[HN Gopher] How to Like Things
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How to Like Things
Author : ingve
Score : 64 points
Date : 2023-03-11 10:25 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (mattgemmell.scot)
(TXT) w3m dump (mattgemmell.scot)
| xyzelement wrote:
| This is like, the secret to life. If you can enjoy exercise,
| healthy eating, working on your relationship, and challenging
| impactful work, spiritual inquiry, etc. you are set
| Jensson wrote:
| If you can enjoy being fat, being alone, being lazy and
| oblivious you are set as well.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| We seem to be programed to never enjoy such things. It's
| basically impossible.
|
| But the GP's set are a possibility, and not certain at all.
| So it is worth pointing.
| [deleted]
| copperx wrote:
| Impossible? we are programmed to LOVE all of those things,
| except for being alone, which can't be learned away.
|
| Is there anyone with special genetic makeup that naturally
| rejects idleness and high-calorie foods?
| [deleted]
| deebosong wrote:
| Can't tell if serious or not, but this sounds like Homer
| Simpson. Granted he's got a family, but he's seemed to be
| fairly neglectful towards his family's actual needs, talking
| past them and hearing only what he wants to hear in light of
| his family members' literal words spoken lol.
| stemlord wrote:
| Why downvote? It's an interesting cultural take.
| qup wrote:
| I seem to enjoy both of those, so I guess I have a lot of
| options.
| leobg wrote:
| "Freedom is not the ability to get what you want. It's the
| ability to want what is good for you."
| cratermoon wrote:
| Interestingly, James Williams points out in his book _Stand
| Out of Our Light_ that the technology of the "attention
| economy" doesn't does distract us from our immediate goals
| and into internet holes, but over time diverts us from
| wanting what is good for us.
| tome wrote:
| > doesn't does distract us
|
| "doesn't _just_ " perhaps?
| leobg wrote:
| Exactly. And they get away with it precisely because we
| believe in this wrong notion of freedom.
|
| We're still stuck at the 2nd stage of the three
| transformations that Nietzsche outlined back in the 1980s.
| Which is essentially to think we're free only because we
| get to reject people who outright tell us what to do.
|
| He said, "Free though callest thyself? Free of what - what
| do I care about it. But free to do what? That is what thy
| gleaming eyes shall tell me!"
|
| It also helps that no one is paying any attention to BF
| Skinner anymore. It's not the people who tell you what to
| do that you should fear. It's those who know how to make
| you do it voluntarily.
| muro wrote:
| > Nietzsche outlined back in the 1980s.
|
| Probably a 100 years off :)
| leobg wrote:
| Facepalm. I hate typing on my phone. 1880s, of course.
| Thanks!
| sogen wrote:
| * * *
| zabzonk wrote:
| > I'm using "like" in a very loose sense, actually meaning
| something more like "appreciate".
|
| then say "appreciate"!
|
| stuff like this made this article somewhat incomprehensible to
| me.
| lapcat wrote:
| Exactly. Why wasn't the article titled "How To Appreciate
| Things"?
|
| It felt more like "How To Grin and Bear Things".
| simonw wrote:
| Hanging out with people who like stuff is generally a lot more
| rewarding than hanging out with people who don't - who are
| endlessly cynical or negative and love to explain why they don't
| think things are any good.
|
| So defaulting more towards liking thing can make you a more fun
| person to be around.
| haswell wrote:
| The book "Learned Optimism" (Martin Seligman, PhD at the
| forefront of the discovery of learned helplessness in the
| 60s-70s) explores the impact of explanatory styles and how
| those styles are indicators that reliably predict
| depression/stuck-ness on the one side and
| resilience/achievement on the other.
|
| I think your instinct is right on, and highlights both sides of
| this effect: people like being around people who are
| optimistic. This has implications for both optimistic people
| and pessimistic people.
|
| Pessimism reinforces itself (No on wants to hang out with me,
| I'm unlovable), and optimism seems to have the opposite
| reinforcing effect.
|
| Cultivating qualities of optimism in yourself seems to be
| powerful because it not only changes your own outlook for the
| better, but actually leads to real world improvements in your
| relationships, which in turn gives you more reasons to feel
| optimistic.
|
| For most of my life, I spun my own default-to-pessimism as just
| part of my identity and occasionally useful in certain work
| settings.
