[HN Gopher] So you wanna de-bog yourself
___________________________________________________________________
So you wanna de-bog yourself
Author : world2vec
Score : 260 points
Date : 2024-04-05 13:43 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.experimental-history.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.experimental-history.com)
| morsch wrote:
| Life advice, unfortunately. Not an actual explanation of how to
| escape a bog.
| sieste wrote:
| I know I'm setting the bar low, but compared to other pieces in
| that genre I found it well written, entertaining and
| insightful.
| pksebben wrote:
| For sure, but throw me a rope here, it doesn't help the more
| immediate concern of this bog I'm stuck in.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| You could try pulling harder on your hair.
|
| (Sorry not sorry.)
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| this is now a chicago thread:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago
| WJW wrote:
| Thank you random stranger for introducing me to this
| wonderful story! Pretty incredible they managed to do this in
| the 1850s already.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _Bog_ in many slavic languages is _God_ in English and used in
| many proverbs and idioms. This makes a hilarious headline, I
| thought this was about exiting god mode.
| riskable wrote:
| Some say bog mode is harder to exit than vi.
| SamBam wrote:
| Huh! There is a YA novel I really like, _The Girl Who Drank The
| Moon_ , and this casts that in a very interesting light.
|
| There is a bog -- a swamp -- that covers the known world, and
| this bog is treated in a religious way by the author as the
| embodiment of nature, of the fertility of the world. The bog
| also spawns a bog monster, who may have been the first living
| creature.
|
| _" In the beginning, there was the Bog. And the Bog covered
| the world and the Bog was the world and the world was the
| Bog."_
| 5040 wrote:
| Bogged has also come to mean something like 'having had drastic
| plastic surgery' in some circles, the expression being derived
| from 'Bogdanoff'.
| AvAn12 wrote:
| Y'all probably also know that bog means "toilet" in British
| English...
| weinzierl wrote:
| But a real Limey would never say _" Y'all"_, so we don't
| believe you.
| paradoxyl wrote:
| Failure to define your meaning of "bog" in the opening paragraphs
| leads to unneeded frustration.
| ziddoap wrote:
| It is made fairly clear by sentence #5 what the author means by
| "bog". And by sentence #7 it is made crystal clear.
|
| You barely need to start reading to understand what the author
| meant.
| digging wrote:
| I don't agree. If the article started explaining how and why to
| de-bog oneself without defining bog, that would be annoying.
| But this one simply has a short, helpful, interesting
| introduction and then immediately defines "bog" before moving
| on. It's well structured IMO
| Etheryte wrote:
| Failure to define your meaning of "unneeded frustration" in the
| opening paragraph of your comment leads to unneeded
| frustration.
| viburnum wrote:
| It sounds like none of this advice is working for the author.
| bovermyer wrote:
| That's not what I got out of it. It sounded like he instead was
| making an effort to recognize and categorize some of the
| problems he's experienced, and thereby create plans to avoid or
| mitigate them.
| riskable wrote:
| The author scrounged together enough time, energy, and
| motivation to write the article. This suggests that they got
| out of the bog; at least for a little while :shrug:
| digging wrote:
| What makes you think that?
| munificent wrote:
| Escaping the bog is a toothbrush problem, not a diploma
| problem.
| ketzo wrote:
| I really, really hate how many of my problems are toothbrushing
| problems. I know I just need to get over it and start brushing,
| but... ugh.
|
| Anyway, can't recommend Adam's writing enough. Subscribed after
| his second post and have never regretted it. If you liked this,
| you should also read "You can't reach the brain through the
| ears", an excellent piece about failing to communicate.
|
| https://www.experimental-history.com/p/you-cant-reach-the-br...
| riskable wrote:
| "Everything needs maintenance." It's not just something a wise
| old engineer would say; _it 's life_. Life itself is a
| Toothbrushing Problem.
|
| That is to say, if all your problems are Toothbrushing Problems
| then you're doing pretty good! That means you're _living_. At
| that point you can do one or all of these things:
| * Complain about your Toothbrushing Problems (<- you are here,
| haha) * Bring NEW problems into your life *
| Work to make your Toothbrushing Problems a bit less troublesome
|
| The HN crowd would probably say that 3rd bullet is where great
| startups are born ;D
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Indeed; it seems like being happy is a lot of work; I wonder if
| the type of people the author mentions in the "Impossible
| satisfaction" section aren't wrong.
| munificent wrote:
| There is a liberating side to toothbrushing problems: the
| stakes of any given unit of effort are low.
