Why is life no longer exciting?

YO303 · February 17, 2015

On 2/17/2015 at 7:34 PM, Rubin Farr said:
fucking complainers

says the guy who makes numerous threads complaining about the most asinine stuff.

**Hugh Mughnus** · February 17, 2015

On 2/17/2015 at 9:13 PM, Deer said:

On 2/17/2015 at 7:34 PM, Rubin Farr said:
fucking complainers

says the guy who makes numerous threads complaining about the most asinine stuff.

even saying "fucking complainers" is inherently a complaint

LimpyLoo · February 17, 2015

complaining about complaining about complaining

Bechuga · February 17, 2015

This thread is exciting

**Ivan Ooze** · February 17, 2015

masturbate save my life

**Rubin Farr** · February 17, 2015

On 2/17/2015 at 9:13 PM, Deer said:

On 2/17/2015 at 7:34 PM, Rubin Farr said:

fucking complainers

says the guy who makes numerous threads complaining about the most asinine stuff.

It must be cool to be you, huh

YangYing · February 17, 2015

On 2/17/2015 at 9:53 PM, Rubin Farr said:

On 2/17/2015 at 9:13 PM, Deer said:

On 2/17/2015 at 7:34 PM, Rubin Farr said:
fucking complainers
says the guy who makes numerous threads complaining about the most asinine stuff.
It must be cool to be you, huh

is actually cooler to be me

February 17, 2015

yeh, also avoid getting into petty arguments while throwing juvenile insults at eachother

YangYing · February 17, 2015

On 2/17/2015 at 9:41 PM, Ivan Ooze said:
masturbate save my life

finally, a good thread on watmm

Candiru · February 18, 2015

drop lyrical miracles and spread knowledge to the children. You'll find meaning in dedicating yourself to a larger purpose - the key to self actualization.

February 18, 2015

I believe OP said he was 26?

goDel · February 18, 2015

"made in africa"

mmmmmk.....

KovalainenFanBoy · February 18, 2015

How can you be sad when there's new Aphex guys am I right? The dude's releasing music and shit how can you be sad, losers

YangYing · February 18, 2015

On 2/18/2015 at 12:07 PM, ThatSpanishGuy said:
How can you be sad when there's new Aphex guys am I right? The dude's releasing music and shit how can you be sad, losers

MY CAT DIED YESTERDAY

Reveal hidden contents

**geosmina** · February 18, 2015

I'll start writing to forget real world for a while in a blog.

Candiru · February 18, 2015

Write an article about bands with offensive names and song titles and how you are surprised that they have offensive lyrics to draw attention to yourself.

**chenGOD** · February 18, 2015

**geosmina** · February 18, 2015

On 2/18/2015 at 10:29 PM, chenGOD said:

thank you god i love this in xchange

**Ivan Ooze** · February 18, 2015

this track always cheers me up when my cat dies

YangYing · February 18, 2015

On 2/18/2015 at 10:29 PM, chenGOD said:

dude, you need to give me more of this pronto.

this is wonderful

**chenGOD** · February 18, 2015

How about some Pharoah Sanders instead - this song is made for feeling better about shit times.

**Herr Jan** · February 18, 2015

On 2/18/2015 at 10:29 PM, chenGOD said:

Thanks for that. And the Pharoah Sanders one too

YangYing · February 18, 2015

On 2/18/2015 at 10:54 PM, chenGOD said:

How about some Pharoah Sanders instead - this song is made for feeling better about shit times.

there is always so much good music that I haven't heard, thanks man.

coax · February 18, 2015

I agree with a lot of posts in here, and I want to talk about a more "technical" view. It helps me somewhat to understand what I am in the grand scheme of things, plus hopefully some practical tips at the end. I think of the human organism as a brain, with biology that has certain evolutionary instincts that give emotional incentives to do this that or the other. The brain functions roughly on 2 levels - the emotional and the symbolic. The symbolic includes language, visual cues, narratives about everything in our lives (the Map of the environment and our navigational tools for it), while the emotional level are instincts that activate, repress or modulate motor activity based on the environment we're in and the reflexes we have for navigating it. In general, all symbols that the environment teach us are arbitrary and relative to the current events and beliefs shared by the agents that we get signals from (friends, aquantainces, media, whatever), whose speech and actions are also filtered by their genetic makeup and environmental experiences. So in essence - a human is a general output machine surrounded by inputs of the environment, and evolutionary pressures selected for biological instincts that help survival through reward mechanisms in the body.

So what do you need from the environment?

1) A feeling of control

2) A reward for accomplishing instincts

3) A simple environment where progress and control can be seen and felt

To accomplish instincts you need a grasp of the environment, and to grasp the environment you need to spend time in it - more time than many people do. A lot of people spend time in the environment that culture tells them to, and there are many goals one could accomplish there - wealth, sexual partner, good job, etc. But I think, in theory, humanity is a lot more diverse than that. Instead of being a hive, we could be a big set of colonies, and new colonies should be created in new environments, where they will dwell and explore and expand. Whether metaphoric or literal, it doesn't matter.

In some sense humans are often interchangeable, and one could move to another hive, and due to the plasticity of its brain, it would adapt and become comfortable. In a sense, what the internet

and even the world does, is show us many colonies all at once, and we sometimes move from one to the next, without ever really learning or adapting our brain to them. In anything that is worthwhile, I would say considerable time has been spent getting there. Not just to adapt the brain, but to adapt it so well that it will explore and find new creative avenues at a depth that would be impossible for an untrained brain.

To get an emotional response to kick in, in a certain environment, you need to train your brain via almost a sort of brainwashing and repetition to boot up the emotions, and this will lead to an incentive to continue motor action that will enhance the environment in the way the brain wants it to - for its own selfishness of course - but it works. A lot of people may be lucky, they have either by luck or by work, enabled a positive loop that gives them continuous emotional incentive to map the environment and execute on that environment.

So onto a few practical things. You can modulate your ability for reward - you can set the reward level yourself, and activate the reward emotion, even when it's not technically deserved. People with grandiose thoughts or delusions can be quite lucky in this sense, because they get an irrational response to execute on the environment - it's a lot harder when you're a rational person and you have to build all the confidence and reward manually without delusion. Still, I think we could all learn a little from the delusions. We can lower our threshold for reward and start the positive foodback cycle which could ultimately lead to actual great things (as compared to the performance of others). Although it's philosophically debatable whether all execution on the environment is in some ways delusional on some level - it is at least a relative thing that doesn't serve much purpose outside the map it has created, but I mean without those maps, nothing has any meaning.

However, the second point is that to even have an environment, you need to expose yourself to it, a lot. Exposure by itself should trigger, after a period of time, automatic calls to execute on the environment in some way, and this is an indication of the start of a positive cycle. It may take a while actually, because at first it will be confusing, boring or whatever, but after a while, the brain will start to see things it didn't before. Discipline is a big issue here - even exposure can be quite difficult to maintain, but anyone CAN stick to it. The positive cycle will start once your brain has a clearer map and navigational tools, and executes several actions - and this is I guess, life.

- Stick to one thing

- Exposure

- Be happy with smaller things

Edited February 18, 2015 by coax

**Ivan Ooze** · February 19, 2015

On 2/18/2015 at 11:47 PM, coax said:
- Stick to one thing

- Exposure

- Be happy with smaller things

Why is life no longer exciting?

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