|
| But I've recently come to realize where this pessimism came
| from (drilled into me during childhood), that it doesn't need
| to be permanent, and can be replaced by better patterns of
| thought.
|
| Mix this with a bit of mindfulness/zen meditation, and the
| world looks like an entirely different (better) place.
| hoten wrote:
| I just picked up this book recently in the hopes of achieving
| an outcome like you have, nearly finished with it. I'm also
| going through a self-guided therapy of DBT, which seems to go
| hand-in-hand with Learned Optimism (although I haven't seen
| anyone else make an explicit connection yet).
| moremetadata wrote:
| [dead]
| lapcat wrote:
| I think it cuts both ways. If you're a connoisseur of something
| -- film, music, novels, food, wine, etc. -- it's not
| necessarily fun to hang around people who have no taste in that
| thing, lack discernment, and think everything is great. That
| can quickly get boring and tiresome.
|
| It feels to me that there's a kind of inauthenticity to the
| author's approach, and it's possible to perceive that
| inauthenticity in others. Fake enthusiasm can be as bad as or
| worse than lack of enthusiasm.
| skybrian wrote:
| Yes, sometimes people pretend to like something just to be
| polite, and that can be disappointing. I don't know if it's
| worse than a lack of enthusiasm? I think as a performer you'd
| rather have polite applause than none at all. But it can be
| more confusing.
|
| Assuming that's what they're doing seems like a bad habit to
| get into, though. Someone who's experiencing something for
| the first time is going to have enthusiasm for things that
| are old hat to an expert, and in that case cynicism just
| kills the moment. (See: https://xkcd.com/1053/)
|
| I think you just need to learn to live with ambiguity.
| haswell wrote:
| I understand what you're saying, but I'd argue that what
| you're describing is not the other side of the same coin, but
| a different set of considerations to examine when assessing
| the health of your social life. Not every friend will share
| every interest, and that's perfectly ok. I connect more with
| some friends on some topics, and more with other friends on
| others. Their likes/dislikes are only one set of properties,
| and my ability to nerd out about some specific thing is
| limited to the friends who share that deep interest.
|
| The message I took from the writing wasn't "like everything
| indiscriminately", but closer to "stop making hating stuff a
| part of your identity". The difference is subtle but
| critically important.
|
| Among the people I know who have wide ranging interests, that
| range is not synonymous with a lack of discernment, but
| rather a lack of inexplicable and unnecessary hatred/dislike.
|
| > _It feels to me that there 's a kind of inauthenticity to
| the author's approach, and it's possible to perceive that
| inauthenticity in others._
|
| I'm curious why you feel this way? I didn't take this from
| the writing at all, and writing is often the least reliable
| way to detect a lack of authenticity.
|
| I mean this with all respect/love, but we often find what we
| look for, and if that's your default mode, such findings can
| become pervasive and color all experience.
|
| > _Fake enthusiasm can be as bad as or worse than lack of
| enthusiasm._
|
| From the perspective of whom? For the person who lacks
| enthusiasm, faking it for a time can be the key to unlocking
| the real thing. Unlocking the real thing can lead to a much
| better life.
|
| It seems the only situation where it could be _worse_ , would
| be for observers who find the concept distasteful. But now
| we're back to "maybe don't get so invested in disliking
| things", and ultimately we're each responsible for our own
| reactions.
| lapcat wrote:
| > The message I took from the writing wasn't "like
| everything indiscriminately", but closer to "stop making
| hating stuff a part of your identity". The difference is
| subtle but critically important.
|
| I'm not sure where you got that from the article. The
| author seemed pretty clear: "Perhaps it's a passionate
| interest of someone you care about, and you'd enjoy having
| common ground there. Or maybe it's something you have to do
| for social or societal reasons, and you'd prefer that it
| wasn't such an unpleasant experience for you."
|
| > I'm curious why you feel this way? I didn't take this
| from the writing at all, and writing is often the least
| reliable way to detect a lack of authenticity.
|
| For example: "With TV shows I don't want to watch -- which
| is almost all of them, because I'm really not a TV person
| -- my focus is on lighting design, and shot framing, and
| blocking." So the author doesn't really learn to "like" (in
| the real sense) the content of the TV shows, maybe not even
| appreciate (the author's synonym for like) the content of
| the TV shows. He's just looking at them in some kind of
| anthropological way, it seems, as a detached scientific
| observer.
