The “burden of consciousness” and “fast-forward button” are nice metaphors, but a bit fatalistic. To me, a better metaphor is noticing when your brain is consuming information vs. creating information. Too much consumption makes you a bored and boring person, it’s as bad as eating all the time. You need to take breaks from consuming information, pull yourself away from shiny screens and try to think new thoughts you’ve never thought before, no matter how silly. Make yourself laugh! Even a few minutes a day can work wonders.
(While walking to work today, I realized that the Sun is good because it pulls the darkness out of you. Thoughts like that.)
Consuming vs creating is an important dichotomy, and often wanting to “fast-forward” manifests as switching to consuming, though there are important distinctions that I notice.
There’s something about wanting an process that’s automatic to follow through on, one that’s comfortable and familiar. Often I have a strong urge to juggle, which I think has to do with juggling taking just enough focus that I “no longer have to think”.
Writing that last line made me think of similarities to flow, but wanting to “fast-forward” seems to be something different from merely desiring more flow.
Here’s another idea that I stole from Bertrand Russell. What if the pain is caused not just by any thinking, but by thinking about yourself? If you’re mostly interested in external things, you’ll be mostly happy, no matter how much time and effort you spend thinking. But if your thoughts have a habit of circling back on yourself and how you could be better, you’ll be miserable and look for escape paths, like the internet (which forcefully pulls your thoughts away from yourself and thus makes you happier for awhile).
The “burden of consciousness” and “fast-forward button” are nice metaphors, but a bit fatalistic. To me, a better metaphor is noticing when your brain is consuming information vs. creating information. Too much consumption makes you a bored and boring person, it’s as bad as eating all the time. You need to take breaks from consuming information, pull yourself away from shiny screens and try to think new thoughts you’ve never thought before, no matter how silly. Make yourself laugh! Even a few minutes a day can work wonders.
(While walking to work today, I realized that the Sun is good because it pulls the darkness out of you. Thoughts like that.)
Consuming vs creating is an important dichotomy, and often wanting to “fast-forward” manifests as switching to consuming, though there are important distinctions that I notice.
There’s something about wanting an process that’s automatic to follow through on, one that’s comfortable and familiar. Often I have a strong urge to juggle, which I think has to do with juggling taking just enough focus that I “no longer have to think”.
Writing that last line made me think of similarities to flow, but wanting to “fast-forward” seems to be something different from merely desiring more flow.
Here’s another idea that I stole from Bertrand Russell. What if the pain is caused not just by any thinking, but by thinking about yourself? If you’re mostly interested in external things, you’ll be mostly happy, no matter how much time and effort you spend thinking. But if your thoughts have a habit of circling back on yourself and how you could be better, you’ll be miserable and look for escape paths, like the internet (which forcefully pulls your thoughts away from yourself and thus makes you happier for awhile).