Bits and Paradoxes - 13
Spans of Life
Hi,
How are you holding up among all these absurdities? What does “being happy” mean to you?
Note: This issue of Bits-and-Paradoxes might be too long. If you find it truncated by your email client, you can directly visit the published version here.
I turned 26 this week. That's that.
For the first time, I did an exhaustive review of my life (normally it's a single-day-few-hour-contemplation-become-sad-existentially-dreaded kind). I have published the full review (16 min) here. At first, I was totally hesitant to make it public (although I shared with a few people privately). But it wouldn't matter even if I published it. So, there you go! If you are too busy or bored to read these long, broken thoughts of mine, here’s a TLDR:
Struggles come in many forms. Some struggle with money. Some with relationships and connections. Some with careers. Some with the absurdity of life. In all, it’s the struggle to get into a “happiness state”, a peace of mind (peace from the mind?).
We tend to be cognitively biased - - peak-end-rule - - in remembering our past. Instead of seeing life as bits of experiences, we see only the extreme highs and lows.
Satisfaction doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness. You might be perfectly satisfied with something, but still, be anxious from other emotions.
The intrinsic value of “money” is relative. For some, it can contribute to 10% of happiness, while for others even 99% of money leads to happiness. Whatever it is, money does provide a way for survival, an identity to one’s life.
For me, happiness (perhaps) is a state where I accept and appreciate reality without much expectations.
There should be a balance between work life and your personal life. Don’t try to mix them up.
Try to minimize temporal discounting. We make decisions, usually with unforeseen consequences, that our future self has to deal with. This is quite the opposite of the compounding effect.
Track your expenses!
Have habits that can provide you a sense of being alive and present.
Life’s absurdity hits us all. Sometimes life seems short. Sometimes it feels long. Whatever it is, life is “just enough” if you use it wisely.
Spans of Life
Human life is pretty weird. One moment it feels very short. There are so many things to do; a single life isn't enough. Another moment it feels like an eternity; the mind becomes restless, procrastinates every so often. You start to question if everything is absurd. Still, you find a way to do something out of it.
It seems our interpretation of time-span varies greatly with what kind of situations we are in. Looking at the long history of the Earth, we are merely a tiny aberration. Just zoom out enough and we realize we are a speck of dust. A dot in a dot, hurling through emptiness somewhere and nowhere.
However, if you zoom in enough you start to feel a more "humane" side of life, an individual's life. An accumulation of memories and experiences, highs, and lows. Fluctuations of emotions. Goals scattered around, trying to become coherent.
I like to call it horizontal and vertical spans of life (yeah, just something I have been pondering for the whole week).
Follow Up: Putting Time in Perspective
Horizontal Span
This is tentatively the span across groups - societies, communities, races, ethnicities, and nations. Not an individual life but a whole lot of them clustered together, each with certain unique values to identify them.
I like to think about it as the progressive history of time itself of which humans have come a long way. The evolution from hunter-gatherer to modern times is a massive amount of time (and life). Each century has enabled something for the next. And in doing so, life seems to have eased a little in some ways.
Zoom out enough and you realize that human history is just a minuscule fraction of the ever-expanding universe. At the utmost zoomed-out level, human civilization doesn't even matter. But if you zoom-in (just) perfectly, all the history of mankind does matter. First practical use of fire, shaping tools to hunt efficiently, forming clans, starting agriculture, building transportation methods, creating laws, advancing technological innovations, and such. Everything spans out well horizontally. And thinking about all these makes life a very important part of everything.
It will still span out indefinitely until the conditions for life aren't suitable. The sun turns into a red giant. Life becomes stagnant. Earth’s physical structure changes. Humans become multi-planetary species (just my fantasy). Take another frame of reference (out of Earth or the solar system), it still makes sense that this horizontal span keeps on stretching forever. (Of course, "forever" is cold-death).
Vertical Span
Unlike the horizontal span, it's more individualistic. Although horizontal scale does account for some bits of that individualistic nature through groups and clusters, the vertical span is solely one's own life. Realize that you aren't alone. There are people like you around, each breathing and "feeling" like you. Each with their own childhood, moments, dreams, beliefs, opinions, and you-name-it-emotions. It's a focus from a microscopic lens, fully detailed and comprehensive.
In this post, I want to focus on this vertical span, especially seemingly-intangible entities like happiness and absurdism.
Reading: The Tail End
Tim Urban | 4 min
Tail End, by definition, represents the last or hindmost part of something. (Yup! Directly pasted from Google… :/ )
In this well-articulated short read, Tim does a good job of putting a human life into perspective. Different people have different ways of representing life. For some, it's simply a matter of years. For some, it's the months and weeks. The scale stretches or shrinks accordingly. No matter where we are, how we are living, it's probable we might be living our last day today. Tomorrow is uncertain. Yesterday dwells in memories.
