Anna Lembke’s “Dopamine Nation” has a lot of interesting takes on the subject. One takeaway I got is that dopamine seeks a balance. Opting for pleasure seeking often ends up getting experienced as pain. An example of that is drug tolerance. Oddly, the reverse is also true: seeking pain can often lead to an experience of pleasure. The invigorated feeling after a cold shower, or how hard exercise leads to highs.
She is a great podcast guest, too. Her approach - that the people with the strongest addictions can tell us a lot about how we seek pleasure - has a lot of depth to it.
Are exercise highs real? Do all people experience them or is it a genetic niche?
I've tried a bunch of different exercise methods. Gone running, swimming, weightlifting etc and I've never experienced anything close to a high afterward. I'll be tired, sometimes I'll feel proud of breaking a personal record but there's never any physical positive sensation or euphoria to me that would resemble the "runners high" that people often refer to. I think I'd exercise much more consistently if there were any biological feedback mechanism to make me want to rather than doing it the way I do, like it's a chore.
The closest thing I can compare would get the transformation of anxiety into excitement from getting a piercing but even that's super short lasting, maybe five to fifteen minutes of shaky internal excitement followed by a quick regression to baseline.
I do a lot of running and a few times a year in my training there's a run where everything just lines up perfectly. I'll be well rested, focused, got some pretty scenery to look at, and moving fast with what feels like pretty low relative effort. Those moments definitely capture a lot of the joy of running for me, but if I was doing all my training just to chase them it probably wouldn't be worth it. A lot of the time it's in races but not always.
Separately, I usually feel pretty good after a run too. Some workouts I feel absolutely wrecked after, but most workouts, once you have a good fitness base, you feel pretty good after.
I'm not sure which of those, if either, are a 'runners high', but most runners I know have moments more like those than like an actual high.
The exercise high is subtle, it's not a high like smoking a bunch of pot or getting drunk, rather it's a pleasant feeling. The first time i really understood it was: I had been doing regular running + weights for several months. Then for the holidays I was travelling and visiting people and didn't have a chance to exercise. After a few days I just felt this building of energy that had nowhere to go - my body had become used to regular exercise. About 10 days after my last real workout and 4 days since any activity involving physical exertion my plane landed and I checked into a hotel that had a gym. I dumped my bags and went to the gym and got on a treadmill thinking "finally i can burn off some of this energy and anxiety from it".
On that run as I warmed up I felt a giant release. And I felt happy... no giddy.
And it was good. A few miles later I felt peace and then ran some more til I felt tired.
It's different than just putting some stuff in your nose and feeling good or popping a pill and seeing bright colors.
That's the most intense I ever felt it, but it was a good experience because it also helped me understand what it was, and I notice it often now - not every time I work out, but often - its there under the tired, post work-out let-down as sort of a "glow".
I never experienced a runner's high or a basketball "lock in" until I did it enough.
I had to build the endurance to go over 6 miles without stopping to experience my first runner's high.
I had to last a whole half in a basketball league to experience being in the zone.
It took me a couple years to even get the feeling, but now that I've experienced it, I can't stop doing it. I think there's a personalized threshold for everyone, but for me, it was pushing myself quite far beyond my limits.
> Are exercise highs real? Do all people experience them or is it a genetic niche?
They're real, but (probably, usually) not literal. Exercise just leaves me feeling good, all over. If you've had the feeling, you'll know what I mean.
Some people don't seem to get it at all. And some probably do experience a literal high; if the dial can be dialed all the way down, I'm sure it can go to 11 as well. It's unfortunate if you're in the first group, of course.
I don't get it very strongly myself, but I compensate by making the exercise itself enjoyable. Swimming is boring. Spend a few hours hiking across a mountain ridge -- that's anything but boring. Still tiring, but the views are worth it, and it's a great place for lunch.
I've been exercising quite regularly for decades, including a good amount of running alongside weights and other resistance and cardio. I love it, and hope I don't ever have to stop, but I've never experienced any sort of "runner's high" or big reaction to exercise, even after very hard or long workouts.
> Are exercise highs real? Do all people experience them or is it a genetic niche?
I've known many people who have experienced Runner's High. I am not one of them, despite having run probably close to 10k miles in my life. Marathons, Ragnar ultras, stuff like that.
Might be genetic, or I might be doing it wrong. FWIW, I've also never hit "The Wall".
If they are, in my experience they seem to be mediated by the endocannabinoid system and not primarily opiod release due to trauma and adrenaline.
The only times I've felt it were on the tail end of cross country meets (a 5k race pace) and it was quite nice. Kind of an electric Bliss in your whole body. Borderline arousing at the risk of oversharing lol.
I've experienced runner's high. Not regularly, but on occasion. After completing the couch to 5k(C25K)[1] program and running a 5K every other day for a couple years.
One in a while, I've have a great day, the music would kick in, and I'd get a runner's high. It feels like a sense of euphoria combined with frisson - the same sort of frisson I'll get when listening to just the right song at the right time. The crown of of my head would have an intense tingling feeling not some times when I've smoked cannabis.
It never lasted for long - maybe 3-5 mins tops, and I'd expect that it would fade quickly if I had stopped running. I don't believe it was associated with any distorted thinking that drugs are typically associated with - it's simply a powerful boost in positive mood.
From personal experience I believe the "runner's high" is very real. It didn't happen often, but sometimes 40-60 minutes in to a long run I would enter a state of flow and euphoria. It felt like I was effortlessly gliding across the ground and would last for as long as I kept running and a short time afterward.
I swear it must be a unique to the individual. I've been running for a few years now and have completed a few half marathons (still working to get to the full) and I have never once felt any sort of "high".
Runners high is definitely real. But it takes prolonged effort. For me, 1h of steady non-stop running or 3h of no-rests cycling is bare minimum. 2x that for the true high
I don’t exercise a lot but when I play tennis and I am happen to be pushing to my limits (2 hrs, no breaks almost), there is a point when I get a sudden rush of pleasure for about a minute when I get a lot of goosebumps. Afterwards, I am in such a good mood and feel like I can push for a little bit more before being totally done. I am not sure if something like this is what people refer to as exercise highs?
> Are exercise highs real? Do all people experience them or is it a genetic niche?
I think peoples descriptions of exercise highs are overblown in general. When I was training hard I'd feel pleasantly worn out afterwards and would certainly agree that I got the endorphins flowing.
People are actually different. Just because you don't experience the actual euphoria I do doesn't lead me to assume you're making it up that you don't. Those of us describing it that way aren't exaggerating.
I don’t get it for running, running makes me feel terrible, and I have a bad knee which probably contributes, it’s too painful after about 10km (6miles).
But after a good challenging bike ride I have 30 minutes to 1 hour of feeling great.
I’ve not experienced what I would call a high but after a good workout and feeling the muscle pump as they call it felt awesome. Your muscles bulge so hard it’s just a great feeling. But I never though of it as a high.
I've always suspected that mosquito venom does something along these lines, where the venom hijacks or overwhelms some pain nerves and makes them emit pleasure sensations instead so vigorous scratching of the skin feels unreasonably good instead of uncomfortable and painful
Yeah, this one was the one that made me buy her book. Huberman is a little much for me, but he does a great interview with her. He leaves a huge topic out -- wanted to examine his own workaholism -- but she's terrific.
The podcast of Joe Rogan, episode #1708. Interesting interview, he finds some holes in her theory that she is not able to answer or can't explain. I was very excited with the book before listening, but after it I was kind of disappointed with the book.
Oh yes Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
This article kind of mixes different definitions of happiness. There’s the constitutional reference which comes from ancient greek roman philosophy and its origin is Aristotelian
Happiness as “Evdemonia” in Aristotelian scripts (Eudemonia in wikipedia) which more accurately translates as having “good demons” with you, which can be interpreted as feeling content/lucky for what you have.
Happiness as “Joyfulness” which is smily face marketing and instant gratification and hedonistic stuff aka buying the new iphone each year and getting bored at it and buying afterwards the next one because under a microscope the photo of the dark side of the moon looks better, when somebody else takes it.
So if one needs to repeat escalate: hedonism usually exploited by marketing, if you need to pay probably a facade of happiness and unfulfilling. Hedonism is nice to have tho.