|
| With diploma problems, if you blow it, you really blow it, with
| often irrevocable long-term consequences. All of your effort is
| building to a high stakes climax and if you miss your shot,
| that effort can all end up wasted. It's videogame permadeath
| mode for life.
|
| But with toothbrushing problems, you can have an off day and
| usually make it up today. Of course, every day's effort _does_
| matter. You can 't make _every_ day an off day. But I find
| something very comforting about problems where some random
| variance in my output does smooth out to the mean over time.
| ketzo wrote:
| You know, that's actually a great way to look at it.
|
| I think I feel like I can't _let_ myself excuse any slack,
| because I'm worried I'll just start excusing everything --
| one day off at the gym becomes a week off, becomes a month
| off.
|
| But I guess the point is that no matter how much you have
| failed, the toothbrush problem is _always_ best served by you
| starting again tomorrow, no matter how many tomorrows it
| takes.
| thyrox wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this link. My god there is something about
| this writing style that's just incredibly entertaining to read.
|
| Most of the time I get so bored reading such long articles,
| like the New Yorker ugh. But this is the first time I've
| enjoyed such a lengthy read! I hope I can decrypt what the
| author is doing to make reading such fun.
| ketzo wrote:
| Literally all of his posts are like this. It's crazy.
|
| These two are more life-advice-y, but he also does some
| fairly deep dives on various problems he sees with scientific
| research (and psychology in particular), and his writing is
| no less entertaining.
|
| In fact, one of his posts is actually about how he thinks
| scientists should make more effort to make their papers fun
| to read!
|
| It's fantastic, and I also hope to emulate it.
| maxverse wrote:
| I'm floored by how good this article is, and I just read
| another, and was also floored. His writing reminds me a bit of
| Raptitude in its - everything-is-fucked-heh-let's-try-to-
| function-anyhow attitude. And the writing is so, so good, and
| wildly relatable.
|
| https://www.experimental-history.com/p/its-very-weird-to-hav...
| Satam wrote:
| Yes, what the hell! It's so good. One of the rare writings
| that's extremely insightful while being an absolute pleasure
| to read.
| hailmac wrote:
| Functionally not that different from a listicle - and at least
| those aren't so concerned with sounding smart
| PaulHoule wrote:
| He has "history" in the name of his blog and he thinks that
| knights expected to fight dragons? I mean, it is like that in a
| manga but not in real life.
|
| Quite a few knights in the day were nobles who had large landed
| estates to manage but were expected to impress their peasants
| in time of war. They were lucky enough to go to war with heavy
| armor and mounted on a horse whereas the peasants might get
| some weapon that is easy to handle without a lot of training
| like a spear.
| digging wrote:
| > He has "history" in the name of his blog and he thinks that
| knights expected to fight dragons? I mean, it is like that in
| a manga but not in real life.
|
| I mean, "experimental history", so I don't expect real,
| academic history... that said, yeah, that was an insane
| analogy to make. Knights weren't, as a rule, wandering
| monster-slayers - anywhere or ever, as far as I know.
|
| Knights' bravery was tested on the battlefield, where they
| would have a very good expectation of survival until
| approximately post-Agincourt (where it became more socially
| acceptable to execute wealthy enemies instead of capturing
| and ransoming them). But that's also an extremely high-level
| description which may be so generalized as to be inaccurate.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > Medieval knights used to wander around hoping for
| honorable adventures to pop up so that they could
| demonstrate their bravery.
|
| That is a loose pop historical way of describing the
| chivalric tradition, but it did exist in some fashion. The
| dragon reference also exists in a passage that is being
| airily allegorical, you're all being overly anal about
| accuracy.
| digging wrote:
| Well, then how would you turn this into a listicle?
|
| "17 ways you get stuck in a bog (in 3 categories) (and also:
| what is a bog) (and also: what it means to get unstuck from the
| bog)"
|
| Seems a pretty shit listicle; maybe it should be a full article
| :)
| rzzzt wrote:
| Number 15 will bog you!
