blue for a pick-me-up (Ella Fitzgerald & Joe Pass—Fitzgerald and Pass … Again), and the other is too bouncy for me to tolerate when I’m in a bad mood (Teapacks—Disco Menayak).
I find music draws me out of a bad mood best when it first matches my mood, then gradually changes toward my desired mood. You might try making an “anti-nihilism” mix that starts with Wagner and progresses through Elle Fitzgerald into the Teapacks.
Maybe you should try some music other than Wagner, then? Oddly enough, one of the few things that can consistently snap me out of a bad mood is spending an hour listening to one of my favorite CDs from beginning to end.
What are your favorite CDs?
Promise not to laugh?
Music From Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI Video Games
Weird Al Yankovic—Running With Scissors
Pokemon: 2B A Master
Rob Balder—Rich Fantasy Lives
Complete tangent: here is an excellent piano rendering of some FF music that you might well enjoy.
What kind of AGI are you? How do you do the things you do-o-o? Could it be our utility you maximi-ize? What kind of AGI are you? Are you Friendly through and through? Please tell me paperclips don’t int’rest yooou What kind of AGI are you?
I do use music, but it works inconsistently for me, so I wasn’t sure if it was good general advice.
I do have one dramatic example. This summer, a friend of mine suffered a loss and had several personal worries, and I was considering cutting him out of my life completely because it seemed daunting to try to comfort him. I found a recording of the Prisoners’ Chorus from Fidelio and I had an epiphany—“Hey, that would be an incredibly shitty thing to do! I care about my friend, after all!” And, of course, I stayed in touch with him. It was really a remarkable change: the song actually made me more caring and motivated.
This is something that I often forget and have been trying to keep in mind recently. I don’t listen to music most of the time and am not very passionate about it, but it’s still a surprisingly good way of improving my mood.
… although I have to choose it carefully. Of my two recent favorite albums, one is a little too blue for a pick-me-up (Ella Fitzgerald & Joe Pass—Fitzgerald and Pass … Again), and the other is too bouncy for me to tolerate when I’m in a bad mood (Teapacks—Disco Menayak).
I find music draws me out of a bad mood best when it first matches my mood, then gradually changes toward my desired mood. You might try making an “anti-nihilism” mix that starts with Wagner and progresses through Elle Fitzgerald into the Teapacks.
My girlfriend just posted this site on facebook, which looks like it could systematize the process I described in the sibling comment.