People who are already retired: why do you something, instead of nothing?

[Scott 2]

I love to do nothing. My big plan for retirement was uninterrupted tranquility. 100% a freedom from motivation. I often do just that - 2 hours for breakfast, 3 hours to hit the gym, play video games all day, etc. The effort I expend on any given day, is probably 1/2 to 1/3 of what I put out while working. It is glorious.

I've still found structuring my week necessary. Every Sunday I plan 3 weeks ahead. Ideally each week has something for myself, my marriage, my parents and volunteer work. Often, I don't want to do a scheduled event. I do it anyways. Today I made myself attend a crowded volunteer appreciation dinner at a local brewery. Between my introversion and my autism, it was far from a first choice activity. But I made connections and came away with two new activities to try. I met high quality people.

This is path of least resistance behavior, with a long term view. I tried doing escape only behaviors - TV and internet. Without work as a contrast, each pull of the lever gave less pleasure. Like any other drug, the natural path was to escalate. More content, faster, with greater extremes. Eventually there's no place to go, one can't even get back to old normal. Maybe the decline is slower, but it's no different than drinking all day.

At the same time - one's ability to relate becomes muted. If life consists of TV and internet, social currency does as well. High quality people won't have interest. That is a downward spiral. At best, the company one keeps will be similarly limited. More likely, one doesn't bother.

I don't want to find myself as a lonely old man, mired in bad health, with no positive memories to look back upon. So I plan. I do some things. Often I don't want to do. Sometimes they are good. Even the bad ones make fond memories.

Some here have a passionate drive for freedom to. I rarely do. It never lasts. I've got hobbies I enjoy, but always in small daily increments. I accept that limitation and make it happen anyways. Deliberate structure is necessary, to replace what work used to provide.


An upside of retirement - despite my abhorrent laziness, this pattern leads to a "rich" life. I do far more living than I manged working full time. Instead of burning all my energy behind a computer, I get deep experiences. A week holds more substance than a month used to.

The cynic in me expects diminishing returns to present. In practice though, it has only gotten better. Skill at being a complete person seems to build upon itself, creating an upward spiral. I'm beginning to see a strong divergence from people who continued working.

[C40]

Yeah.
When comparing to while working before, it's important to separate the work-related things from 'your own life'. After retiring probably the majority of us feel like we are doing less (total), but we're actually doing substantially more related to our own life, family, household, etc. IMO the work time was irrelevant in some important ways. So while people say and feel like "Oh I'm so busy, I'm working all the time, I'm doing so much", if they weren't getting much done for themselves outside of work, they were actually really doing nothing (that matters)

(this is written in the context of salary-man or hourly paid type work where the focus of the career is more about money than fulfillment)

[J_]

What I notice after 25 years not working for money: I can hardly imagine to have time for a job besides my free life I have.
My days are filled with sport, maintenance of things, creative and absorbing art, learning and practicing new and existing skills, volunteering interesting tasks like maintenance of the boats of the rowing club, teaching sailing to adults, and keeping my (small) social network in tact.

[Frita]

Doing nothing can appear like doing something. Doing something can look like doing nothing. I notice this is very true through the lense of modern culture and requires unconditioning.

Also, I notice that versus a careerist/salary person track in which a huge chunk (or most) of time is reserved for work/recovering/networking/distractions/spending money to necessitate the need for more work one can serially focus on something to substitute for said work block or create a patchwork. The latter creates space for more options, thoughtfulness, balance, and change.

[UrbanHomesteader]

Doing stuff is a big part of living well. Resting is too.

[ertyu]

I now work, but in my experience being off work for 1.5 years for covid, the desire to do something will arise spontaneously. (Well: it will arise spontaneously if one doesn't have an active addiction, either process or substance, in which case what will arise is the desire to act on the addiction. So I guess caveat one is, don't have an addiction haha)

There will always be something. You'll be passing through somewhere, you'll see something next to a skip, and you'll think, oooh i wonder if that works / i wonder what i could make from that. Or in the course of daily living, you'll notice a need, and you'll go, "hm maybe i can try to make an x thing" to meet it. This is the sort of doing something I enjoy, too. The type of doing something where Ego sets up Projects for one to execute on a consistent schedule towards an End Goal seem to me too much like a false escape: you're floundering without employment-type activity and substituting the directives that would've been given by Manager with the directives that are given by Ego -- one way or another, you're not authentic or free.

[zbigi]

The type of doing something where Ego sets up Projects for one to execute on a consistent schedule towards an End Goal seem to me too much like a false escape: you're floundering without employment-type activity and substituting the directives that would've been given by Manager with the directives that are given by Ego -- one way or another, you're not authentic or free.

What about wanting do to things that are sometimes hard and frustrating? Ran Prieur had a great guest post about learning to play an instrument very well - you need to gamify the process to produce some dopamine during the practice, or otherwise you'll quit (as probably 99% of people who pick up an instrument do). The specific advice in that post was to break down the practice into 10-minute nano-goals, whose accomplishment will be perceived as making progress and will release dopamine.
Otherwise, in my experience, the inherent motivation only lasts for very small projects with immediate rewards (like learning to cook a new meal). Also, there was some guy on Joe Rogan IIRC who said he was really excited to write a book summarizing what he knows on his particular subject of interest. Then, after he finally got to it, he was excited for like 40 minutes and then he went "this fucking sucks!". And then used whatever motivation trick he knew to keep writing. But maybe that's the "project set up by ego" that you refer to.