If one is feeling lucky for his life and future: happiness aka lucky for parameters of ones life that would be deemed important 300 years ago and should be important in 300 years, conative with a sense of purpose. usually exploited by social and political systems (e.g.to be happy you need good health, very expensive if politics fights life) happiness is a must have
This article conflates one definition of happiness to the other while only discussing affective optimisation of hedonism.
We don't buy the next iPhone because it has a better camera, but because it makes us feel not being left behind. I routinely see people who can't afford one splurging on the newest iPhone and AirPods. People even wear fake AirPods.
Radiohead has an entire album about how fake and ultimately unfulfilling this is, but the problem is that we live in a society, and nobody wants to be an outlier. I may like the sound quality of my old earphones, but I still feel a tingle of shame when everyone else is sporting AirPods. We are evolved to follow norms, those who don't were ostracised from the community with dire consequences. This kind of fake happiness is thus an advantage.
We don’t disagree! I did not say we buy the new thing because it has a better camera experience, I said we are buying it because we are told others are having a better camera experience which we will not witness anyway
The most expensive iPhone variant (Pro Max) has the best camera, but the bulk of the social value is having a contemporary iPhone, which is an iPhone with a notch, X and newer. Social value hinges on obvious differences. Cameras are used for selfies and art. As long as there are no obvious differences a better camera wouldn't trigger our fear of being ostracised. A new kind of camera, like everyone suddenly using front-facing cameras, or everyone suddenly taking 3D selfies with a new camera would. It's a two-way street though, if most people think that 3D selfies are not it your new camera is now a source of embarrassment.
"Commercial breaks––people actually enjoy TV more with commercials." I've never enjoyed being disrupted by commercials nor has anyone else. This is why Tivo became so popular
> The study: Leif Nelson, in collaboration with Tom Meyvis of New York University’s Stern School and Jeff Galak of Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School, showed subjects three kinds of TV shows: Taxi episodes, nature documentaries, and Bollywood programs. Some watched the shows with commercials, some without. Subjects who watched TV with commercials reported greater enjoyment—and were willing to pay more for DVD collections of shows by the same director—than subjects who watched without interruptions.
Maybe the show is good enough that people want to watch it without interruptions but the show is not good enough that people who have watched it would pay to rewatch ?
It was actually several studies, most were conducted on ~100 American college students in 2009. The authors themselves weren't totally convinced:
> As has been shown with other positive life experiences, people predict and recollect
experiences in terms of their imperfect expectations and often independent of their actual experience. As such, after having watched a show with commercial interruptions, consumers may rely on their lay beliefs and later recall that experience as aversive, which in turn will lead them to expect more aversive reactions to commercial interruptions in the future.
-- Enhancing the Television Viewing Experience through Commercial Interruption
This is probably rude, but maybe people who are happy to sit through commercials are more capable of enjoying the extremely middling (I'm being generous here) quality of most TV?
So people who dislike commercials also dislike the kind of shows that are on TV and thus aren't willing to watch more or pay for more.
Plausible explanations include (a) the study is flawed, (b) some TV is so bad the commercials are a relief, or (c) the cohort that enjoys TV with ads more are the nascent idiocracy.
Did those willing to pay more for the DVDs want the ads on the DVD? Or pay more to get without ads?
The article says the reason. A pleasurable activity being interrupted and restarted is more pleasurable due to the resumption. This makes a lot of sense to me, because I certainly enjoy a lie in more if I wake up and then go back to sleep than if I merely woke up at the later time.
I think it's a variant of the old "nothing feels good if nothing feels bad to compare it with" chestnut. You could probably replace the commercials with almost anything mildly inconvenient.
I think it really depends on the type of interruption. Most commercials are not a calm segue to take a break from the show. Advertisers purposely increase the volume because they know you're going to be stepping away and shock you with colors and a barrage of images because they know they have microseconds to get some image into your subconscious so that you can think of their product on your next commute to work.
Agree - at best one gets used to commercials, like dirt in the house until the vacuuming can happen, but one never enjoys them. I didn't realize how much I hated ads until I tried Netflix a few years ago - I've never been able to watch tv/cable/ad-supported "free" content since then.
Nobody does. But they might enjoy the time in between the commercials more. They might, an hour later, still have a level of happiness that's greater than if the show was without commercials, and answer accordingly on a survey.
If something is less enjoyable than you think it should be, I think "Maybe it's the lack of disruptors" is a fair guess.
Especially with some very intense shows that could be emotionally fatiguing without breaks, and when the timing of commercials is well chosen. It's not just random interruption, they can be used to make segments between like mini acts or episodes.
A lot of shows are/were designed with commercials in mind. For example, the villain will shoot at the protagonist without showing whether or not the shots hit until after the commercial break. That extended suspense has been more or less lost in the age of Netflix (unless shows design for that suspense in another way).
> For example, the villain will shoot at the protagonist without showing whether or not the shots hit until after the commercial break
Or worse, until the next episode which would air the following week...or year if it's a season cliffhanger. I have mixed feelings about binge-streaming, but shoehorned cliffhangers are bad IMO.
Not exactly the same, but I often watch TiVo'd or otherwise-DVR'd content; I might start 30 minutes 'behind' on a 3 hour event and have a very, very hard time 'catching up' to live -- I pause for my bathroom breaks and grabbing food or drink, and find that I need almost as much time away from the content as the commercial breaks (which I'm skipping) would have offered.
It's still nice being able to choose when to take those breaks, however.
As I have gotten older, and as I am watching more serialized TV (and sometimes news), I find it helps to get a break once in a while. Mental or watch based breaks are one thing but I find myself ignoring them. Commercial breaks that I do not control are definitely helpful. Now I do not want 38 minutes of TV and 22 minutes of commercial, but I would definitely welcome fixed 2 minutes breaks every 20 minutes or so. I may still skip through them, but there may be times when I just let it run while I walk around or check messages - we can talk all we want about device addiction but if I know I will get a break, I am less tempted (and maybe less addicted) to check messages by pausing the show.
Shameless plug, I wrote an article recently on how the hedonic treadmill affects development culture [1].
In my opinion, good approach to avoiding the hedonic treadmill is to think in “processes” rather than “goals.” If you achieve some goal, you get back to the equilibrium and get used to it. But if you’re on a journey, there’s nothing to adapt to as every day is a journey and brings something new. So it's like smaller pendulum swings every day instead of big ones every few months.
Nonetheless, I like the ideas proposed in this article and think they also are quite effective.
Some of us say if you aren’t embarrassed by code you wrote 18 months ago that you aren’t learning fast enough. I think people who feel that way would in general agree that we should be constantly improving, not looking for status quo.
If the cost of maintaining your code grows logarithmically - and many projects do worse than this - then you have to constantly be finding ways to go faster just to keep getting the same amount of new logic into the system. This is something sometimes lost on people fixated on story points. They don’t notice that story points three years ago were “worth” more than story points today. Or maybe they do but they can’t prove it or even really name it. That would explain some of the friction I sometimes see with management.
Not directly on the treadmill, but removing things that regularly create unhappiness really creates lasting uplift. There is no adjustment that brings back proper misery again.
I have noticed that sometimes if you fix half a problem, other people will suddenly care and want to fix it the rest of the way. I have been known to “set the table” so it’s easier to finish something I’ve started, so I can come back to them later, or move on to something else if someone else finds the time before I can get back to it. Sometimes I have too many irons in the fire and these little enticements help get things done that I don’t have time and energy to do properly.
The ultimate hack is weaning yourself off the pull of the hedonic treadmill itself. And the best way I’ve found for that is to optimize for meaning. Of course, meaning is a difficult goal that is individual and prone to change.
However, it is also a lot more robust than the desires generated by the treadmill. Another way to think about it is learning to practice being content where you are (however imperfect) and sinking your attention into things that engage you and leave you feeling energized.
The treadmill will always be in the back of your mind, but it isn’t fit to drive.
I think part of what keeps me locked on to the hedonistic treadmill is that a lot of other people (including my partner) don't like who I am when I'm trying to stay off it. I tend to get more intense about a lot of things most folks don't care about.
It's funny, out of my whole family & friend circle I'm probably doing the most damage to myself via self medication, but when I try to get serious about things that matter and take a break from intoxicants, I end up doing just as much damage or more by putting my relationships through pointless trials of fire.
But I know what you mean about meaning. When it's good, it's really good and worth every bit of seeking.
It's unfortunate there are so many pitfalls to dodge for so many of us.
