You seem to assume as a matter of course that boredom equals suffering.
Buddhists will say that it is possible to learn to stop craving constant stimulation, such that you will no longer suffer when bored.
Buddhists will agree that you should not take damage from moving or working, but I think Buddhists will also say that you should not take damage from being idle.
(I am not a Buddhist, but I practice Buddhist-inspired meditation and other practices, and so far it taught me to take less damage from work and boredom alike.)
Originally I felt happy about these, because “mostly agreeing” is an unusually positive outcome for that opening. But these discussions are grueling. It is hard to express kindness and curiosity towards someone yelling at you for a position you explicitly disclaimed. Any one of these stories would be a success but en masse they amount to a huge tax on saying anything about veganism, which is already quite labor intensive.
The discussions could still be worth it if it changed the arguer’s mind, or at least how they approached the next argument. But I don’t get the sense that’s what happens. Neither of us have changed our minds about anything, and I think they’re just as likely to start a similar fight the next week.
May I ask what your motivation was when you decided to spend your time on the aforementioned discussions? Were you hoping to learn something or to persuade the other, or both?
It sounds to me as though the solution here is to be more cautious before spending time arguing. Sometimes (often) it is IMO wiser to cut your losses and stop replying.
What have you tried?
In my experience, meditation works wonders to improve focus. Some people might recommend exercise as a way to improve energy. (Meditation and exercise also takes time, of course.)
Hm. This might be a valid point. Thanks.
Hm. This might be a valid point. Thanks.
Huh. This is an interesting read. Your mind seems to work in a very different way than mine.
Have you read The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes? I have not read the whole thing, but I have read summaries of it, and your description reminds me of it. :)
Do you do painful things with no reward in the near future?
For example, do you exercise even if you don't want to? (Here I am assuming that you hate exercise like I do. If you enjoy exercise, this question is not really relevant.)
Do you refrain from eating tasty but unhealthy food?
If so, how do you motivate yourself?
Thanks for the links. I will look at those.
You seem to be one of the relatively few people who have some understanding of my problem.
Demotivation is only a problem when it comes to tasks that I do not want to do - typically because there is a great delay between the action and the reward. It is easy to motivate myself to eat breakfast because it is an easy task with a swift reward. It is much harder to motivate myself to exercise, for example, because it is a painful task with no reward in the near future.
"I" control my choices in a sense, but this "I" is deterministic.
And I am not making any particular distinction between small and large events. Suppose I am hesitating over whether or not to eat a piece of cake. One part of me wants the cake; another part of me wants to skip the cake for the sake of my future health.
The part of me that wants the cake will use this argument: "Eat the cake. In the end, it's predetermined whether you're going to eat the cake or not. So you might as well take the path of least resistance. Why struggle and go through hardship? You'll always end up doing the one and only thing you can do anyway. If you ingest more sugar than what would be optimal, then it's because you were always predetermined to ingest that sugar. Do what feels nice."
I find this hard to refute.
I found the opening parts quite interesting.
I found your usage of the terms yin and yang confusing. Skimming the Wikipedia article about it did not help. In my opinion it would help if you would lead with a link to an article that explains yin and yang in the sense you use them and in a relatively concise way. (If such an article exists. If it does not, you might want to consider writing it.)
Likewise the term God. You seem to be using it to refer to something ineffable that you cannot describe adequately. It was not obvious to me that this concept was coherent.
EDIT: The article about yin/yang that I was hoping for appears to be the one about deep atheism which you did in fact link to: https://joecarlsmith.com/2024/01/04/deep-atheism-and-ai-risk