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| I've recently watched for the first time Neon Genesis Evangelion
| (+ The End of...), and powerful (and a bit painful) art like this
| seems to be a good slap in the face to get out of at least some
| of the versions of that bog - I'm a bit sad that I didn't watch
| it years earlier when I was stuck in some bogs...
|
| (Another commenter there mentions a quote recommending books -
| great literature I'm pretty sure in that context, not "self help"
| books... I guess I should hurry up and read Kundera's _The
| Unbearable Lightness of Being_ already ?)
| sedivy94 wrote:
| Fellow Neon Genesis fan here. Watching the original series was
| an incredibly frustrating experience for me. It does not follow
| the typical hero's journey. There few wins, if any. Mostly
| losses. Idiot Shinji was a helpless and pitiful protagonist, so
| much so that you eventually stop rooting for him. The 1.11,
| 2.22, 3.33, and 3.0+1.0 rebuilds were much, much better in my
| opinion. But they also lacked that depressing trajectory that
| made the original series so unique.
| kashyapc wrote:
| Last night I happened to listen to an episode[1] on EconTalk
| where the author of the post (Adam Mastroianni, a psychologist)
| was a guest. Definitely worth a listen.
|
| Adam also supports "open science framework" (https://osf.io/) and
| publishes his research and related artifacts there, which I
| really appreciate!
|
| [1] https://www.econtalk.org/a-users-guide-to-our-emotional-
| ther...
| digging wrote:
| > But most of the people I know who feel this way haven't
| survived any atomic bombings at all. They're usually people with
| lots of education and high-paying jobs and supportive
| relationships and a normal amount of tragedies, people who have
| all the raw materials for a good life but can't seem to make one
| for themselves. Their problem is they believe that satisfaction
| is impossible. Like they're standing in a kitchen full of eggs,
| flour, oil, sugar, butter, baking powder, a mixer, and an oven,
| and they throw their hands up and say, "I can't make a cake!
| Cakes don't even exist!"
|
| I found this an unpalatable paragraph in an otherwise insightful
| article.
|
| It seems to be, I don't know, recursive? Like saying "one reason
| you may be stuck in the bog is that you're stuck in the bog," and
| ignoring the reasons people believe they don't have an out even
| with the ingredients for a "good" life. Drilling down into those
| reasons would, I think, result in exactly this same article...?
| munificent wrote:
| Yeah, I agree, that metaphor lacked an explanatory conclusion.
|
| If I had to fill one in, I'd say that people often blame the
| external world for not providing the ingredients necessary for
| happiness, when they actually do have them on hand already.
| What they are lacking is choosing to compose them into a
| meaningful whole, which requires effort on their part.
| digging wrote:
| That makes sense. Maybe it's better described as "not having
| the recipe" or "not knowing what land looks like"...? I'm
| still not sure it's very useful though... it still feels like
| the awareness of "I am in a bog, and land exists" is a
| prerequisite for understanding the article at all.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Ironically, the root of most "bogging" is thinking too much
| instead of just doing things that need doing or that ripely
| present themselves.
|
| The author has reflected so much that they've created a bespoke
| system of abstract beliefs with catchy names and various example
| cases that they can summarize into a 5000 word essay and probably
| even extend into a book.
|
| For a writer, that's a sneaky but effective way to do their
| thing. (Or alternately: for a compulsive contemplator, writing is
| a sneaky way to justify the contemplating.)
|
| But for most people, reading something like this and reflecting
| on whether you also "gutterball" and also have "toothbrushing
| problems" is effectively feeding the beast.
|
| Many many of us in this community carry an urge to
| intellectualize and systematize and engineer things, but if
| you're interested in "de-bogging" that urge itself might be the
| thing to look most critically at.
| henjodottech wrote:
| Intention is cleansed in the process of forward motion.
| hellectronic wrote:
| That is really good !
| Satam wrote:
| Before reading the article, I was nodding along reading your
| comment. Having read the article... it's actually pretty good!
| "Just doing things" might be the right general approach but I
| feel that sometimes it's easy to get stuck contemplating. I
| think the post offers some interesting heuristics for getting
| unstuck.
|
| Edit: Reading even further, it's actually one of the best posts
| of this kind I've read in years. The author is spot in the
| behavioral patterns he's noticed. Damn.
|
| "Often, when I'm stuck, it's because I've made up a game for
| myself and decided that I'm losing at it. I haven't achieved
| enough. I am not working hard enough and I am also, somehow,
| not having enough fun.
|
| These games have elaborate rules, like "I have to be as
| successful as my most successful friend, but everything I've
| done so far doesn't count," and I'm supposed to feel very bad
| if I break them. It's like playing the absolute dumbest version
| of the floor is lava."
