akratic's ERE journal

Where are you and where are you going?
akratic
Posts: 681
Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:18 pm
Location: Boston, MA

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

@mango: I've tried multiple coworking spaces in Austin and Boston, and they haven't worked well for me. The only real social interaction I got from them was people who wanted something from me, like freelancing gigs or to be my coach (?!). In school or a 9-5 there is a lot of organic interaction, and eventually you get to know everyone near you. At coworking spaces it always felt more forced and unnatural, like everyone was busy on their own isolated thing. Frankly, a coffee shop is better.

@C40: we house sat for free for the first month in Boston and then found a terrific apartment for 50% of market rate by being the first people to reply to it on craigslist and then following through on it immediately. We only have it for a couple of more months, but still we're like disgustingly good at finding inexpensive accommodation now -- I almost feel guilty. The rest below:

===

A lot has happened in the past few months. So much in fact that I haven't even been checking the ERE forums, one of my favorite activities.

Let's see, chronologically:
1) I proposed to my girlfriend of seven years. She said yes! Choosing the right partner is one of the biggest decisions I'll make in my life, and I couldn't have done better. She's perfect for me.
2) We are planning a 70 person wedding for this September on an island in Maine for under $10k. Wedding planning is hard.
3) We moved cross country (back to Boston) and visited a bunch of friends on the way and then found a new apartment.
4) I went all-in on one of my entrepreneurship projects with a friend. I spent 40+ hour weeks cranking out the prototype. And then we launched and failed so spectacularly and catastrophically that I don't think we're even friends anymore.
5) Without going into too much detail, a shit load of drama went down in my immediate family. Here's a short list: affair, custody dispute, suicide watch, grand theft. During all this I ended up shouldering an incredible amount of other people's emotions in order to support my family members.
6) I completed a working version of one of my greatest ever hobby projects: a willpower app called Akratic. It rewards me with a) my own internet connection, b) TV episodes like Game of Thrones, and c) movies -- in exchange for regularly completing tasks like going to the gym, cleaning the apartment, and flossing. You can read more about that project here: http://blog.akratic.com

A common thread in the two disasters, 4) and 5), is I saw some people close to me change dramatically as they were put into stressful or difficult situations. I think I had this kind of naive assumption before that people who were friendly in good times would also be friendly in bad times (barring occasional emotional outburst that they might quickly apologize for). But now I've seen some people that I trusted in the past turn into legitimately bad people after they got stressed out. And it's shaken me deeply, forcing me to question which of the people that I had previously considered my friends that I could count on not just in good times but also in bad times.

Anyway, #1-6 above had me pretty buried there for a while, but things are finally clearing up.

As for my next big goal, I'd say it's starting a family and being a great dad. From my original bucket list, many things are now crossed out now like hiking the AT, traveling the world, starting a business, and achieving FI. And there are some things left that the timing isn't the best for:
- live on a catamaran in the Caribbean: but I'm adventured-out at the moment
- build a tiny house in Maine: but I have to wait to see if it's a 2 person house or a 4+ person house because that changes things
- get a PhD: but it's bad timing to do while starting a family, and besides I still don't know what field or project I'd want to focus on
Maybe I'll get to those later.

It's funny looking back on my journal and seeing that I was already leaning towards getting a 9-5 back in February, because although I got thoroughly derailed from that track by #1-6 above, I think it's my next move. Even with a gap on my resume, I think I can still ace an engineering interview, which means I'll have a lot of options. The hard part is deciding what I want. I know I miss the structure, the regular social interaction of working with a bunch of smart people, and the luxury of focusing only on the technical stuff that I'm good at and flow easily doing. But I've got some hard decisions to make like whether to prioritize good coworkers or interesting/meaningful work. And I can't even decide whether I want an easy job or a hard one. I'll probably investigate a bunch of options over the next month and try to make a good, slow decision.

Tyler9000
Posts: 1758
Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:45 pm

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by Tyler9000 »

Thanks for the update! I was wondering how you've been doing lately. Congrats on the successful move, and good luck with the wedding planning!

Regarding stress bringing out the worst in people, yeah I've witnessed the same thing. I get that different people cope in different ways, but the degree that it can flip a personality is really jarring when you see it happen. But it is revealing. The trick is to sort the naturally good people who occasionally falter from the naturally bad people who strain to wear a friendly facade. Admittedly it's sometimes difficult to tell the difference, and anyone pushed far enough will eventually break and lash out in self defense.

My general rule is to give people the benefit of the doubt and completely avoid the rare few who are truly bad seeds. I admit I do have one family member who earned her way onto my blacklist, and there are a few former bosses and coworkers on there as well.

Regarding good coworkers vs meaningful work, I vote for both. :) You're in a good position to be picky.

akratic
Posts: 681
Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:18 pm
Location: Boston, MA

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

One of the more fascinating parts of having had some interesting life experiences -- such as hiking the Appalachian Trail or traveling for a few years in a row -- is seeing how other people react to these experiences when they naturally come up in conversation. Or maybe I should say fail to react.