|
| > From the perspective of whom?
|
| From the perspective of people who have real enthusiasm and
| can sniff out fake enthusiasm.
|
| > For the person who lacks enthusiasm, faking it for a time
| can be the key to unlocking the real thing.
|
| I don't know. I'm not convinced that this is a real
| psychological phenomenon.
|
| Having said all that, it's of course important to be
| supportive of the interests of your loved ones, don't
| complain about them to your loved ones, and be willing to
| spend mutual time participating. That's just plain common
| sense and doesn't need a long-winded article. None of this
| requires that you must "like" (appreciate?) the thing, or
| even fake enthusiasm for it.
| haswell wrote:
| I zeroed in on:
|
| > _and you'd prefer that it wasn't such an unpleasant
| experience for you. In these sorts of circumstances, the
| challenge is to find a way to like the thing that you
| don't already like._
|
| To your point, he also speaks about wanting to like
| things for other reasons, but in my experience, the
| reasons people often don't do that still boils down to
| aversion. Admittedly this is not universal.
|
| > _He 's just looking at them in some kind of
| anthropological way, it seems, as a detached scientific
| observer._
|
| That's one way to interpret it, but what he describes
| also sounds closer to Buddhist and similar philosophies
| that encourage a more direct experiential outlook on life
| instead of an existence controlled/clouded by thoughts
| and concepts. Put another way, there is beauty to be
| found in even the lowest quality TV shows when viewed
| experientially instead of critically/intellectually. The
| experiential view stems from a more fundamental reframing
| of what you see around you, and is the opposite of an
| anthropological/detached stance.
|
| I could be reading too deeply into what he's saying, but
| detachment isn't the only way to interpret this advice.
|
| > _From the perspective of people who have real
| enthusiasm and can sniff out fake enthusiasm._
|
| What is the purpose or utility of doing so? If the
| enthusiasm benefits the individual practicing it, it
| seems the ultimate conclusion of such a stance is self-
| defeating.
|
| There are various studies that explore the effects of
| one's mentality and how it can modulate experience [0].
| As someone on a long journey out of a depression fueled
| by a lifetime of learned pessimism, there is a stage of
| the journey in which one must choose how they feel, and
| persist in those choices until they start to become real.
| This happens in conjunction with other forms of therapy,
| and CBT plays a big role in rewiring the problematic
| thought patterns.
|
| The placebo effect lives somewhere in this realm, as do
| notions of learned helplessness and the opposite mode of
| an optimistic mindset and the resulting cascades of
| positive and negative effect that are left in their wake
| [1].
|
| I think the use of the word "fake" is really the issue.
| It brings notions of wrong-ness to the forefront whether
| or not such notions actually make sense. If you find that
| you cannot tolerate enthusiasm that doesn't meet certain
| criteria, that's understandable, but I'd caution strongly
| against the inclination to rail against it, especially
| when to do so is purely at the expense of the happiness
| of others.
|
| > _it 's of course important to be supportive of the
| interests of your loved ones, don't complain about them
| to your loved ones, and be willing to spend mutual time
| participating. That's just plain common sense and doesn't
| need a long-winded article_
|
| As someone who grew up in an environment that is the
| opposite of what you describe, and having spent years
| undoing the damage of that environment while meeting
| countless folks who lived through a similar experience,
| the prevalence of the kinds of problematic behavior an
| article like this tries to discourage is much higher than
| you may realize.
|
| If it's not for you, that ok, but just move on.
|
| - [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/your-
| thoughts-can...
|
| - [1] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-02181-004
| lapcat wrote:
| I feel you're projecting things from yourself into the
| article that aren't there.
|
| > the reasons people often don't do that still boils down
| to aversion.
|
| I'm not sure what you intend by this, but the author
| says, "Often in life, you'll find yourself in the
| position of either disliking something or just not having
| strong feelings about it. That's normal and fine."
|
| > That's one way to interpret it, but what he describes
| also sounds closer to Buddhist and similar philosophies
| that encourage a more direct experiential outlook on life
| instead of an existence clouded by thoughts and concepts.
