philosophy

this is where I get all existential and stuff
- but if you’ve been wondering what makes my brain tick, you’ve come to the right place
  - perhaps my thoughts here will be more than just pure philosophy and worldview, who knows!
- perhaps this will be the most controversial branch of this tree, so maybe if you don’t like to get all fired up… stop reading here.
  - but if you decide to stay please approach these thoughtfully and respectfully, with more of a a “this is interesting” than “I disagree with this” vibe
hedonic treadmill (wikipedia)
- a concept that’s incredibly useful in keeping it cool
  - because what of those depressing days, if next day you may wake up and feel 100x better
- a concept that’s incredibly scary when you love someone
  - because what of these moments where you’re incredibly happy, if you’re gonna feel normal tomorrow anyways
- as scary of a concept it is when you’re feeling well, it’s useful to remember about the treadmill when you’re down. and don’t think that it’ll ruin a good day, just don’t think about it then.
just shut up sometimes
- I just caught myself writing a few paragraphs long comment on Lobsters without really understanding what the author of the comment meant in the broader context of the discussion, after which I deleted my comment and gave myself a pat on the back for avoiding accidentally derailing the discussion.
  - this is an unfortunate side effect of the tree-based structure of Lobsters. as much as I like tree-based forums, as they let you focus on many different (off-)topics without cluttering the main thread, it’s damn near impossible to keep the broader context of what the discussion is about when the thread nests more than 3 levels deep.
- therefore, if you ever find yourself writing an essay about just how wrong someone is, think to yourself: am I really understanding what’s going on in this discussion? and if not - maybe just shut up and let the rest of the idiots fan the flames instead.
in wisdom you become old
- this is kind of weird, but recently I have noticed I no longer keep up with slang
  - the fuck is a skibidi??
- maybe this is because I no longer browse memes. not on our friend circle’s private Discord, not on Reddit, pretty much nowhere
  - memes largely arrive to me directly from specific people. I don’t go out to kill boredom with memes anymore.
  - at some point I realized browsing memes adds nothing to my life, and I just stopped doing it. obviously something had to take their place in killing time, and that became… reading Lobste.rs. I think that’s a net positive since you can genuinely learn a lot from people’s writing about computing, but getting time for that required abandoning memes.
- the realization that I gain nothing by browsing memes is probably what one could call a piece of wisdom; life knowledge, stuff that shapes your worldview.
  - but by gaining more wisdom, I have lost knowledge of popculture
    not that you can define popculture in today’s society that well anyways. there are so many little corners of culture that it’s hard to tell what’s popular anymore
- …don’t tell anyone, but I like it that way. I can focus on my art and making it unique. no need to chase trends.
  - even if it means being called an old fart at some point. timeless > trendy