Others in your life may say they support your emphasis on spiritual growth, but what if that entails being passed up for a promotion, and, ergo, a raise? Most families would appreciate an extra $1k a month. Not every situation is either-or, but you quickly get a sense for what pragmatism means to people.
Often, it means comfort.
I hope you find the courage to continue to pursue meaning. It is good, as you say. Me, I made a bit of a deal with myself to make it a very high priority in my life when it is lacking. When necessary, meaning goes into the non-negotiable bucket.
My understanding is happiness will revert to the baseline if you have a set loss such as going blind or losing a limb. But a degenerative illness implies continued increasing loss in which case you would not have a chance to get used to it and revert because things will just keep getting worse.
I’m curious what are you saying we figured out in the 70s?
Hedonic treadmill had been in a couple of threads last week. I suspect a mix of people being primed and noticing other articles on it and posting them here, with a dash of karma farming. And to the extent that such clusters are real or imagined, possibly a but of observer bias on my part. If the latter, then just a coincidence.
False, it's a tendency to return to a stable level of happiness despite positive or negative events. This doesn't happen if you get degenerative chronic illness (and it was debunked 50 years ago).
Most of us get stuck in our wants. We want to get a promotion, we want a nice car, we want a perfect family vacation.
But do we need any of those? Not necessarily.
We get stuck on the treadmill by not knowing the difference of our wants and needs. When you realize you don’t need the things you want, you focus more on the things you need.
Introspection in my opinion helps you find your inner happiness in discerning your needs from wants. This is why many ancient philosophers believed you can be plenty happy with “enough”.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs to start, but to extend on more modern meaning, your psychological needs are quite important given most people have their basic needs met. There's a popular self-determination theory to explain this further.
Relatively, right? It's like adding tons of variation and cycles in training (i.e. periodization). Done correctly, you can keep improving season after season.
Yes. On the one hand the analogy is useful. Just like how physical training makes one physically fit, hedonic hacks might make one hedonically fit. On the other hand, while people might understand and accept that there are genetic limits that they cannot pass beyond, it's never the case for hedonic pleasure. Hedonic adaptation drives one to always look for more.
Or you can just settle for being sad and frustrated knowing that there will come another day and it'll be better.
Guess that's stepping off the treadmill. I'm interested in stoic philosophy as opposed to epicurian philosophy, so all this talk of the hedonic treadmill seems super weird to me.
I like these hacks, it’s also a mindset that needs to be at the forefront of all of this, why not eudaemonia over hedonism? Ive been interested recently around eudaemonia, Whilst i’m familiar with some of its stoic principles im just barely scratching the surface,
this is just my take, but there’s noticeable patterns within literature in subjects such as minimalism, buddhism and stoicism. All pointing towards eudaemonia over hedonism. Sam Harris in his Waking Up Book / App covers this hedonic treadmill well too
we don’t embrace the impermanence of things
we’re programmed in the western world to be constantly chasing desire, these hacks build gratitude, which is a trait in eudaemonia,
It's just awareness of yourself. If you know that if you have one glass of wine, that leads to a 3 day bender, then you can do something to stop the cycle. If you mindlessly consume to be happier, this is a tool to stop the cycle.
I wasn't making a value judgement on the piece (or the author's credentials). My point was that someone took the time to share something with the world and you dismissed it after making (incorrect) assumptions about their background. You'll miss out on a lot of good stuff if you've already cast judgement before you finish reading the title.
In any case, it's a <3min read and it does offer a few non-BS pieces of advice that may be useful to some.
I was not highlighting the author's background to appeal to authority. I was pointing out that what OP dismissed as "coder philosophy drivel" (likely from skimming the title and nothing else) was written by someone who has nothing to do with that field.
In fact, by doing that, OP made an anti-appeal-to-authority. You seem to be interested in logical fallacies.. could you help me out and tell me if that one has a specific name?
Sure, you seem intent on making a point that has nothing to do with OP's assertion or my observation, so go for it. (That's a strawman fallacy, right?)
"Commercial breaks––people actually enjoy TV more with commercials". Maybe most people, but i hate forced commercials. I rather pause the video, do something else for a while and resume the video.
"Setpiece escape room experiences, like climbing into a coffin " I have been in a real coffin a few hours once for a halloween fright night. Pretty comfy things. Felt quite relaxed.
> Though people say they prefer to watch television without ads, they sometimes enjoy programs that have commercial interruptions more.
The surprising claim isn't that most people say they enjoy commercials, it's that TV programs with commercial interruptions tend to correlate with people reporting higher enjoyment of the TV program despite claiming that the would prefer less commercials.
"TV programs with commercial interruptions tend to correlate with people reporting higher enjoyment of the TV program"
... when watching an arbitrary TV show picked by the person doing the study.
If you want to start assuming that a TV show you've chosen to watch will be more enjoyable with commercials go ahead, but that wasn't the way the study was done.
Of course, TV programs with higher enjoyment are also the ones that selling ads on is more profitable, and thus are the ones with frequent-ish commercial breaks?
I think those things are like eating your fill on sugar, it is maybe a bit tasty to eat but you feel awful afterwards. Some people just doesn't connect the eating to the awful feeling so they continue consuming even though its just crap. And I bet there are plenty of studies showing that people actually eat more and like the food better when you add sugar in it.
Because that line about preferring commercials completely rang false to me, I followed the link....it's from 2010...
"You still haven’t accounted for the popularity of, say,The Sopranos and all the subscription-channel programs. Don’t we pay to get those shows without commercials?
Contemporary shows like The Sopranos might be interrupting themselves. Remember, it’s not the commercial that increases the enjoyment, it’s the interruption. These shows often run six or more parallel plots and constantly shuffle between them. One plot interrupts another."
...so, that entire concept has, IMO, been disproven by the rise of streaming services.
I don’t think I like commercials either, but the enforced pacing of the shows with commercials is something that I miss when I rewatch shows built for commercials on streaming services. You’ll come up against a cliffhanger cut and then a second later it’s resolved because there’s no commercial break.
I recently rewatched the entirety of DS9 on canadian netflix and I don't think I'm under any illusion that the bullshit cliffhangers they'd put before a commercial break actually added to the show
But you have to drink fast, otherwise the last beer gets warm and looses foam before you drink the other beers. Beer without foam (or worse, the warm beer) might be acceptable in some countries, but it's just not what we do here in Czech republic.
Would you enjoy a pizza you found on the floor, or would you be imagining that it probably fell on a sidewalk loogie and has coronavirus on it?
Games used to have LAN parties. People used to watch stuff together more. Many activities had annoying prep work that could be considered like grinding in a game, but in real life.
Awareness of the hedonic treadmill meshes quite well with my 'frugal' Yorkshire tendencies.
A favourite on HN seems to be coffee, and spending ever more on 'good' coffee. I mainly just drink instant coffee, filter coffee for the weekend. I still get my 'good' coffee and I appreciate it. Same goes for wine and chocolate.
It's also led me away from expensive experiences to unique/different experiences.
It's also helpful for informing new purchases. Do I need the latest car with all the bells and whistles or can I just stay a generation behind and be excited with a new car with electric windows or whatever.
I think there's a triple point of quality-time-cost for products like that. Coffee, wine, and chocolate especially are subject to diminishing returns. Price is ~usually~ an indicator of quality, but there's an element of your time (research) in finding the best for the price stuff.
> That afternoon when someone is staying with you and they go see another friend who lives in the same city and you go to work or stay home and do laundry or whatever
Great article, but this is a ridiculously hard to parse sentence with the number of `ands` and `ors`.
I really like to work and the area I've chosen. What makes it annoying is that I have to work on what upper management thinks is important at any given time. They want me to design a high level software architecture now but I want to code. Next week they want me to code but I want to design. It very rarely aligns. If ever. That annoys me and probably causes management a great deal of anxiety when I go off path. It feels so childish of me. I'm looking for soutions to hack this situation like the hedonic threadmill, in case anyone has suggestions.
> I really like to work and the area I've chosen. What makes it annoying is that I have to work on what upper management thinks is important at any given time... ...That annoys me and probably causes management a great deal of anxiety when I go off path. It feels so childish of me..."