Here's an example:

Stranger: So where did you move to Austin from?
Me: Well actually I was living in a tent for the last five months hiking the Appalachian Trail. I walked from Georgia to Maine, it's 2000 miles.
Stranger: Oh I moved from Dallas. Let me tell you that compared to Dallas, Austin is a great city! Dallas is fine, but you know Austin has this, like, vibe? All these cool restaurants and shops and little quirky places, Austin really has its own character, you know?
Me: Yeah...

Or maybe:

Acquaintance: Did you hear I'm going to Thailand for 5 days? I'm so excited!
Me: Oh wow that's great, I really love Thailand. Actually I lived there for six months two years ago. Can you believe you can get a one hour massage for only $5 USD?
Acquaintance: Oh wow I love massages so much. $5 really. I'm not sure if I'll have time to get one though since I'm planning to do X, Y, and Z, but I should definitely add that to the plan! Let me tell you more about X, Y, and Z, I'm so excited.
Me: Okay...

Once in a while I see a lightbulb go off and the person is more like "Wait, what, really? Are you kidding or serious? Tell me more about that" but it happens so much less often than I expected. Certainly it's not news to me that people like to talk about themselves and are often asking me questions just for the opportunity to answer those questions. However, I think I had this unstated assumption that my answers were ignored because they were commonplace or boring. Now I know that long-term travel or thru-hikes aren't for everyone, but I mean, they're at least interesting, right?

Like to be honest when I participate in small talk conversations my entire goal is to find some mutual interest, something the other person wants to talk about that doesn't drain me or bore me. I listen maybe 70% of the time and I'm almost desperate to shift the speaker onto a topic that's at least a little bit interesting. If 20s-akratic met 30s-akratic, 20s-akratic would have grilled the shit out of him. Everything from day to day stuff about what it's like to live such an unusual life to prying questions about how 20s-akratic could one day do something similar. I almost never, ever get grilled like that, and I don't understand why.

Actually if anything, when people occasionally do pry, it feels more like they are seeking an excuse for why they can't do it themselves, rather than explore how to make it work. For example, once they realize I'm a lucky/rich engineer, it's almost like that part of the conversation can stop, because of course only lucky/rich engineers get to do these things.

I used to think that I would shift from listening 70% and talking 30% to maybe talking slightly more often as I accumulated more things that people might want to listen to. Now I know that some people weren't going to listen no matter what I said.
Last edited by akratic on Sat Aug 20, 2016 9:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

akratic
Posts: 681
Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:18 pm
Location: Boston, MA

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

@Tyler I read your last post above shortly after you made it, and thought I understood it at the time. I just re-read it though after another two months of thinking about these people, and I have to say, you often put things eloquently, but this is especially potent:

"The trick is to sort the naturally good people who occasionally falter from the naturally bad people who strain to wear a friendly facade. Admittedly it's sometimes difficult to tell the difference"

There's been kind of an interesting arc in my life on this topic:
age 0-15: there are good guys and bad guys, just like in the movies!
age 16-32: I was so childish and naive to fail to understand that everyone justifies their actions to themselves. Everything is nuanced and gray
age 33+: there are good guys and bad guys, just like in the (bad) movies

Tyler9000
Posts: 1758
Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:45 pm

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by Tyler9000 »

Yeah, as you grow older you start to see the gray areas and maybe begin to believe that all bad guys are just misunderstood. Then you finally experience one in their natural state, and you realize what all the hubbub was about. Even within that gray middle ground, some people are simply incompatible.

Regarding productive two-way conversations, I think a lot of it comes down to shared experiences. People like to feel that they "connect", and tend to probe until they find a topic that they not only find interesting but can also contribute to. Some of our most interesting personal stories may actually be intimidating to others (ERE, for example). I don't take it personally or try to force the topic, and simply appreciate each person for what we do share.

Speaking of shared experiences, how's the job search going?
Last edited by Tyler9000 on Sat Aug 20, 2016 12:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

akratic
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Location: Boston, MA

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

Interesting point about others wanting to contribute and maybe not feeling able to on a topic like ERE, long-term travel, or a thru-hike. I think I feel like I am "contributing" most in conversations when I am passionately engaged in what the other person is talking about, actively listening, and trying to learn from them. In this case I'm better off if I know nothing about a topic the other person cares about rather than knowing a lot. (Things I already know are boring.)

Maybe the reason this lack of connection is starting to get under my skin is simply that I feel like I am growing more disconnected from people in general. Not everyone, I mean I'm closer to my fiance than ever for example, but the average peer and the average stranger certainly. I wonder if this will be a common thread among those who ERE, and I wonder as well if the great parts of ERE like freedom and opportunity aren't outweighed by the social difficulty created when you take a weird person and make them even weirder.