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's hypnotic writing in the style of Yudkowsky, Ron Hubbard or
| supplement scam videos on YouTube. On one hand it is pretending
| to be thinking rationally about things but with a heavy dose of
| fantasy mixed in that can put readers in a muddled mental
| state. They drone on and on and on so that you either give up
| reading it or go into a trance.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Goodness! Please expand!
| TrevorJ wrote:
| I agree that most people are not biased towards action, and
| fixing that is the first step. However, the article is clearly
| aimed at people who _have_ made that change and now are faced
| with the more subtle question of "how do I think about the
| problem such that the action I choose is likely to be
| appropriate."
| Liquix wrote:
| _" When we constantly pull everything apart trying to see how
| it works, we may end up with only an understanding of how to
| destroy something. We can have piles of spokes, rims and axles,
| but the beauty only happens when we see the wheel rolling."_ -
| Nick Sand
| robocat wrote:
| > they've created a bespoke system of abstract beliefs
|
| swatcoder, can you please tell me how you particularly manage
| to learn from your mistakes?
|
| Some people create personal theories of how the world works,
| and then put their theories into _action_ : A successful
| example is Charlie Munger and heres his talk explaining some of
| his excellent theories:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv7sLrON7QY
|
| Some people overthink things and label things. That can be
| unhealthy, and Adam touches on that with his "Stroking the
| problem" section. But the opposite can be unhealthy too: not
| thinking at all and repeating over and over making the same
| mistakes.
|
| > catchy names
|
| Useful when communicating with others if it is an uncommon
| concept. I like to search for the perfect word or perfect
| catchphrase when thinking about a problem or solution because
| it helps my thinking.
|
| > various example cases
|
| How do you do it? Don't you look at specific issues you find in
| your own life? Examples yes? And then generalise from that?
|
| I just don't understand what you're complaining about. The
| closest I can think is that you're anti-intellectual or you're
| a "Just do it" prosyletiser - the implication being that
| thinking is unnecessary and the problem.
|
| Academic over-thinking is its own problem: is that your issue?
|
| Like most things: we need to find the right balance. Thinking
| too little is bad in a different way from thinking too much.
|
| > intellectualize and systematize and engineer things
|
| I'm just gobsmacked at your choice of words: is systemizing and
| engineering bad? I define engineering as making good
| compromises. Maybe you could find some catchier phrases from
| what you are trying to say ;-). "intellectualize": is thinking
| good or bad?
|
| I suspect I'm falling into the trap you mention - perhaps we
| both need to learn to write as well as Mastroianna!!
| swatcoder wrote:
| Navigating the world comfortably involves a balance of
| contemplation and action.
|
| As I tried to allude in my comment, most people here, myself
| included, are _already_ heavily biased towards the former. We
| train ourselves to think deliberately and rationally,
| breaking down challenges into components, using and inventing
| abstract symbols and operations to get from where we are to
| where we need to be. It 's our profession in many cases, and
| often we were called to that profession because we've got
| some natural inclination to approach the world that way.
|
| And it's valuable! I don't know that I could work on hard
| problems or take sound actions on some of the biggest and
| most impactful matters in my life without that. I value that
| I'm good at it, and practiced in it, and (like the author)
| think there's value in sharing the fruit of that work with
| others.
|
| I did exactly that in my original comment and I'm doing it
| again here.
|
| What I'm expressing is not a general critique against
| intellectualizing. It's cautionary advice that -- for many of
| the people here -- they (specifically) may experience more
| benefit resisting the urge to intellectualize rather than
| indulging in it.
|
| It's not anti-intellectual, nor is it especially novel.
|
| You can find comparable encouragement in both "Eastern" and
| "Western" traditions and from countless modern synthesizers
| of these traditions (Alan Watts, Werner Erhard, etc), who
| encourage brainy "bogged" intellectuals to just "bonk"
| themselves and stop expecting _more_ thought and analysis to
| be the road away from their problems.
|
| In many cases, it's the intellectualizing itself that
| invents/perpetuates problems that simply cease to be if one
| can practice simply acting.
|
| Some people need the opposite advice, but few of them are
| going to be reading these comments in the first place and
| generally have different complaints than being stuck in s
| "bog".
| robocat wrote:
| It's difficult alright.
|
| My father is very academic and he tends to start projects
| but not finish them. I also recognise the same fault in
| myself. But I've fought it hard and won a few times with
| some long-term successes (using a variety of personal
| strategies to avoid my unproductive tendencies).
|
| We have many concepts related to what you are saying:
| analysis-paralysis, productivity porn, ivory tower,
| etcetera, etcetera.