OMG, for a moment there i thought you were reading my mind! I've struggled professionally the last few years on this very topic. The only partial solution that i can think of - so far only as an experiment - is to minimize my cost of living, start to slowly partially retire, and move towards being a contract coder - either for corporate gigs or as a sub-contractor for other dev contractors. I figure being a coder (and likely lower level coder, not being like an engineering manager or anything like that anymore), might also allow me the freedom to work remotely, meaning that i can travel a slight bit more. And working in this fashion might give me the freedom to move onto another project/contract if/when i get bored of a particular project and/or client. Its an experiment to be sure...but frankly, that's the only thing that i can think of that might help me. I hope this helps! Happy to discuss more if you have private feedback. (My email is in my profile.)
EDIT: I failed to add that one element that is somewhat holding me back from fully diving into this mode of working right now is (what i feel is) one of the biggest hurdles to entrepreneurial freedom in America: being able to reasonably afford good, solid healthcare. (This is not meant to be political, just adding it in as another cost of living....and for myself, its not a trivial cost.)
It sounds like you don't have the autonomy you think you should - which often comes from the responsibilities being misaligned (presumably management are responsible for some delivery dates which leads them to feel they should be telling you what to work on).
It is. "Capitalism is for children" said Adam Phillips [1]
You cannot be a fully fledged adult, a self-determined being, under
conditions of wage slavery.
Education is set up not to allow graceful separation into adulthood,
as most cultures have historically done, but to transfer dependency to
a new set of masters.
Late capitalism in particular, with its intrusive lack of boundaries,
neurotic management, measurement, bureaucracy and surveillance, or any
similar state-controlled apparatus such as in China, is, as that line
in "The Matrix" goes - a prison for your mind.
Philosophers criticised the Church (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) as
"patently infantile family values" to keep people in subjugation. We
have largely overthrown that aspect of patriarchal religion only to
replace it with a Corporate equivalent.
> I'm looking for solutions to hack this
How did occidental culture dethrone the Church?
It didn't happen in one day, when everyone decided to live a secular
life. For centuries individuals stood up, called themselves "atheists"
and refused to join in the rituals. They were punished and suffered
pain and ostracism.
The problem is, for the aspiring Hedonist, entering into a world of
pain to champion a principle that people should have pleasurable
lives, won't fly for any but the most unselfish and far sighted.
> Education is set up not to allow graceful separation into adulthood, as most cultures have historically done, but to transfer dependency to a new set of masters.
Most cultures historically didn't have any education (as we understand it now), with some rare exceptions (wealthy people hiring tutors for their children). Children just started working very early and learned via observation and on-the-job training.
> Most cultures historically didn't have any education
I'd say that's untrue.
What I am particularly thinking about is rites of passage in primitive
cultures. Education may have been as simple as learning to hunt, light
a fire, fight, play with children, and cook food - but there were
teachings and tests the tribe provided.
> (as we understand it now)
My point would not be that that's trivially true (nothing is as we
understand it now if history implies progress), but that education as
we understand it today is precisely the functional slight of hand I
describe. A study of Mann, Dewey and the Prussian system introduced in
North America will bear that out.
Of course, for the fully self-actualised person of good social
conscience, learning does not have to align with the formula of state
school and higher education. People with the courage to follow
different paths are rare, or they have unusual parents who push them
down that route (home-schooling, Steiner/Waldorf etc).
I've found out i'm a lot happier if i don't have to do overtime. Get out of the building at 5 and stop all work related things until the next working day. Sadly there are days i don't succeed in that, but the days it does make me happier and more relaxed.
I work from home, ~20 hours a week on average, though I never tried to contain my work activities to a certain time window, e.g. yesterday I worked 1-4pm with breaks, and then 10pm-midnight. Honestly I can’t even imagine having to haul my ass to a “building” every day and spend all day there, that sounds like a pretty bad life - though I used to do that many years ago.
I recommend doing a hardcore survival course. You’ll come back knowing 1. you don’t need a job (you do need an occupation…) and 2. why you appreciate modern life, while at the same time why modern life is a bit sad, taking us away from our true habitat.
Interesting. Can you please explain why you believe 1. is true? I know I’m not going to die if I stop working - I’d just become poor, and therefore less happy. If you’re suggesting a life of a farmer, then how is it different from having to work?
Not really, I just was given one as a present. This is in australia. By hardcore… this is a relative term but 24h I had no food, barely any water, and ended up catching a bug from the water I had as I didn’t sterilize it properly.
It was soft core in the sense we were close to civilisation and no one was going to die.
The main takeaways is being prepared esp. how to source water (bring water, filters, spares, more spares, ways to start fire to boil water) and calling for help (no reason to not get a beacon). And how to treat snake bites (because they can kill) was drilled in.
Living frugally and swapping creature comforts for free time.
Then occupy yourself with something you love, but not alcohol, tv, drugs, sloth etc. as this will probably lead to depression / addiction.
For HN stereotype that could be coding the side project which is always more fun than coding at work, even though it is still bashing keys and occasionally swearing at the monitor.
I don't think I'd be much happier. I work 4 days per week. I need it in order to keep exercising my logical side, because I exercise it a lot less in my personal life.
Those Civ5/Civ6 custom maps won't beat themselves... IOW, there's plenty other activities that heavily involve logical side which are not paid coding work.
Of course there are plenty of other activities, but I get paid to do this and I like the ability to actually build something. Civ5/Civ6 feels meaningless in comparison. What have I actually effected in the world? Nothing
Anna Lembke’s “Dopamine Nation” has a lot of interesting takes on the subject. One takeaway I got is that dopamine seeks a balance. Opting for pleasure seeking often ends up getting experienced as pain. An example of that is drug tolerance. Oddly, the reverse is also true: seeking pain can often lead to an experience of pleasure. The invigorated feeling after a cold shower, or how hard exercise leads to highs.
She is a great podcast guest, too. Her approach - that the people with the strongest addictions can tell us a lot about how we seek pleasure - has a lot of depth to it.
Are exercise highs real? Do all people experience them or is it a genetic niche?
I've tried a bunch of different exercise methods. Gone running, swimming, weightlifting etc and I've never experienced anything close to a high afterward. I'll be tired, sometimes I'll feel proud of breaking a personal record but there's never any physical positive sensation or euphoria to me that would resemble the "runners high" that people often refer to. I think I'd exercise much more consistently if there were any biological feedback mechanism to make me want to rather than doing it the way I do, like it's a chore.
The closest thing I can compare would get the transformation of anxiety into excitement from getting a piercing but even that's super short lasting, maybe five to fifteen minutes of shaky internal excitement followed by a quick regression to baseline.
I do a lot of running and a few times a year in my training there's a run where everything just lines up perfectly. I'll be well rested, focused, got some pretty scenery to look at, and moving fast with what feels like pretty low relative effort. Those moments definitely capture a lot of the joy of running for me, but if I was doing all my training just to chase them it probably wouldn't be worth it. A lot of the time it's in races but not always.
Separately, I usually feel pretty good after a run too. Some workouts I feel absolutely wrecked after, but most workouts, once you have a good fitness base, you feel pretty good after.
I'm not sure which of those, if either, are a 'runners high', but most runners I know have moments more like those than like an actual high.
The exercise high is subtle, it's not a high like smoking a bunch of pot or getting drunk, rather it's a pleasant feeling. The first time i really understood it was: I had been doing regular running + weights for several months. Then for the holidays I was travelling and visiting people and didn't have a chance to exercise. After a few days I just felt this building of energy that had nowhere to go - my body had become used to regular exercise. About 10 days after my last real workout and 4 days since any activity involving physical exertion my plane landed and I checked into a hotel that had a gym. I dumped my bags and went to the gym and got on a treadmill thinking "finally i can burn off some of this energy and anxiety from it".
On that run as I warmed up I felt a giant release. And I felt happy... no giddy. And it was good. A few miles later I felt peace and then ran some more til I felt tired.
It's different than just putting some stuff in your nose and feeling good or popping a pill and seeing bright colors.
That's the most intense I ever felt it, but it was a good experience because it also helped me understand what it was, and I notice it often now - not every time I work out, but often - its there under the tired, post work-out let-down as sort of a "glow".
I never experienced a runner's high or a basketball "lock in" until I did it enough.
I had to build the endurance to go over 6 miles without stopping to experience my first runner's high.
I had to last a whole half in a basketball league to experience being in the zone.
It took me a couple years to even get the feeling, but now that I've experienced it, I can't stop doing it. I think there's a personalized threshold for everyone, but for me, it was pushing myself quite far beyond my limits.