The job search is meh. I feel like the episode of South Park where half the episode Stan sees everything as shit. At first you're thinking South Park is going for some low brow joke, but later on your realize Stan is going through an especially tough time with his parents divorcing and feeling alienated from his friends. (S15E07)

Basically all the jobs look like shit. Also entrepreneurship looks like shit. And just continuing to play video games all day looks like shit. At first I was starting to seriously consider whether I was depressed or bi-polar, both of which run in my family, and I even started having long hard conversations with my family members with mental health problems.

There's a big difference between my current situation and theirs though, which is basically that I've been under an incredible amount of stress recently. I alluded to some of it in my June post with my family members on suicide watch for example, but there are some other things I didn't say, like at some points I felt an almost overwhelming burden without knowing how to handle it. Um for one example I actually called the guy who had cheated on my sister for months, because I thought there was a real chance he might kill himself over it (based on things he told my dad). I didn't think anyone other than me who knew the details could handle calling him and talking him through it, and I knew he didn't have anyone else to talk to and had to talk to at least one person. I mean that shit was hard.

Another thing that happened is that the former friend that I tried the failed startup with turned batshit crazy. I don't really know how to tell this story concisely but let me try: CF is my close friend that I've known since college, and BP is his husband, my former business partner. BP hired a malicious/incompetent lawyer who ended up inexplicably coming after me, despite my code not really ever being the problem. I eventually had to get a lawyer of my own to defend myself, a situation I never thought I'd be in, and especially inexplicable considering we were former friends and I can't even figure out what I did to make BP so hostile. Things got so ugly that CF, one of my closest friends, is one of the only people who didn't RSVP either Yes or No for my wedding, which was especially distressing because BP had threatened during the negotiations at one point that he'd block CF from coming to my wedding if I didn't accept BP's shit deal. CF and I eventually worked things out, but only after I agreed to sign a written contract ceding everything that BP wanted. CF is going to come to my wedding without a plus one, and I don't know how it's really going to work in the future. CF was caught in a really hard place between the two of us, but still the way things ended left a decidedly bad taste in my mouth. At least it's over. I'm disappointed but I don't have to live with BP and CF does, and now that I know more about BP, I guess I'm little scared for CF as well.

I mean I don't have a 9-5 so my life should be pretty easy right? But this stuff has been real hard, and there haven't been many distractions. There was even this crazy thing that happened where one of my cousins that I barely know (this cousin has never met my fiance despite us being together over seven years) invited herself PLUS FOUR to our tiny, intimate 60 person wedding. She sent me an email saying she already booked flights and an airbnb etc! I had to figure out how to explicitly disinvite her, which would have been the most stressful thing to happen to me in a normal month, but was more like a blip.

Coming back to the job hunt question, I think my true lifestyle preference across all the adult years of my life would be, in order:
1) student at university
2) on an adventure I was excited about
3) 9-5
4) playing video games all day
5) entrepreneurship

This makes me think I should get a PhD and not a 9-5 at all.

PS: Unless I'm going crazy you edited out your question about an update on my job search in the time it took me to write all this crap, but I guess I'm going to leave it for now.
Last edited by akratic on Sat Aug 20, 2016 1:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tyler9000
Posts: 1758
Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:45 pm

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by Tyler9000 »

akratic wrote: PS: Unless I'm going crazy you edited out your question about an update on my job search in the time it took me to write all this crap, but I guess I'm going to leave it for now.
My bad. I thought it might be too personal so I temporarily removed it (it's back now). Based on your response, I'm glad I asked!

That's a lot of BS you're dealing with, and I admire how proactive you've been about trying to do right even by people who may not deserve it. Frankly, if I was in your situation I'd have a really tough time thinking clearly about much of anything, much less trying to identify a job that sounds appealing.

Take your time. You've earned it.
Last edited by Tyler9000 on Sat Aug 20, 2016 12:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.

akratic
Posts: 681
Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:18 pm
Location: Boston, MA

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

No worries, my journal is a good place to get personal. It's cathartic to get some of this stuff out.

UrbanHermit
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by UrbanHermit »

Your bit about the conversation between 20s and 30s acratic has got me wondering... now that you're back from vagabonding and pondering a return to work or academia, what advice would you have given the younger you actively planning his exit? Is there anything you would have done differently before or during your adventure (duration, focus, activities) to better prepare yourself? Maybe you would advise yourself not to go at all and focus on figuring out how what you really want from life, or maybe it was completely worth it and you have no regrets?

I promise I'm not just seeking an excuse for why I can't do it myself ;). More like considering taking a sabbatical when my current position winds down, but concerned I'll wind up where you seem to be (ready for a new project, tired of travelling, reluctant to re-enter the corporate grind but not driven to be an entrepreneur). Any thoughts on how to mitigate the re-entry pain?

Noedig
Posts: 191
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:15 pm

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by Noedig »

I like the Akratic app icon of the fat guy with the hamburger: nice!

Re Gaming addiction: I have similar problem, but I tend to time out gaming after two hours and go tackle a task list somewhere, so it's under control.

You've got a lot to deal with at the moment. Best of luck with all that, hope you navigate to a more stable situation, and don't get stressed out.