As mentioned earlier, there's a vertical representation of life. Some might be able to represent their life as how they spend their time with parents, siblings, spouse, and friends. Some might be able to distribute this scale as counting events like festivals, sports, concerts, and such.
In all these representations, one thing is sure: human life is fragile, fluctuating. So, it's better to spend life in satisfaction, doing things that matter. Prioritize life. Spend time qualitatively.
Watching: What is Happiness
Will Schoder | 49 min
Extending the fragments from the previous newsletter, I have tried my best to make my notes as precise as possible. Do watch the video. It's one of the best contents I have watched regarding the topic of happiness. I am left speechless for the whole production value.
I have been struggling to reach that "being happy" state for a very long time. Often I find myself asking the question "How happy am I in my life?". The answer has always been always "No", “I don’t know”, “Not sure”.
Happiness has different meanings to different people. Even for an individual, its definition fluctuates based on the experiences. Whatever it is, mostly we tend to think happiness is something we need to achieve, a tangible entity. That is: we have a narrative of "Happiness is X" instead of "Happiness as X". The former is a near-materialistic view of happiness, the latter an emotional one.
The focus here is mainly on emotional mappings of happiness - Central Affective State. There are other theories such as Life Satisfaction Theory and Hedonism.
[[Life Satisfaction Theory]]
This theory tries to quantify happiness by providing 5 important questions, each rated from 1 to 7. Adding the numbers gives a measure of happiness. The questions go something like:
How close is my life towards my ideal?
Are the conditions of my life excellent?
How satisfied I am with my life?
Have I gotten the important things in my life?
If I am to give a chance to re-iterate my life, will I change anything?
This only considers people's values without any regard to emotional states. It is superficial because our judgments/evaluations can diverge from our emotional state.
Are you happy or simply satisfied?
Conditions leading to both might be quite different. For instance, money doesn't buy you happiness but only life satisfaction. This life satisfaction can be ego-intellectual that remembers the “self”. For instance, “I was happy that I got good grades in the exams” type of narrative. However, happiness is more emotional that experiences the self.
[[Hedonism]]
Hedonic theory interprets happiness as pleasures, a positive balance of pleasant and unpleasant experiences, a "Pleasure vs Pain" narrative. But, defining the amount of pleasure is a conundrum. For instance, you can work for a whole day and find pleasure in that. But still feel alone and lonely at the end of the day. So, is the hedonic balance legit here?
[[Emotional State Theory]]
This defines happiness as a positive emotional state.
We tend to have two kinds of such emotional states - peripheral state (short-lived) and central affective state (long-term).
Peripheral State
Peripheral states include quotidian actions and reactions we pass through. For instance, from a heated discussion in a meeting, you could feel "unhappy" and uneasy. But that shouldn't get to (disturb) your core emotions. These are metaphorically short-lived too:
getting to you
bringing you down
disturbing you
bounce right off you
[[Central Affective State]]
Central Affective State is more comprehensive (and important). It exhausts every emotional state one can be in (vaguely). There are mainly 3 parts: Endorsement, Engagement, and Attunement.
Endorsement
Endorsement maps emotions into two components: Sadness-Joy Axis and Irritability-Cheerfulness Axis. It's relatively short-lived.
Is happiness simply a fixed set of points?
This endorsement theory only provides an axial view that doesn't give a clear picture.
Engagement
Engagement maps emotions into the Depression-Exuberance axis and also Dissatisfaction-Flow axis. It's about energy, interest, and passion one holds for life. However, being passionate doesn't necessarily mean one is in a "happy state". Say, poets, artists... They might be passionate but their emotional state might be in turmoil.
Attunement
Attunement theory is a Stoic view of life, about a sense of belonging and [[Self-Love]].
"A deep sense of being home in one's life".
Mainly there are 3 components to this view:
Anxiety-Tranquility Axis
Is your “self” peaceful?
Insecurity-Confidence Axis
Are you highly insecure about your life?
Compression-Uncompression Axis
How much stress are you feeling in life?
Simply consider attunement as a state of having your basic needs fulfilled.
Then, engagement will naturally grow which is about being energetic and pursuing your goals.
Finally, endorsement is when you are "fulfilled" after meeting your goals. In all, these three might be intertwined deeply, each affecting the other.
To have a “happy state”, all these 3 components should be tuned optimally.
Reading: On The Shortness of Life
Seneca | 50 min
This is one of those reads I get back to often to remind myself about time and life.
Instead of questioning how short/long life is, we should be more focused on making it meaningful to us. Life is long enough if you use it wisely.
"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it."
You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals.
Also if you want to listen to this essay, have a look at this audiobook. I found it quite calming to listen to.
Reading: Descriptive vs. prescriptive optimism
Jason Crawford | 2 min
I loved the differentiation of optimism here. I am more like a pessimist than an optimist. So, prescriptive optimism feels relatable than the descriptive ones.
Prescriptive Optimism commits to actions with Internal Locus of Control. It's an optimism to work hard to make good outcomes happen. Hence, it calls for courage and boldness.