> Are exercise highs real? Do all people experience them or is it a genetic niche?
They're real, but (probably, usually) not literal. Exercise just leaves me feeling good, all over. If you've had the feeling, you'll know what I mean.
Some people don't seem to get it at all. And some probably do experience a literal high; if the dial can be dialed all the way down, I'm sure it can go to 11 as well. It's unfortunate if you're in the first group, of course.
I don't get it very strongly myself, but I compensate by making the exercise itself enjoyable. Swimming is boring. Spend a few hours hiking across a mountain ridge -- that's anything but boring. Still tiring, but the views are worth it, and it's a great place for lunch.
I've been exercising quite regularly for decades, including a good amount of running alongside weights and other resistance and cardio. I love it, and hope I don't ever have to stop, but I've never experienced any sort of "runner's high" or big reaction to exercise, even after very hard or long workouts.
> Are exercise highs real? Do all people experience them or is it a genetic niche?
I've known many people who have experienced Runner's High. I am not one of them, despite having run probably close to 10k miles in my life. Marathons, Ragnar ultras, stuff like that.
Might be genetic, or I might be doing it wrong. FWIW, I've also never hit "The Wall".
If they are, in my experience they seem to be mediated by the endocannabinoid system and not primarily opiod release due to trauma and adrenaline.
The only times I've felt it were on the tail end of cross country meets (a 5k race pace) and it was quite nice. Kind of an electric Bliss in your whole body. Borderline arousing at the risk of oversharing lol.
I've experienced runner's high. Not regularly, but on occasion. After completing the couch to 5k(C25K)[1] program and running a 5K every other day for a couple years.
One in a while, I've have a great day, the music would kick in, and I'd get a runner's high. It feels like a sense of euphoria combined with frisson - the same sort of frisson I'll get when listening to just the right song at the right time. The crown of of my head would have an intense tingling feeling not some times when I've smoked cannabis.
It never lasted for long - maybe 3-5 mins tops, and I'd expect that it would fade quickly if I had stopped running. I don't believe it was associated with any distorted thinking that drugs are typically associated with - it's simply a powerful boost in positive mood.
1. http://www.c25k.com/
From personal experience I believe the "runner's high" is very real. It didn't happen often, but sometimes 40-60 minutes in to a long run I would enter a state of flow and euphoria. It felt like I was effortlessly gliding across the ground and would last for as long as I kept running and a short time afterward.
This. I'm kind of able to trigger it by changing how I run after about 5k and focusing 100% on running. Eyes on the floor and just push.
I swear it must be a unique to the individual. I've been running for a few years now and have completed a few half marathons (still working to get to the full) and I have never once felt any sort of "high".
Runners high is definitely real. But it takes prolonged effort. For me, 1h of steady non-stop running or 3h of no-rests cycling is bare minimum. 2x that for the true high
I don’t exercise a lot but when I play tennis and I am happen to be pushing to my limits (2 hrs, no breaks almost), there is a point when I get a sudden rush of pleasure for about a minute when I get a lot of goosebumps. Afterwards, I am in such a good mood and feel like I can push for a little bit more before being totally done. I am not sure if something like this is what people refer to as exercise highs?
> Are exercise highs real? Do all people experience them or is it a genetic niche?
I think peoples descriptions of exercise highs are overblown in general. When I was training hard I'd feel pleasantly worn out afterwards and would certainly agree that I got the endorphins flowing.
People are actually different. Just because you don't experience the actual euphoria I do doesn't lead me to assume you're making it up that you don't. Those of us describing it that way aren't exaggerating.
I don’t get it for running, running makes me feel terrible, and I have a bad knee which probably contributes, it’s too painful after about 10km (6miles).
But after a good challenging bike ride I have 30 minutes to 1 hour of feeling great.
I’ve not experienced what I would call a high but after a good workout and feeling the muscle pump as they call it felt awesome. Your muscles bulge so hard it’s just a great feeling. But I never though of it as a high.
I did not experience a runners high until I was running 5k+.
I do experience a workout high from lifting pretty regulary, unless it's a low weight week.
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Feels great when it hits though
It’s not really that odd. Your body releases dopamine in response to cold-shock or exercise, presumably to help you perform under moderate stress.
I've always suspected that mosquito venom does something along these lines, where the venom hijacks or overwhelms some pain nerves and makes them emit pleasure sensations instead so vigorous scratching of the skin feels unreasonably good instead of uncomfortable and painful
A book developing similar ideas: The Hacking of the American Mind.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34237719-the-hacking-of-...
Any interviews or talks you can recommend where she covers the important points of her work?
Dr. Huberman had her on his podcast. She dives into a lot of her work.
https://hubermanlab.com/dr-anna-lembke-understanding-and-tre...
Yeah, this one was the one that made me buy her book. Huberman is a little much for me, but he does a great interview with her. He leaves a huge topic out -- wanted to examine his own workaholism -- but she's terrific.
The podcast of Joe Rogan, episode #1708. Interesting interview, he finds some holes in her theory that she is not able to answer or can't explain. I was very excited with the book before listening, but after it I was kind of disappointed with the book.
Thank you - I’ve noticed that a lot of US pop-sci books have a significant amount of filler.
What caused your disappointment?
Oh yes Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. This article kind of mixes different definitions of happiness. There’s the constitutional reference which comes from ancient greek roman philosophy and its origin is Aristotelian
Happiness as “Evdemonia” in Aristotelian scripts (Eudemonia in wikipedia) which more accurately translates as having “good demons” with you, which can be interpreted as feeling content/lucky for what you have.
Happiness as “Joyfulness” which is smily face marketing and instant gratification and hedonistic stuff aka buying the new iphone each year and getting bored at it and buying afterwards the next one because under a microscope the photo of the dark side of the moon looks better, when somebody else takes it.
So if one needs to repeat escalate: hedonism usually exploited by marketing, if you need to pay probably a facade of happiness and unfulfilling. Hedonism is nice to have tho.
If one is feeling lucky for his life and future: happiness aka lucky for parameters of ones life that would be deemed important 300 years ago and should be important in 300 years, conative with a sense of purpose. usually exploited by social and political systems (e.g.to be happy you need good health, very expensive if politics fights life) happiness is a must have
This article conflates one definition of happiness to the other while only discussing affective optimisation of hedonism.
> Happiness as “Evdemonia” in Aristotelian scripts
Since when would Aristotle have used the latin alphabet?
Much of Aristotle is evidenced in Latin translations for which the Greek is lost.
We don't buy the next iPhone because it has a better camera, but because it makes us feel not being left behind. I routinely see people who can't afford one splurging on the newest iPhone and AirPods. People even wear fake AirPods.
Radiohead has an entire album about how fake and ultimately unfulfilling this is, but the problem is that we live in a society, and nobody wants to be an outlier. I may like the sound quality of my old earphones, but I still feel a tingle of shame when everyone else is sporting AirPods. We are evolved to follow norms, those who don't were ostracised from the community with dire consequences. This kind of fake happiness is thus an advantage.
We don’t disagree! I did not say we buy the new thing because it has a better camera experience, I said we are buying it because we are told others are having a better camera experience which we will not witness anyway
The most expensive iPhone variant (Pro Max) has the best camera, but the bulk of the social value is having a contemporary iPhone, which is an iPhone with a notch, X and newer. Social value hinges on obvious differences. Cameras are used for selfies and art. As long as there are no obvious differences a better camera wouldn't trigger our fear of being ostracised. A new kind of camera, like everyone suddenly using front-facing cameras, or everyone suddenly taking 3D selfies with a new camera would. It's a two-way street though, if most people think that 3D selfies are not it your new camera is now a source of embarrassment.
"Commercial breaks––people actually enjoy TV more with commercials." I've never enjoyed being disrupted by commercials nor has anyone else. This is why Tivo became so popular
https://hbr.org/2010/10/defend-your-research-commercials-mak...
> The study: Leif Nelson, in collaboration with Tom Meyvis of New York University’s Stern School and Jeff Galak of Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School, showed subjects three kinds of TV shows: Taxi episodes, nature documentaries, and Bollywood programs. Some watched the shows with commercials, some without. Subjects who watched TV with commercials reported greater enjoyment—and were willing to pay more for DVD collections of shows by the same director—than subjects who watched without interruptions.
Maybe the show is good enough that people want to watch it without interruptions but the show is not good enough that people who have watched it would pay to rewatch ?