FBeyer
Posts: 1069
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2015 3:25 am

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by FBeyer »

akratic wrote:...

Coming back to the job hunt question, I think my true lifestyle preference across all the adult years of my life would be, in order:
1) student at university
2) on an adventure I was excited about
3) 9-5
4) playing video games all day
5) entrepreneurship

This makes me think I should get a PhD and not a 9-5 at all.
...
I have to be an ass and ask you this then: If you'd really like to study, why aren't you studying now that you have the time rather than play video games "against your will"?

Blaise Pascal wrote:: “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
A friend of mine recently went on the trans siberian railway. Sometimes there would be nothing outside the windows for 8 hours at a time than endless forests. At the end he learned to embrace a few hours of boredom and no-wifi without the itching feeling that he should be doing something with his time rather than just relax.

Can you do that? Should you be able to? Given how FUBAR your existence sounds at the moment ( I went through a terribly stressful May/June) I'll say that I intentionally practised getting better at doing nothing in my 'free time' and benefited greatly from it.

akratic
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Location: Boston, MA

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

@UrbanHermit, I have no regrets about my adventures and enjoyed them while I was doing them. I even put them #2 on the all time adult lifestyle list. Adventuring is where I met my fiance and solidified my relationship with her, which is the best thing I have going for me. 30s-akratic would tell 20s-akratic to go, and would help 20s-akratic get there faster.

If I seem down on adventuring in general, I don't mean to be, but rather I'm down on adventuring for me for right now. It took me a while to realize this, but in Myers-Briggs speak, I always adventured as an NT and never as an SP. I was always pushing myself just outside my comfort zone, forcing myself to adapt and grow and master each new and slightly more difficult situation. I never cared about the sights or the sensations.

To give a specific example, age 23-akratic hated his own introversion and considered it to be his single biggest obstacle to meeting a great life partner, his #1 goal. 23-akratic knew that all he wanted to do was be in his apartment or with his few close friends and family, and he couldn't stop himself from wanting only these things, but they were not leading to random encounters with new potential life partners. And so 23-akratic bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco where he knew exactly two people but had a place to stay, then later a one-way ticket to Seattle where he knew exactly one person, and then on to Austin where he knew nobody at all and didn't even have a place to sleep, and then after that Sydney Australia (where he actually met his fiance!), and on and on.

This was all new and exciting and interesting! It sped up the rate I could try difficult things and learn about myself. It became boring much later. When I realized I could land in a third world country with an unpronounceable language and no preparation at all and still have everything sorted in a week or two, that's when I knew that travel had lost its luster. For me, though, and only because I had stopped learning.

But I mean, 30s-akratic wouldn't try to explain to 20s-akratic that travel would eventually get too easy. Even if he tried 20s-akratic would just file it away as something 30s-akratic believed that likely had nothing to do with himself. Instead 30s-akratic would just imparts skills like how to make flights and accommodation cheaper, as well as perspective to help make the leap. For example, one perspective that helped me take risks was to consider both the best case scenario and the worst case scenario and then if I could accept the worst case then I might as well pull the trigger. (It's funny to apply that same advice to my recent attempt at entrepreneurship, where I'd say that things turned out worse than the worst case scenario I could have imagined beforehand.)

Anyway, to tie this up, age 33-akratic has a much different understanding of introversion and which parts of it can be changed. I can improve my social skills and sometimes appear extroverted for small bursts of time. But I can't change how I recharge. Can't change it. But my introversion is also a strength, and all that time alone is also the foundation of some of the things I like best about myself and my life. 20s-akratic needed to figure this out on his own and adventuring helped.

Most of the re-entry pain is simply not knowing what I want out of the next five years of my life, which is just a difficult problem in general. The other part is feeling like I've grown even stranger, but I think I can handle that one once I get back on some sort of track.

akratic
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Location: Boston, MA

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

@Noedig, thanks for checking out the Akratic app. I wish I could time myself out naturally after two hours. Like if that skill was for sale in some futuristic real-life RPG shop for $100k I'd pull the trigger without hesitation. I'd also spend another $100k on "ability to fall asleep easily and sleep through the night". And then I'd know what to do with the next few years even: go earn back the $200k.

I've been delinquent in updating the Akratic blog but I learned a lot from that first working prototype. It did successfully lock down the fun parts of the internet and dole them out a few hours a day. I even started flossing every day just to get more internet time. But I had this unstated assumption going in that with the internet removed as an all encompassing distraction, I'd then naturally go out and do task lists and stuff that was productive in the long-term. Here's what I did instead: 1) use up every minute of internet the app gave me followed by 2) chain read Hugo winning sci-fi on my kindle.

When I just switched from internet time on the couch to fiction reading on the couch is when I started taking seriously that I might be depressed.