|
| Well, the author never mentions Buddist and similar
| philosophies, so I don't interpret it that way.
|
| > I could be reading too deeply into what he's saying
|
| Yes, I think so. :-)
|
| > What is the purpose or utility of doing so? If the
| enthusiasm benefits the individual practicing it, it
| seems the ultimate conclusion of such a stance is self-
| defeating.
|
| I'm confused by this whole discussion. The article
| suggests that the reason to "like" things is social, to
| fit in with your loved ones or maybe just business
| associates. Not as some kind of journey into self-
| improvement or recovery from prior trauma. So again, it
| seems that you're projecting and reading a lot into this
| that's not in the article.
| sitkack wrote:
| Thanks for posting this!
|
| Esp here, where the default is to shoot things down and find the
| _fatal flaw_ that someone overlooked. Critique has its place, but
| all forms of No are a thought terminating action. Questioning and
| exploration cease. I think of it more as a pervasive curiosity,
| and how can we encourage that in others.
|
| Be charitable, stay curious and encourage those traits in others.
| mhb wrote:
| I like the design of that web site.
| abhayhegde wrote:
| Seems like it's made with Simple CSS. Not sure.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I like (ha ha) this quote by Auden:
|
| > Bad art is always with us, but any given work of art is always
| bad in a period way; the particular kind of badness it exhibits
| will pass away to be succeeded by some other kind. It is
| unnecessary, therefore, to attack it, because it will perish
| anyway... The only sensible procedure for a critic is to keep
| silent about works which he believes to be bad, while at the same
| time vigorously campaigning for those which he believes to be
| good, especially if they are being neglected or underestimated by
| the public.
|
| In other words, most bad things will be forgotten eventually
| anyway; the tragedy is when a good thing is also forgotten. So,
| it's more useful to call attention to what you like rather than
| waste time spotlighting what you don't.
|
| In my own life, I noticed that, no matter how much I like
| something, I'll forget 95% of it after a year anyway. Most movies
| I've seen, most books I've read, video games I've played,
| whatever: I can tell you the outline of the plot, and a couple
| things I found interesting. Everything else, all the little
| details, are gone. Over time, I've just learned to accept that
| frailty, and now I focus only on spotting the few interesting
| things I want to take away from a work, whether or not I liked it
| as a whole. Those things are, in effect, the work's legacy for
| me. And if a work gives me one interesting new idea, or new
| image, or whatever, then it was worth my time in the long run.
|
| I also think that, at least some of the time, when we say we
| don't like something, we're trying to tell people something about
| our identity and affiliations. We're really saying "I'm not the
| _kind of person_ who likes this thing ". So, the review is not of
| the work itself, but of what we view as its larger semiotic or
| cultural position, with respect to our own. We get caught up in
| proxy wars, and sometimes make unfair evaluations of works of art
| based on characteristics they can't be blamed for having. Grading
| them on a test they didn't know they were taking.
| tmnvix wrote:
| > We're really saying "I'm not the kind of person who likes
| this thing"
|
| A friend of mine often makes the comment "x is not for me". I
| like it and have adopted it. I appreciate the lack of
| negativity. Too often people will just say "I hate x" when
| really hate is not what they mean.
| marc_abonce wrote:
| I mostly agree with the quote, in fact, I occasionally see bad
| works of art that would otherwise get quickly forgotten become
| more famous because of the negative criticism.
|
| On the other hand, when I read reviews I always go for the
| negative reviews because I want to be warned about the thing's
| potential flaws. Even if I disagree with the critics I still
| learn so much about my favourite works of art thanks to those
| opinions.
|
| Also, if a critic claims that everything is excellent, then I
| have no way to act on their recommendations because I don't
| know what's their standard or taste unless I can compare it
| with something they didn't like.
| joeatwork wrote:
| I wish I could upvote this twice - the folks I know who have
| cultivated the skill of liking stuff have been some of the most
| productively creative people I've ever known. Learning how to
| like stuff is a superpower for people who want to make things
| worth making.
| lencastre wrote:
| 4000 weeks in a nutshell... just try to be in the moment enjoying
| what you are eating seeing hearing feeling, seeing yourself while
| doing mundane tasks, being present when with friends and family,
| active listening,... reads like platitudes sorry. But it works.
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