It was actually several studies, most were conducted on ~100 American college students in 2009. The authors themselves weren't totally convinced:
> As has been shown with other positive life experiences, people predict and recollect experiences in terms of their imperfect expectations and often independent of their actual experience. As such, after having watched a show with commercial interruptions, consumers may rely on their lay beliefs and later recall that experience as aversive, which in turn will lead them to expect more aversive reactions to commercial interruptions in the future.
-- Enhancing the Television Viewing Experience through Commercial Interruption
This is probably rude, but maybe people who are happy to sit through commercials are more capable of enjoying the extremely middling (I'm being generous here) quality of most TV?
So people who dislike commercials also dislike the kind of shows that are on TV and thus aren't willing to watch more or pay for more.
Plausible explanations include (a) the study is flawed, (b) some TV is so bad the commercials are a relief, or (c) the cohort that enjoys TV with ads more are the nascent idiocracy.
Did those willing to pay more for the DVDs want the ads on the DVD? Or pay more to get without ads?
The article says the reason. A pleasurable activity being interrupted and restarted is more pleasurable due to the resumption. This makes a lot of sense to me, because I certainly enjoy a lie in more if I wake up and then go back to sleep than if I merely woke up at the later time.
I think it's a variant of the old "nothing feels good if nothing feels bad to compare it with" chestnut. You could probably replace the commercials with almost anything mildly inconvenient.
I think it really depends on the type of interruption. Most commercials are not a calm segue to take a break from the show. Advertisers purposely increase the volume because they know you're going to be stepping away and shock you with colors and a barrage of images because they know they have microseconds to get some image into your subconscious so that you can think of their product on your next commute to work.
Agree - at best one gets used to commercials, like dirt in the house until the vacuuming can happen, but one never enjoys them. I didn't realize how much I hated ads until I tried Netflix a few years ago - I've never been able to watch tv/cable/ad-supported "free" content since then.
Nobody does. But they might enjoy the time in between the commercials more. They might, an hour later, still have a level of happiness that's greater than if the show was without commercials, and answer accordingly on a survey.
If something is less enjoyable than you think it should be, I think "Maybe it's the lack of disruptors" is a fair guess.
Especially with some very intense shows that could be emotionally fatiguing without breaks, and when the timing of commercials is well chosen. It's not just random interruption, they can be used to make segments between like mini acts or episodes.
A lot of shows are/were designed with commercials in mind. For example, the villain will shoot at the protagonist without showing whether or not the shots hit until after the commercial break. That extended suspense has been more or less lost in the age of Netflix (unless shows design for that suspense in another way).
> For example, the villain will shoot at the protagonist without showing whether or not the shots hit until after the commercial break
Or worse, until the next episode which would air the following week...or year if it's a season cliffhanger. I have mixed feelings about binge-streaming, but shoehorned cliffhangers are bad IMO.
Not exactly the same, but I often watch TiVo'd or otherwise-DVR'd content; I might start 30 minutes 'behind' on a 3 hour event and have a very, very hard time 'catching up' to live -- I pause for my bathroom breaks and grabbing food or drink, and find that I need almost as much time away from the content as the commercial breaks (which I'm skipping) would have offered.
It's still nice being able to choose when to take those breaks, however.
The ideal would be a return of intermissions. A calm reminder from the Roku to take a breath, get up, maybe grab some water.
(Movie theaters would make more money this way, also.)
As I have gotten older, and as I am watching more serialized TV (and sometimes news), I find it helps to get a break once in a while. Mental or watch based breaks are one thing but I find myself ignoring them. Commercial breaks that I do not control are definitely helpful. Now I do not want 38 minutes of TV and 22 minutes of commercial, but I would definitely welcome fixed 2 minutes breaks every 20 minutes or so. I may still skip through them, but there may be times when I just let it run while I walk around or check messages - we can talk all we want about device addiction but if I know I will get a break, I am less tempted (and maybe less addicted) to check messages by pausing the show.
A side-effect of commercial breaks is interrupting viewer's eye-contact. In case of longer breaks people often walk around for a couple of minutes.
Shameless plug, I wrote an article recently on how the hedonic treadmill affects development culture [1].
In my opinion, good approach to avoiding the hedonic treadmill is to think in “processes” rather than “goals.” If you achieve some goal, you get back to the equilibrium and get used to it. But if you’re on a journey, there’s nothing to adapt to as every day is a journey and brings something new. So it's like smaller pendulum swings every day instead of big ones every few months.
Nonetheless, I like the ideas proposed in this article and think they also are quite effective.
[1] https://vadimkravcenko.com/shorts/hedonic-treadmill/
Some of us say if you aren’t embarrassed by code you wrote 18 months ago that you aren’t learning fast enough. I think people who feel that way would in general agree that we should be constantly improving, not looking for status quo.
If the cost of maintaining your code grows logarithmically - and many projects do worse than this - then you have to constantly be finding ways to go faster just to keep getting the same amount of new logic into the system. This is something sometimes lost on people fixated on story points. They don’t notice that story points three years ago were “worth” more than story points today. Or maybe they do but they can’t prove it or even really name it. That would explain some of the friction I sometimes see with management.
Not directly on the treadmill, but removing things that regularly create unhappiness really creates lasting uplift. There is no adjustment that brings back proper misery again.
I have noticed that sometimes if you fix half a problem, other people will suddenly care and want to fix it the rest of the way. I have been known to “set the table” so it’s easier to finish something I’ve started, so I can come back to them later, or move on to something else if someone else finds the time before I can get back to it. Sometimes I have too many irons in the fire and these little enticements help get things done that I don’t have time and energy to do properly.
The ultimate hack is weaning yourself off the pull of the hedonic treadmill itself. And the best way I’ve found for that is to optimize for meaning. Of course, meaning is a difficult goal that is individual and prone to change.
However, it is also a lot more robust than the desires generated by the treadmill. Another way to think about it is learning to practice being content where you are (however imperfect) and sinking your attention into things that engage you and leave you feeling energized.
The treadmill will always be in the back of your mind, but it isn’t fit to drive.
Don't you just end up on a "meaning treadmill" instead?
IME, meaning is far more satiating than happiness simply because it is able to offset more BS than being happy will.
More to your question: what happens is your tolerance for meaninglessness decreases, which has good and bad side effects.
> your tolerance for meaninglessness decreases
I think part of what keeps me locked on to the hedonistic treadmill is that a lot of other people (including my partner) don't like who I am when I'm trying to stay off it. I tend to get more intense about a lot of things most folks don't care about.
It's funny, out of my whole family & friend circle I'm probably doing the most damage to myself via self medication, but when I try to get serious about things that matter and take a break from intoxicants, I end up doing just as much damage or more by putting my relationships through pointless trials of fire.
But I know what you mean about meaning. When it's good, it's really good and worth every bit of seeking.
It's unfortunate there are so many pitfalls to dodge for so many of us.
Yeah, I feel this, and, it hurts. A lot.
Others in your life may say they support your emphasis on spiritual growth, but what if that entails being passed up for a promotion, and, ergo, a raise? Most families would appreciate an extra $1k a month. Not every situation is either-or, but you quickly get a sense for what pragmatism means to people.
Often, it means comfort.
I hope you find the courage to continue to pursue meaning. It is good, as you say. Me, I made a bit of a deal with myself to make it a very high priority in my life when it is lacking. When necessary, meaning goes into the non-negotiable bucket.
But a Red Ferrari 488 gives me lots of meaning...
If you get degenerative chronic illness are you eventually just as happy as you were before it? No, we figured this out in the 70s.
Why is "Hedonic Treadmill" forced into blogspam titles like these? Was there a TED Talk recently?
> Variators are little modulations that keep experiences fresh
So...variety? Mind blown.
My understanding is happiness will revert to the baseline if you have a set loss such as going blind or losing a limb. But a degenerative illness implies continued increasing loss in which case you would not have a chance to get used to it and revert because things will just keep getting worse.
I’m curious what are you saying we figured out in the 70s?
Yes they called this a "set point," like a thermostat's; also debunked.
> what are you saying we figured out
the Treadmill essay was wrong
Hedonic treadmill had been in a couple of threads last week. I suspect a mix of people being primed and noticing other articles on it and posting them here, with a dash of karma farming. And to the extent that such clusters are real or imagined, possibly a but of observer bias on my part. If the latter, then just a coincidence.