|
| I find the fields of psychology and philosophy are mostly
| tar-fields of unactionable thinking. Unfortunately I also
| find them interesting!
|
| Finding the gems in the tar is hard, but Adam seems to find
| a few of them.
|
| Here's another article of Adam's that seems relevant:
| https://www.experimental-history.com/p/excuse-me-but-why-
| are...
| financypants wrote:
| At the very least it led me to some self-reflection, was a
| short read, and very entertaining.
| gr8r wrote:
| The blog author does well to id/categorize the issues. People
| need a way to quantize+act on the issues - various systems
| exist for that. Key is to feel progress (on a particular
| direction/plan or at least in hindsight).
|
| Ideas that track such progress:
|
| --
|
| 1-3 high quality decisions per week (credits to Bezos, tho he
| does 1-3 per day).
|
| --
|
| 1-2 important/not-urgent tasks per week.
|
| 1-2 small, not-important/(semi-)urgent tasks per day - these
| are also a form of "toothbrushing" that each adult has to do.
|
| --
|
| Bullet journal works well for both.
| mekoka wrote:
| The article all throughout points to the same root cause you
| point to. It clearly presents a mirror where we can see
| reflected all the stories we often fabricate to trap ourselves.
| Perhaps the author created a system. But I saw it rather as a
| device to better bring to awareness common but elusive mental
| patterns that keep us stuck. Although I'd agree with you that
| intellectualizing is often part of the problem, how do you then
| treat a disease, if the only medium available to administer the
| medicine is also the cause of the disease? How do you tell
| people that their mind is the reason they suffer without
| telling them?
|
| Even your own comment, as valuable as it is for pointing it
| out, feeds exactly the same beast that it accuses the article
| of feeding. That's the real irony.
| veltas wrote:
| > And while many religions teach that God intervenes in human
| affairs, none of them, as far as I know, believe that he responds
| to whining. (Would you worship a god who does miracles if you
| just annoy him enough?)
|
| It's not exactly as you say but it's roughly how I interpreted
| the parable of the unjust judge.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Unjust_Judge
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| That parable came to mind immediately. There is in fact a god
| that labels unanswered nagging as acting unjust. A lifetime ago
| in seminary I knew a guy who rage quit after spending months
| contemplating the implications of that passage and observations
| about how common it is to see others unanswered prayer. Don't
| know what happened to him but he would just mutter that his
| beliefs didn't matter since "jesus defacto makes the claim he
| is unjust and defeats himself", the problem of suffering
| indeed.
| barfbagginus wrote:
| First, debog your blog by removing the enshittware
|
| Second, start working to deconstruct capitalism and the state
|
| Tada, u no longer feel bogged
| weregiraffe wrote:
| >Second, start working to deconstruct capitalism and the state
|
| Or just kill yourself, it will achieve the same result, but
| faster.
| darepublic wrote:
| Some of the small personal details in this blog were touching
| because I can relate, though I seldomly see them shared in this
| way from others.
| seventytwo wrote:
| Good read. I find myself doing a lot of these too.
| taneq wrote:
| First step is realizing you're in a statespace of low utility
| gradient. Colloquially put, everything's meh.
|
| Second step is to examine the separable components of said
| statespace. Is one increasing while another decreases? You're
| about to make a big life decision! Are they all meh? Well fuck.
|
| Uh I mean, decompose them further and repeat. Eventually you'll
| find a meta level where the components of the meh are divergent
| vectors that sum to zero, and there's your buried n-lemma.
|
| If everything's truly flat and boring for long enough, eventually
| you'll dig down to causal bedrock where the quantum noise will
| create signals for you whether you want them or not. Doesn't
| matter, because at this point, does anything? So just do the
| thing, you have nothing to lose.
| hnthrowaway0328 wrote:
| Most of my problems lay in the fact that I do not like the way I
| am right now but do not have the power to get there or the power
| to make peace with myself. It's cliche but it IS impossible. Yeah
| it is a bog I made for myself but I did not ask for it.
|
| I kinda think this is a genetic thing. My father is like that too
| -- he is never happy, rarely content with himself, even when he
| already achieved a lot.
| cgriswald wrote:
| Regarding "declining the dragon": In my case "doing the brave
| thing" _doesn't_ feel good. It is the moment of greatest
| suffering and is usually followed by some useless anxiety that
| takes some time to dissipate. That's why I'm avoiding it. It is
| only by recognizing that the suffering will end only after doing
| the brave thing that I can challenge the dragon.
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