[ertyu]

Imo, if practicing playing isn't inherently rewarding, then you *should* quit. If you truly wanted to play, rather than you just thought playing this instrument would be a good thing to strive for or a nice goal to pursue or whatever, you would enjoy practicing because the progress towards something which you authentically desire would be inherently rewarding

that's the difference between goals ego sets (stale, boring, you must force yourself to pursue them just like you forced yourself to perform your job on schedule) and goals which are inherently and authentically yours

incidentally, this is why the "discovery" process discussed above is important even if it's time-consuming. pursuing goals that are authentically yours is so enriching that it makes sense to put in the effort to retrain yourself to act from your own drive rather than according to someone else's power or directives.

[guitarplayer]

I appreciate alluding to "why there is something rather than nothing"

You will probably find as many answers to your question as there are to that one.

I like the “Because it’s there” – George Mallory answering asked about climbing Mount Everest. It's a bit of a cliche, but truth be told, there has been lots of research in psychology on people (and other mammals) exhibiting a need for exploring the environment / satisfying curiosity etc.

I don't remember exactly now, but studies of the type where the experimenter asks the participant to wait in the experimenter's office until the experiment begins, which of course is the whole experiment because there is a camera or a see-through mirror (that was probably before the firm grip of the ethics commissions). Participants would start to wander, pick up things, look around.

You don't need experiments to determine that other mammals do the same, just imagine your typical dog or cat.

[zbigi]

I agree that humans and many animals hate boredom and love exploring. The problem is that, in today's world, just the Internet and video games can satisfy that itch. Robert Crumb mentioned somewhere that, during early XX century, it was common to hear people playing instruments in their houses as you strolled through US working/middle class city district - but just in 1920s, it was all but gone, as everyone bought radios and were listening to broadcasts of professional musicians and singers, instead of making music of their own.

[jacob]

The problem is that, in today's world, just the Internet and video games can satisfy that itch.

Why is this a problem? It seems like some activities are considered wholesome and others are not. Playing chess or board games is good. Starcraft or Counterstrike is bad. Watching TV is bad but watching a play on a stage is good. Conversation is good, but reading is bad?

[guitarplayer]

I see where you are coming from, I think a lot of this is learned helplessness. So maybe those who do something rather than nothing were just poor learners of being helpless?

I also think that it is exclusively the Internet and video games satisfying the need to explore only if one makes that choice. It is not for me, for example, and I am not even retired yet !

As to learning to play an instrument, for me it was paternal and fraternal affiliation, followed by cool, booze and girls

[zbigi]

Why is this a problem? It seems like some activities are considered wholesome and others are not. Playing chess or board games is good. Starcraft or Counterstrike is bad. Watching TV is bad but watching a play on a stage is good. Conversation is good, but reading is bad?

That's a good question. Perhaps because it's too easy? You can easily delude yourself that you're above average Starcraft or Counterstrike player, while in reality putting in no effort to get better, and effectively just mindlessly clicking buttons. It's similar with writing your novel for 10+ years without showing it to anyone. There's no reality check, no external pressure of any kind, and without it we tend to progressively drop our standards, put in less and less effort, not excercise out faculties, and in result slowly wither away (as the body gets rid of whatever is not used).

[Scott 2]

Imo, if practicing playing isn't inherently rewarding, then you *should* quit.

How do you reach the good behind the suck, following this strategy? Human tendency to overly discount future value seems prone to short circuit the process. I say this as someone who does suck every day, typically with no inherent reward. I'd much prefer a path where I enjoy every step along the way.

Many good things I have, were behind a large wall of suck. Years of it some cases.

[mountainFrugal]

@zbigi - If I recall, you play(ed) MTG. Why do you (or did you) play MTG?

[zbigi]

@zbigi - If I recall, you play(ed) MTG. Why do you (or did you) play MTG?

I still play. With Magic, as new cards get released every couple of months, the game changes, and I like the fun of playing with new cards, figuring out how to use them, what combinations work together, which cards can be made better than they look like etc. Basically one huge and super-fun puzzle to figure out every 3-4 months (that's how often Wizards release a new Magic set). Also, the games are extremely varied, there are always new, unexpected situations to process etc. Magic is basically a machine for generating new and interesting situations. Also, it has no external pressure (there's no boss demanding I win at least x% of my matcher or whatever), so it's basically like reality, but simultaneously much more interesting AND easier.
Luckily, I tend to get satiated with a new Magic set relatively quickly, so I only spend a limited number of days per year in total playing. I think, the quick satiation comes from the relatively large impact of randomness, which means that, beyond some achieved point of competence, it gets harder and harder to further improve one's strategies, as the impact of changes one tries out gets drowned in the noise generated by randomness. Of course, the solution is to double down and play a lot more, to get a sample size large enough to get some signal in the noise - but that's not as fun.

[mountainFrugal]

So then why play MTG instead of doing nothing?

[zbigi]

So then why play MTG instead of doing nothing?

For me, MtG actually counts as "doing nothing". It's just effortless fun. Perhaps I wasn't precise enough in my original question. What I meant to ask about - why people expend effort when they're in position where they don't have to? And - how do they make themselves do it?

[mountainFrugal]

As I understand the answers to this thread there is a bit of effortless fun to most activities that people do mentioned above, or they have gotten good enough at whatever the activities are that part or all of it feels effortless. Another way to look at it is you can train yourself to feel comfortable with being uncomfortable for things like physical activities. So while this might appear like effort to an outsider, it is actually just a built in habit and more effortless like your MTG playing.

add: the same could be true for trying new things or moving in new directions... you can train yourself to make that more effortless overtime... the discomfort of being a beginner

[jacob]

Maybe it's just a question of framing then?

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.”

For example, some might find memorizing hundreds (or is it thousands now?) of magic cards to be a lot of effort and not fun at all. The key then is to ensure that effort and fun are homeotelic. My strategy is to have several different directions to choose from at any given time. The WOG is aligned in terms of effort. Then I just pick the activity that's fun today.