Also that first version of the app was too harsh. When I went to Maine to recuperate a bit I left the Akratic wifi router at home to be free of it. I'm going to make a version two that keeps the best parts of the original but is less of a pain.

akratic
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Location: Boston, MA

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

@FBeyer, that's a good question, and I don't take any offense to it. The first part of the answer is that I haven't been able to recreate my favorite parts about being in school on my own. It wasn't just learning that I liked but:
1) being surrounded by smart people who had lots of free time
2) having this simplified set of tasks -- do problem sets, write papers, ace tests, get internships -- and an objective and simple scoring mechanism for them regulated by someone else: A, B, C, D, F. I loved optimizing this game, writing the best paper in the shortest amount of time or learning the material extremely well but extremely quickly and thus freeing up the rest of my time for whatever I wanted.
3) believing that what I was doing was working towards a better future for myself. That if I just succeeded in jumping through these hoops my life would get better.
4) living in the same shitty dorm rooms as everyone else. After graduating when some of my friends started trading most of their time away to live in fancypants mansions, it became harder to see them because they spent so much time working and even moved cities to get higher salaries, and it became harder to pretend we had a lot in common as they made choices so alien to me.

Now as for another part of your question, the bit about will, let me try an analogy with food.

FBeyer: you say you'd like to eat Chicken and Broccoli, but observe you only eat Ice Cream. You must really prefer Ice Cream.
akratic: you're right, with both of them in front of me I can't help but choose Ice Cream. But if we could just get all the Ice Cream out of the apartment I'd choose Chicken and Broccoli!

Now certainly the short-sighted fat lazy bastard that lives inside of me just wants Ice Cream. But I think there's a real part of me that prefers Chicken and Broccoli, it's just weak.

Part of where this analogy breaks down is food isn't a major problem for me. I may float an extra 10 lbs, but food never becomes a run-away problem for me like some other people. Actually I have good ability to delay gratification in a lot of domains. For example, I could enter a wedding thinking I'd have 3 cocktails, then one beer, and then water for the rest of the night, and easily execute that plan. Or I could put myself in a situation where I have the opportunity to have an affair and know there is a zero percent chance I do so. Or I could put a product I want to buy on a wishlist for a year, decide to only buy it if the product is still on the wishlist one year later, and then wait the full year to make the purchase.

My will is fine for a lot of things, but totally inept in some strange domains like video games and internet use. I could never choose to play or browse for 3 hours and then stop. I just keep going.

===

Regarding the ability to "to sit quietly in a room alone", if I could have books or internet in the room with me I think people would be shocked how long I'd make it. But to answer your actual question without books, without internet, with nothing: I can't do it. You'd have to reach into the deepest parts of my programming and find some fundamental parts of me, like the part that is always striving, always reaching for more, always trying to figure out the next goal, and you'd need to gut these parts. If you succeeded and were truly left with something -- I can't really call this me, it'd be so foreign -- anyway something that was truly happy doing nothing, then I agree that something would pretty much impervious to stress or bad events.

Honestly it just feels like an empty suggestion, like telling someone who is struggling with money issues: "Have you tried just getting infinity dollars? Then you could buy anything you wanted."

Maybe that response is a bit flippant considering this approach has worked for you. That's just how it feels to me though, like it would be practically impossible.
Last edited by akratic on Mon Aug 22, 2016 2:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tyler9000
Posts: 1758
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by Tyler9000 »

akratic wrote: Now certainly the short-sighted fat lazy bastard that lives inside of me just wants Ice Cream. But I think there's a real part of me that prefers Chicken and Broccoli, it's just weak.
I get it.

It's totally possible to objectively know that an activity can bring you great joy but still find it nearly impossible to do it. In my experience, there are at least two factors that feed this. Addiction, and what I'll call Startup Costs.

Addiction is pretty straightforward. You may be legitimately addicted to games or the internet to the detriment of other parts of your life, and some level of detox may be required to think clearly again.

Startup costs are what is required to get going in a new activity before the reward kicks in. For example, maybe you used to be a very active person, but for whatever reason haven't worked out in several years. You remember one day that you love working out so you go for a run, only to very quickly find out that you're way out of shape and running is hard! So you have two choices -- power through the startup costs and get back to the reward zone, or give up and go back to whatever comfortable activity you're already good at.

When you're stressed and need an outlet just to decompress, the notion of doing difficult activities with heavy startup costs with your down time, even if you know for a fact you like how they will eventually make you feel, is often extremely unattractive. So you stick with the tried and true outlet, which ultimately becomes an addiction. You're trapped by your own expertise while other enjoyable aspects of your life atrophy even further. The two factors are self-reinforcing.

Based on my own experience, to break the cycle I'd recommend a multi-step process:

1) Eliminate the biggest stress sources from your life. Maybe that requires paying a social price, and that's ok. Focus on separating yourself from drama, as a stressed mind is often incapable of change.

2) Take the one game you're most addicted to and stop playing it. Cold turkey. It's going to suck short term, but you'll thank yourself later.

3) Schedule time for other activities you know you want to prioritize. Realize that they won't be very fun while you get up to speed, but understand that if you stick with them they'll pay off. And do more than one! Simply displacing one addiction for another will put you back in the same place sooner or later.