> If you get degenerative chronic illness are you eventually just as happy as you were before it? No, we figured this out in the 70s.
No, but that's also not what the HT hypothesis says. The treadmill pushes you back, not forward.
False, it's a tendency to return to a stable level of happiness despite positive or negative events. This doesn't happen if you get degenerative chronic illness (and it was debunked 50 years ago).
I think you can simplify this.
Consider your wants and needs.
Most of us get stuck in our wants. We want to get a promotion, we want a nice car, we want a perfect family vacation.
But do we need any of those? Not necessarily.
We get stuck on the treadmill by not knowing the difference of our wants and needs. When you realize you don’t need the things you want, you focus more on the things you need.
Introspection in my opinion helps you find your inner happiness in discerning your needs from wants. This is why many ancient philosophers believed you can be plenty happy with “enough”.
Can you give some examples of needs? The obvious ones are food, water, shelter and (for most people) companionship. Any others?
Maslow's hierarchy of needs to start, but to extend on more modern meaning, your psychological needs are quite important given most people have their basic needs met. There's a popular self-determination theory to explain this further.
i.e. Autonomy, competence, relatedness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory
One of the better books on this topic is "Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization" by Scott Barry Kaufman
Here's a piece I wrote based on that book:
Think of your life as a sailboat.
The hull protects us from the waves and keeps us safe.
The sail allows us to explore and adapt to our environment.
However, to get anywhere, we must open our sail to the world. Without that, we're stuck in harbor.
As we set out in the world in the many different directions we each may take in life. We are all sailing into the unknown of the sea together.
So while a ship in harbor is safe, that's not what ships are built for.
Even though you're alone in your boat, it's nice to see other lights along the way.
The idea of hacking the hedonic treadmill misses one important point: the mind adapts to these hacks as well. And now you are looking for more hacks.
Relatively, right? It's like adding tons of variation and cycles in training (i.e. periodization). Done correctly, you can keep improving season after season.
Yes. On the one hand the analogy is useful. Just like how physical training makes one physically fit, hedonic hacks might make one hedonically fit. On the other hand, while people might understand and accept that there are genetic limits that they cannot pass beyond, it's never the case for hedonic pleasure. Hedonic adaptation drives one to always look for more.
Or you can just settle for being sad and frustrated knowing that there will come another day and it'll be better.
Guess that's stepping off the treadmill. I'm interested in stoic philosophy as opposed to epicurian philosophy, so all this talk of the hedonic treadmill seems super weird to me.
:)
Maybe to break the treadmill we need to subject ourselves to torture once per month to reset our baseline?
exactly, more more more!
I like these hacks, it’s also a mindset that needs to be at the forefront of all of this, why not eudaemonia over hedonism? Ive been interested recently around eudaemonia, Whilst i’m familiar with some of its stoic principles im just barely scratching the surface,
this is just my take, but there’s noticeable patterns within literature in subjects such as minimalism, buddhism and stoicism. All pointing towards eudaemonia over hedonism. Sam Harris in his Waking Up Book / App covers this hedonic treadmill well too
we don’t embrace the impermanence of things
we’re programmed in the western world to be constantly chasing desire, these hacks build gratitude, which is a trait in eudaemonia,
thanks for sharing
A hackergroup inspired by Eudaimonism:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaemons
Coder philosophy drivel has truly ascended to the level of high art.
'coder philosophy'?
It's just awareness of yourself. If you know that if you have one glass of wine, that leads to a 3 day bender, then you can do something to stop the cycle. If you mindlessly consume to be happier, this is a tool to stop the cycle.
The author has a PhD in psychology, fwiw.
Great, I've got one of those too. It doesn't mean you can't bullshit.
I wasn't making a value judgement on the piece (or the author's credentials). My point was that someone took the time to share something with the world and you dismissed it after making (incorrect) assumptions about their background. You'll miss out on a lot of good stuff if you've already cast judgement before you finish reading the title.
In any case, it's a <3min read and it does offer a few non-BS pieces of advice that may be useful to some.
Of all the appeals to authority, this has to be among the weakest.
I was not highlighting the author's background to appeal to authority. I was pointing out that what OP dismissed as "coder philosophy drivel" (likely from skimming the title and nothing else) was written by someone who has nothing to do with that field.
In fact, by doing that, OP made an anti-appeal-to-authority. You seem to be interested in logical fallacies.. could you help me out and tell me if that one has a specific name?
So we can replace "coder philosophy drivel" with "psychologist philosophy drivel". Doesn't seem to change much.
Sure, you seem intent on making a point that has nothing to do with OP's assertion or my observation, so go for it. (That's a strawman fallacy, right?)
So? It's not a field known for solid, repeatable science.
Nor does it stop author from believing his own lies.
Wasn't my point at all, see my other responses.
https://youtu.be/_o7qjN3KF8U
Haha, exactly
"Commercial breaks––people actually enjoy TV more with commercials". Maybe most people, but i hate forced commercials. I rather pause the video, do something else for a while and resume the video.
"Setpiece escape room experiences, like climbing into a coffin " I have been in a real coffin a few hours once for a halloween fright night. Pretty comfy things. Felt quite relaxed.
I clicked the link, took the first name in the publication, looked him up and is a professor in business and marketing.
The things a professor of marketing needs to publish to thrive professionally these days seems to have become surreal.
> Maybe most people, but i...
You are Most People:
> Though people say they prefer to watch television without ads, they sometimes enjoy programs that have commercial interruptions more.
The surprising claim isn't that most people say they enjoy commercials, it's that TV programs with commercial interruptions tend to correlate with people reporting higher enjoyment of the TV program despite claiming that the would prefer less commercials.
"TV programs with commercial interruptions tend to correlate with people reporting higher enjoyment of the TV program"
... when watching an arbitrary TV show picked by the person doing the study.
If you want to start assuming that a TV show you've chosen to watch will be more enjoyable with commercials go ahead, but that wasn't the way the study was done.
Of course, TV programs with higher enjoyment are also the ones that selling ads on is more profitable, and thus are the ones with frequent-ish commercial breaks?
I can understand that process. Still i like personal control of my breaks :)
I think those things are like eating your fill on sugar, it is maybe a bit tasty to eat but you feel awful afterwards. Some people just doesn't connect the eating to the awful feeling so they continue consuming even though its just crap. And I bet there are plenty of studies showing that people actually eat more and like the food better when you add sugar in it.
Because that line about preferring commercials completely rang false to me, I followed the link....it's from 2010...
"You still haven’t accounted for the popularity of, say,The Sopranos and all the subscription-channel programs. Don’t we pay to get those shows without commercials?
Contemporary shows like The Sopranos might be interrupting themselves. Remember, it’s not the commercial that increases the enjoyment, it’s the interruption. These shows often run six or more parallel plots and constantly shuffle between them. One plot interrupts another."
...so, that entire concept has, IMO, been disproven by the rise of streaming services.
I don’t think I like commercials either, but the enforced pacing of the shows with commercials is something that I miss when I rewatch shows built for commercials on streaming services. You’ll come up against a cliffhanger cut and then a second later it’s resolved because there’s no commercial break.
I recently rewatched the entirety of DS9 on canadian netflix and I don't think I'm under any illusion that the bullshit cliffhangers they'd put before a commercial break actually added to the show
Why do you miss that? They had to mangle the plot to end on a different cliffhanger every 10 minutes.
I stopped reading the article at that point; figuring the rest of the article was also made up by gpt3.
> flight of beer
First time I've ever heard it called that - and I've had several.
Pretty standard across the US for 3-6 small sized tasters from my experience.
I'm in the UK.
Obvious question: So what is a tasting line-up called in the UK ?
I'm not entirely sure. I might have to do some research...
But you have to drink fast, otherwise the last beer gets warm and looses foam before you drink the other beers. Beer without foam (or worse, the warm beer) might be acceptable in some countries, but it's just not what we do here in Czech republic.
Wine flights, cheese flights, I see it lots of places. I had a "bacon flight" once, it might be getting overused.
Another important thing is context.
Would you enjoy a pizza you found on the floor, or would you be imagining that it probably fell on a sidewalk loogie and has coronavirus on it?
Games used to have LAN parties. People used to watch stuff together more. Many activities had annoying prep work that could be considered like grinding in a game, but in real life.
Context makes or breaks entertainment.