On the contrary, the Descriptive Optimizer has External Locus of Control with the expectation that good things happen eventually. It is oriented towards the belief about the world, a luck-driven view of the world. It might lead to complacency.
#Watching
The Storytelling of Science
2 hr 14 min
The Storytelling of Science features a panel of esteemed scientists, public intellectuals, and award-winning writers including well-known science educator Bill Nye, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, theoretical physicist Brian Greene, Science Friday's Ira Flatow, and such...
This was entertaining to watch. For the first half, famous scientists and the writers shared their inspirational journey into science.
Lawrence Krauss talked about his inspirations from [[Richard Feynman]].
Tracy Day found storytelling fascinating.
Brian Greene found uncertainty invigorating.
Ira Flatow loved the element of surprise.
Neil deGrasse Tyson got inspirations from [[The starry night]] by Vincent van Gogh. (I recommend watching a surreal movie “Loving Vincent”)
Richard Dawkins talked about parasitism in Cuckoo's nesting techniques. And thus, inspiration from nature.
Bill Nye talked about inspirations for his engineering pursue.
Neil Stephenson went back to his childhood days when he found a passion for science.
For the latter half, they discussed questions from the audience. Some of the main questions are:
One Piece of advice to get into science?
I am bad at math, but passionate about science. Is it possible for me to succeed?
What might be the hope for the most scientific advancement in the coming decades?
Is pop-science entertainment ultimately good for science?
Out of this, I found the third question fascinating because it weirdly went into a debate mode about funding in science, and uncertainty of progress, especially space travel. The debate had a thought experiment something like:
Which is better: Sending hundreds of robots to Mars or sending a single human to mars?
#Fascinating
GitHub: awesome-cold-showers
It's great when people get excited about things, but sometimes they get a little too excited. This an awesome (rigorous and respectful) and curated (I read every suggestion and make judgment calls) list of cold showers on overhyped topics. This does not mean the enthusiasm is bad or wrong: we're just reminding people to stay grounded. Feel free to submit your favorites!
Ask HN: Which Firefox plugin do you use?
Following are some of the add-ons mentioned:
YouTube Suite: Removes distracting search results from YouTube
Firefox multi-account container: Use multiple firefox accounts/identities simultaneously.
tab-tosser: Automatically close tabs you have ignored for too long
Zotero connector: Zotero Connectors allow you to save to Zotero directly from your web browser.
I've been using account containers for a long time now. So, definitely recommended. I have containers such as observer, personal, and banking where I have only necessary accounts logged in without any interference with each other.
Occasionally I use Zotero to save pdfs, especially books and research papers. It was my knowledge management tool before [[Roam]].
#Fragments
Video: How to Be Correct About Everything All the Time
exurb1a | 16 min
The last part hits hard emotionally.
You've only added two lines - why did that take two days!
3 min
The topic of software maintenance is highly underestimated. There is plenty of reasons that adding two lines of code might take more than a day. It might be from a vague description of the issue to taking time to think about possible side-effects to finding some other bugs to fix and such...
Comic: You Want to See My Data? I Thought We Were Friends!
Stuart Ritchie is a Lecturer in the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at King’s College London. His new book, Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth, explains the ideas in this comic, by Zach Weinersmith, in more detail, telling shocking stories of scientific error and misconduct. It also proposes an abundance of ideas for how to rescue science from its current malaise.
#Music
I've been listening to Psychedelic Music and Post-rock for a while now. These help me to calm down, invoke a sensation of floating in space. Also, I find these pieces highly inspiring. Just last Sunday I was taking some music composition lessons from Marty Friedman (yup, he was a lead guitarist for Megadeth). He has quite a unique style of teaching music. So, definitely I am inspired to learn more about music theory from him. I loved his one particular saying that goes something like “If it sounds good for you, then it’s good”.
It’s nearly 8 years that I’ve been playing guitar and still feel there’s so much to learn. At least 8 years of playing have trained my ears well enough to pick notes and scales quickly (and yes, muscle memories too). On the contrary, lacking in much knowledge of music theory kinda sucks, especially when jamming with other people.
Night - Marty Friedman (6 min 40 sec)
This is so good to hear.
7 min of pure soulful playing
#Ending-Thoughts
Happiness means different things to different people. Some get a form of that while reading books, some while walking and writing, some having that perfect taste of caffeinated reality. Whatever it is, I feel the ultimate goal of life is to be in that state where "being satisfied" and "being happy" are almost identical.
So, are you happy in life?
I think we have reached the end of this newsletter’s span. I hope you enjoyed it thoroughly as much as I enjoyed rendering my thoughts here.
If you feel like sharing this newsletter to people that make you “happy” and “valuable”, please do so. On that tone, if you have anything interesting (and inspiring) to share, please don’t hesitate. You can always hit me up in my email!
I will try to deliver more thorough ideas and learnings.
(Also, do check out my life review)
Love,
Nish