Obviously that's just my two-cents. YMMV. Do whatever is required for you to be happy!

akratic
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

Yeah Tyler9000 that makes sense to me.

I started reading the Big Book from Alcoholics Anonymous to get more perspective on addiction. There's an early chapter that talks about taking stock of all the people that have been harmed by your addiction, all the people you borrowed money from to get another drink but never paid back, all the people you verbally or physically abused in a drunken rage, whatever. Later you're supposed to try to make things right with everyone on your list. My own list for gaming/internet addiction is remarkably short:
1) fiance - neglected; sometimes feels like I prefer spending time with the computer to spending time with her, and she's right

That's it. No stolen money, no abuse. It's at this point that I realized that maybe I've been wrong to call myself addicted to internet/games. Like when I had a job or schoolwork to do I never failed to do what I had to do because of a game. Owing someone money to feed the gaming habit is unfathomable. If that were to happen I would immediately stop gaming, get enough money to pay the person back, and only game again after it was resolved.

A more accurate way to describe my problem might be: I'm incredibly single-minded in how I want to spend my free time. And I have a ton of free time. That's it.

Futhermore, I'm kind of fascinated by the topic of will-power in general, and specifically my inability to program myself like I might be able to program a computer. But that's more of a fascination than indicative of a problem.

Now regarding your Startup Costs discussion, I like that quite a bit, and I can certainly relate to it. For example, I love playing weekly board games / card games with the right group of people. Since I'm new to Boston, I need to build this group back up from scratch. And unfortunately I'm picky about who I play games with: I want fun nerds that are strong, competitive players but at the same time charismatic and entertaining to play with. I know I have to slog through many failed meetups or bad matches before I find the right players. When I'm healthy I'm able to make these long term investments. But in my stress-induced funk, I've been totally unable to to pay any Startup Costs.

Maybe there's two categories of activities:

"funk" activities: play games, watch youtube, watch netflix, read sci-fi, browse reddit, talk to my fiance, eat Ice Cream

"Startup Cost" activities: make new friends, develop a board game group, work out, find a PhD program, find a 9-5, eat Chicken and Broccoli

The Akratic app was an attempt to kick myself from the funk internet-based activities over to activities with Startup Costs. But instead I just moved to the next funk activity on the list.

I think my cycle is already starting to break, fortunately, as a result of having resolved the three most stressful things on my plate: 1) my sister's messy breakup, 2) my legal/relationship trouble from the failed startup, and 3) my cousin trying to crash our wedding. I even had a medical emergency in there from an infection that I had to go on antibiotics for.

Anyway I actually don't have a single game that I need to go cold turkey on. I've certainly heard of people with WoW addictions etc who would need this advice. Like this past week I'm playing RimWorld, but next month it'd likely be something different.

The fact that I'm starting to post on the ERE forums again is actually a good sign. C40 told me something in private once that I hope he doesn't mind me sharing: he liked when I disappeared from the ERE forums for a bit because it used to give him hope that there's life after the pursuit of ERE. And sometimes he's right, like when I was hiking the AT I was too busy to post much. But more often when I've disappeared it's been because the ERE forums are kind of on a hybrid list for me, half-way between funk and productive, and when I'm in a true funk I can't be bothered.

One thing I know from my past funks is that they are often followed by periods of unusually high productivity. And one of the only upsides of my single-mindedness is that it can lead me to be remarkably effective provided I can get the single-mindedness trained onto something actually useful, such as the pursuit of ERE.

I need to find some more things that are similar to ERE in scope:
- difficult enough to consume my full attention for a few years
- but achievable enough that I can envision actually finishing them
- and meaningful enough to actually impact my life in a positive way

Some things I've got that might fit that description:
- get a PhD (5 years)
- build a tiny house (1 year)
- live in a sail boat (1 year)
- this is vague but: find some way to help non-profits in a technical way (5 years)

BRUTE
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by BRUTE »

akratic wrote:I'd also spend another $100k on "ability to fall asleep easily and sleep through the night".
what has akratic tried? early morning sun therapy? evening dark therapy? melatonin? diets? sounds like an easy $100k :D

akratic
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Location: Boston, MA

Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by akratic »

BRUTE wrote:what has akratic tried? early morning sun therapy? evening dark therapy? melatonin? diets? sounds like an easy $100k :D
Haha, akratic likes brute's style. :)

Here is the core sleep problem: if my brain gets going in the middle of the night it cannot be stopped. It'd be like trying to fall asleep while jogging. It might start up at full speed at 3am and keep going all the way until the sun rises when I give up and just get out of bed. I can write papers in my head, I can write code in my head, I cannot turn my brain off.