Awareness of the hedonic treadmill meshes quite well with my 'frugal' Yorkshire tendencies.
A favourite on HN seems to be coffee, and spending ever more on 'good' coffee. I mainly just drink instant coffee, filter coffee for the weekend. I still get my 'good' coffee and I appreciate it. Same goes for wine and chocolate.
It's also led me away from expensive experiences to unique/different experiences.
It's also helpful for informing new purchases. Do I need the latest car with all the bells and whistles or can I just stay a generation behind and be excited with a new car with electric windows or whatever.
I think there's a triple point of quality-time-cost for products like that. Coffee, wine, and chocolate especially are subject to diminishing returns. Price is ~usually~ an indicator of quality, but there's an element of your time (research) in finding the best for the price stuff.
I'm right there with you!
I just recently bought some Ersatz coffee and thought to myself
"Well, what sounds more like a unique experience. Coffee, or a blend of roasted chicory, wheat, barley, figs and acorns?"
This stuff is pretty great, and regardless of how much it resembles coffee (which it does to a surprising extent), this was a really solid purchase.
And if you don't like it, you enjoy the real coffee all the more when you go back to it!
Give up on desire (including the desire to be free from desire) and you will truly be free.
> That afternoon when someone is staying with you and they go see another friend who lives in the same city and you go to work or stay home and do laundry or whatever
Great article, but this is a ridiculously hard to parse sentence with the number of `ands` and `ors`.
Subtitle: The case for wire-heading.
I would prefer not to.
just breathe
TLDR: Turn it into a hedonic rollercoaster.
Pretty sure I’d be happier if I didn’t have to work for a living.
I really like to work and the area I've chosen. What makes it annoying is that I have to work on what upper management thinks is important at any given time. They want me to design a high level software architecture now but I want to code. Next week they want me to code but I want to design. It very rarely aligns. If ever. That annoys me and probably causes management a great deal of anxiety when I go off path. It feels so childish of me. I'm looking for soutions to hack this situation like the hedonic threadmill, in case anyone has suggestions.
> I really like to work and the area I've chosen. What makes it annoying is that I have to work on what upper management thinks is important at any given time... ...That annoys me and probably causes management a great deal of anxiety when I go off path. It feels so childish of me..."
OMG, for a moment there i thought you were reading my mind! I've struggled professionally the last few years on this very topic. The only partial solution that i can think of - so far only as an experiment - is to minimize my cost of living, start to slowly partially retire, and move towards being a contract coder - either for corporate gigs or as a sub-contractor for other dev contractors. I figure being a coder (and likely lower level coder, not being like an engineering manager or anything like that anymore), might also allow me the freedom to work remotely, meaning that i can travel a slight bit more. And working in this fashion might give me the freedom to move onto another project/contract if/when i get bored of a particular project and/or client. Its an experiment to be sure...but frankly, that's the only thing that i can think of that might help me. I hope this helps! Happy to discuss more if you have private feedback. (My email is in my profile.)
EDIT: I failed to add that one element that is somewhat holding me back from fully diving into this mode of working right now is (what i feel is) one of the biggest hurdles to entrepreneurial freedom in America: being able to reasonably afford good, solid healthcare. (This is not meant to be political, just adding it in as another cost of living....and for myself, its not a trivial cost.)
It sounds like you don't have the autonomy you think you should - which often comes from the responsibilities being misaligned (presumably management are responsible for some delivery dates which leads them to feel they should be telling you what to work on).
> It feels so childish of me.
It is. "Capitalism is for children" said Adam Phillips [1]
You cannot be a fully fledged adult, a self-determined being, under conditions of wage slavery.
Education is set up not to allow graceful separation into adulthood, as most cultures have historically done, but to transfer dependency to a new set of masters.
Late capitalism in particular, with its intrusive lack of boundaries, neurotic management, measurement, bureaucracy and surveillance, or any similar state-controlled apparatus such as in China, is, as that line in "The Matrix" goes - a prison for your mind.
Philosophers criticised the Church (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) as "patently infantile family values" to keep people in subjugation. We have largely overthrown that aspect of patriarchal religion only to replace it with a Corporate equivalent.
> I'm looking for solutions to hack this
How did occidental culture dethrone the Church?
It didn't happen in one day, when everyone decided to live a secular life. For centuries individuals stood up, called themselves "atheists" and refused to join in the rituals. They were punished and suffered pain and ostracism.
The problem is, for the aspiring Hedonist, entering into a world of pain to champion a principle that people should have pleasurable lives, won't fly for any but the most unselfish and far sighted.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Phillips_(psychologist)
> Education is set up not to allow graceful separation into adulthood, as most cultures have historically done, but to transfer dependency to a new set of masters.
Most cultures historically didn't have any education (as we understand it now), with some rare exceptions (wealthy people hiring tutors for their children). Children just started working very early and learned via observation and on-the-job training.
> Most cultures historically didn't have any education
I'd say that's untrue.
What I am particularly thinking about is rites of passage in primitive cultures. Education may have been as simple as learning to hunt, light a fire, fight, play with children, and cook food - but there were teachings and tests the tribe provided.
> (as we understand it now)
My point would not be that that's trivially true (nothing is as we understand it now if history implies progress), but that education as we understand it today is precisely the functional slight of hand I describe. A study of Mann, Dewey and the Prussian system introduced in North America will bear that out.
Of course, for the fully self-actualised person of good social conscience, learning does not have to align with the formula of state school and higher education. People with the courage to follow different paths are rare, or they have unusual parents who push them down that route (home-schooling, Steiner/Waldorf etc).
Start a startup company
I've found out i'm a lot happier if i don't have to do overtime. Get out of the building at 5 and stop all work related things until the next working day. Sadly there are days i don't succeed in that, but the days it does make me happier and more relaxed.
I work from home, ~20 hours a week on average, though I never tried to contain my work activities to a certain time window, e.g. yesterday I worked 1-4pm with breaks, and then 10pm-midnight. Honestly I can’t even imagine having to haul my ass to a “building” every day and spend all day there, that sounds like a pretty bad life - though I used to do that many years ago.
I recommend doing a hardcore survival course. You’ll come back knowing 1. you don’t need a job (you do need an occupation…) and 2. why you appreciate modern life, while at the same time why modern life is a bit sad, taking us away from our true habitat.
Interesting. Can you please explain why you believe 1. is true? I know I’m not going to die if I stop working - I’d just become poor, and therefore less happy. If you’re suggesting a life of a farmer, then how is it different from having to work?
I realised I made an assumption. The assumption is the comment is complaining about traditional corporate type work.
There is a belief, that I have lived myself that this is the only way.
A different way is to say do a year on 9-5 and year off living off less money. Or work half the hours.
These alternatives aren’t push button they require a lot of negotiation and some work to set up for yourself.
Can you recommend any specific hardcore survival courses for people not in military or similar roles?
Not really, I just was given one as a present. This is in australia. By hardcore… this is a relative term but 24h I had no food, barely any water, and ended up catching a bug from the water I had as I didn’t sterilize it properly.
It was soft core in the sense we were close to civilisation and no one was going to die.
The main takeaways is being prepared esp. how to source water (bring water, filters, spares, more spares, ways to start fire to boil water) and calling for help (no reason to not get a beacon). And how to treat snake bites (because they can kill) was drilled in.
What are some examples of occupation you have in mind?
Living frugally and swapping creature comforts for free time.
Then occupy yourself with something you love, but not alcohol, tv, drugs, sloth etc. as this will probably lead to depression / addiction.
For HN stereotype that could be coding the side project which is always more fun than coding at work, even though it is still bashing keys and occasionally swearing at the monitor.
What do you mean “swapping creature comforts for free time”?
What are some examples of creature comforts here? And what does it mean to “swap” them for free time?
I understood the rest of your reply.
I don't think I'd be much happier. I work 4 days per week. I need it in order to keep exercising my logical side, because I exercise it a lot less in my personal life.
Those Civ5/Civ6 custom maps won't beat themselves... IOW, there's plenty other activities that heavily involve logical side which are not paid coding work.
Of course there are plenty of other activities, but I get paid to do this and I like the ability to actually build something. Civ5/Civ6 feels meaningless in comparison. What have I actually effected in the world? Nothing
What you need is semen retention to get back your child hood. Nothing feels meaningless on a long streak.
Then don't. Consider alternatives, set goals, and go for it.