My primary defense has been to try to avoid waking up even once after I fall asleep.

tried and helps: sleeping mask, max decibel box fan for white noise, large bed to keep fiance away

tried and probably helps (not sure): regular bedtime, natural light in the morning, darkness in the evening, avoid using the bed except for sleep, avoid using electronics near bedtime

tried and failed: meditation, ear plugs

not tried:
- any drugs (don't like drugs)
- I haven't tried a diet specifically for sleeping, but I've tried many different diets over the course of being bad at sleeping without any noticeable difference
- physical light products outside of just natural sunlight

I think what I really need to award the $100k is not just marginal improvement in waking up less, but the ability to turn off my brain. As things currently are I can fall into the following nasty cycle:

Loop {
- stressed about something, so I don't sleep and become tired
- tired from not sleeping so can't solve the original problem, so stressed
}

User avatar
C40
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by C40 »

I recommend trying the meditation again. When I was in college and was getting into weightlifting, I read a 3-page chapter in a weight-lifting book about meditating while falling asleep. I tried what it said and within a few days I was sleeping deeper and better than I would've thought possible before. That meant not waking up until the morning. The type of meditation the book described was not the normal "sit and think about nothing", but more like self-hypnosis while drifting off to sleep. (The book was called "Keys to Progress" by John McCallum. It's not worth paying for the book for this information though because it's so simple, and is a tiny bit of the book)

Another recommendation: Daily and intense exercise. Enough to make progressive improvements in either your strength or cardio-vascular capability.

FBeyer
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Re: akratic's ERE journal

Post by FBeyer »

akratic wrote:...I haven't been able to recreate my favorite parts about being in school on my own:
1) being surrounded by smart people who had lots of free time
2) having this simplified set of tasks -- do problem sets, write papers, ace tests, get internships -- and an objective and simple scoring mechanism for them regulated by someone else: A, B, C, D, F. I loved optimizing this game, writing the best paper in the shortest amount of time or learning the material extremely well but extremely quickly and thus freeing up the rest of my time for whatever I wanted.
3) believing that what I was doing was working towards a better future for myself. That if I just succeeded in jumping through these hoops my life would get better.
4) living in the same shitty dorm rooms as everyone else. After graduating when some of my friends started trading most of their time away to live in fancypants mansions, it became harder to see them because they spent so much time working and even moved cities to get higher salaries, and it became harder to pretend we had a lot in common as they made choices so alien to me.




Now as for another part of your question, the bit about will, let me try an analogy with food...
My will is fine for a lot of things, but totally inept in some strange domains like video games and internet use. I could never choose to play or browse for 3 hours and then stop. I just keep going.

===
... But to answer your actual question without books, without internet, with nothing: I can't do it. You'd have to reach into the deepest parts of my programming and find some fundamental parts of me, like the part that is always striving, always reaching for more, always trying to figure out the next goal, and you'd need to gut these parts...Honestly it just feels like an empty suggestion, like telling someone who is struggling with money issues: "Have you tried just getting infinity dollars? Then you could buy anything you wanted."



...For example, I love playing weekly board games / card games with the right group of people....unfortunately I'm picky about who I play games with: I want fun nerds that are strong, competitive players but at the same time charismatic and entertaining to play with.

...Here is the core sleep problem: if my brain gets going in the middle of the night it cannot be stopped...

tried and failed: meditation...
... but the ability to turn off my brain. As things currently are I can fall into the following nasty cycle:

Loop {
- stressed about something, so I don't sleep and become tired
- tired from not sleeping so can't solve the original problem, so stressed
}
The more you post, the more you sound like me.
Down to the uncontrollable monkey brain, the sleeplessness if someting catches on in the middle of the night(#), the exact boardgame group needs, the unproductive habits and the constant need to do something productive instead.

I've cited several of your posts because they highlight some of the similarities between us that caught my attention and because I want to address them specifically.

>>> Going back to school:
Going back to school to do a PhD is NOT going to reproduce that feeling of college IMO. The PhD is vastly different from any former encounters with university. There is much more of a workplace atmosphere and you're surrounded by all the science-weirdos who are not only singularly focused on their topic, stressed out about articles and obscure science, but they're nothing at all like the kind of board gamers you're looking for, say. You have your expertise withint the PhD topic in common, but other than that it's a crap shoot whether you'll find people to bond with. I advice that you try to recreate the 'feeling of school' in a more fragmented manner. For one thing, you're much older than your fellow students (I'm 34 and doing a PhD, the age difference is telling) and given that you react to stress in unproductive ways, you should remove as much crap from your existence as possible while recreating the school feeling. Honestly, the PhD-lifestyle-without-university is EXACTLY the kind of existence I'm trying to manufacture for myself given FI/ERE/freedom to do so.

1) Have you ever visited the stackexchange websites? PLENTY of incredibly talented people with plenty of free time to talk about physics, finance, math, statistics, world building, religion, cooking, programming... you name it. Spend some time answering questions on the SE site that best corresponds to whatever topic you're learning at the moment and you should be able to get your 'gaming fix' on as you get badges, ranks, and reputation on an actual useful site.

2) Makes no sense to you anymore, does it? Why would you impose tasks upon yourself, tasks you can optimize, to free up more free time, when your entire existence is made up of free time? You seem to need some structure in your life, not tasks to optimize. In other words: You're really bad at being bored, a very useful skill to have :)

3) Odd again. You seem to want to be 'lied to'. You already did something that gave you a better future didn't you? Maybe you're still coming down from worklife expectations and you're temporarily replacing it with something distracting rather than face head on why you need distracting in the first place. Here's a topic for you to work on to give yourself a better future: Learn to relax. It's an acquired skill; I know because I f***** suck at it, but I'm slowly getting there. Being in shape is a better life for yourself. Being an independent individual leads to a better life for yourself. Being an attentive SO leads to a better life for yourself (too). There is no shame in needing structure in your existence after achieving FI. There is only shame in lying to yourself about your true needs throughout your life.

4) You need a social circle and you probably need to realize that, now, you won't find very many completely kindred spirits, but almost every kind person you meet along the way will fill some of your social needs. If there is an ERE community around you might bond with some, but there is no guarantee you'll appreciate the hypothetical ERE people more than the board gamers you might meet.(*) University/college is probably a very convenient structure in the same way the military is. You have to get up, jump though hoops, do ridiculous things and to a large extent you're all equal while you're there. Your yearning for school sounds to me (maybe because I'm projecting so strongly right now) like my own situation when I found out that I was in fact very extroverted, but I'd been surrounded by assholes my entire life. All of a sudden there were all these people with whom I had a lot in common and it was great to hang out with them all the time! Now, I miss them all dearly, 'cause they've gone off to become over-worked consultants or what have you and that social gap in my existence is grating.

(#) If I, for any reason at all, think about playing roller hockey or weightlifting; I'm fucked! My body reacts tangibly to those two topics.

(*) In fact I don't think I'd like a lot of the people on these forums in person(**), in spite of enjoying the online conversation very much! :D The medium through which we communicate is very important in the same way that someone might be an amazing colleague but not a good friend. If you can apply that 'filter' to your social circles and realize that you're getting different needs covered different places you should be good.

(**) And I wholeheartedly expect the possible disconnect to be mutual.


>>> Food analogies
There are several stages of understanding:
1) Intellectual understanding; I know I shouldn't smoke. I'm smoking anyway.
2) Emotional understanding; I feel like every smoke is money out the window, hurting my health. I feel like shit after I've smoked.
3) Personality; I'm not a smoker. Why would I be? It would take work to start smoking.

You're at the intellectual understanding of your optimization/gaming 'addiction'. If you don't feel that you should do something about it, it will not, and cannot happen. The emotional stage might be very short in some instances and you go very quickly to someone who: reads, exercises, flosses etc.
The trick, it seems, to get through the emotional stage to the personality is to set up a SYSTEM, not GOALS, that get you where you want to. The intention to work out will not get you there, but as soon as the develop a real, tangible habit of always getting water, kettlebells and magnesium ready in the morning so that you can work out in the afternoon, you're much closer to being a 'person that works out' rather than someone with a goal of getting fit.

The system does the work for you, not your intentions of getting there. Now THERE is something for you to tweak and have a go at. Invent systems for yourself. That should cover the gaming, the structure and your life goals all in one.

Maybe you should also just learn to chill in the same way that you probably learned to do complex analysis at some point? :)
Saying you can't relax because you'd have to break something fundamental inside you feels to me like hearing some grade school mouthbreather claim that he\she can't do math because he\she isn't wired for it. If you're a driven person, you can drive yourself to learn to chill. If anything it seems like one of the most life-changing things you could teach yourself. But if you are in fact anything like me, you'd probably lie there on the couch and wonder to yourself what you are then, if you're not someone who 'get motherfucking shit done!'. The catharsis is worth it. If nothing else, then to learn how to make a conscious decision to become a different person, and then actually become that person. If you monitor your work efficiency like I do, you'll notice that doing nothing is one the best ways to increase productivity! Then you'll overdo it like I did and burn out, but we'll address that in another journal entry :D




>>> Meditation and sleeplessness
Meditation is frequently misunderstood 'not thinking about anything', when in fact is a mental tool that sharpens your own reactions to stress, sleeplessness, and frustration. Learning to meditate is incredibly difficult for me, but I can tell when I'm giving it my best because it bleeds over to my entire existence. Meditation is for the mind what proper weight lifting is for the body; you might find excuses, but they're not doing anything for you but keeping you back. Meditation WILL teach you how to properly react and file away stress and focus on what you should be doing, that is what meditation IS!


I have here the best way to make sure you sleep well at night:
Make sure you meditate regularly, have plenty of sex, get plenty of exercise. No TV/ipad/computer one hour before bed time.
By all means shirk/delegate responsibilities to make sure those three areas are sufficienty covered.

Waking up in the middle of the night and speculating about things is PRECISELY the kind of 'suffering' that Mindfulness meditation addresses. Millions of people around the world have that same vicious cycle of thoughts as you do, it seems to be endemic to humans. There are people who know how to teach you how to break out of that loop. Don't be alarmed that all the weak armed hippies are doing it, you should too. Everyone should IMO...

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