Roving Sign

Charnel Ground and Pure Land by David Chapman

You wish the world were different. Your timeline is full of slop. You tune into current events, and lose respect for everyone powerful. School is a waste of time, your job is soul-crushing. Everyone on the Dating App sucks. You have to spend time or deal with some annoying person.

But maybe you have hope! Or you want hope! Maybe things will get better; maybe you’ll find a way out.

I appreciated this pair of posts, which provide sort of alternate ways of viewing the world: what if, actually, there is no hope? What if all the suffering is inevitable and unavoidable? And alternately: what if everything is actually perfect, everything in the world is for your benefit?

And finally: what if everything is both, at the same time?

In the spirit of these articles, all the links in this post will be in equal-but-opposite pairs.

Notes on Managing ADHD by Fernando Borretti

Ostensibly about “ADHD” but I see this as a good practical guide to emotional management of productivity.

Some pieces that stuck with me:

• The “voltage” metaphor of mental energy, as contrasted with the intuitive “spoons theory”. In Spoon theory you have a limited (but fungible) amount of “spoons” per day which can be spent on arduous tasks (e.g. “make an annoying phoen call”, “cook dinner”). Under voltage theory, energy isn’t fungible, e.g. you might be high energy in the morning and low energy at night– in that case, you should plan your day to handle difficult (high-voltage) tasks in the morning, and do easier tasks at night. For me, low-voltage tasks are weightlifting, most household chores, reading a good book. Writing blog posts requires high voltage (at least for now).
• The post describes three different kinds of procrastination, which require different approaches:

• ADHD Procrastination: you want to do the task, but can’t because of distraction/hyperactivity.
• Anxious Procrastination: you know you have to do the task, but you don’t want to, because it triggers difficult emotions.
• Decision Paralysis Procrastination: you don’t know how to execute the task, because it involves a decision and you have difficulty making the decision.

• On prioritization: don’t complete tasks in order of importance, this causes stalling and procrastination. Instead, work on easier tasks first, with exceptions for long stalled tasks.
• Use an LLM as an accountability buddy. It’s hard for me to stick with this, but it’s worked well the few times I’ve tried.

Also: Self Discipline for Screwups by Unverified Revelations

Covers the same questions but more abstractly: what exactly is “self discipline” or “self coercion”? How should you talk to yourself? How can you change your thought patterns?

A rationalist’s guide to manifestation by isabelunraveled

Simon Sarris postulates a crisis of desire— people claim to want things (community, good art, romance, babies), but they seem to not want them enough, and so nothing comes of these desires.

I believe this, but what’s one to do? “Want harder?” I see Isabel’s manifestation post as a more detailed answer, a straightforward guide for what it entails to want something and follow through on those wants. This is the sort of thing that I find useful to come back to every once in a while.

Notes on deep atheism by Michael Nielsen

Religion vs atheism is played out. And personally I’m bored by discussions about the literal existence of God. The “deep atheism” spectrum is much more interesting and says more about how someone actually orients to the universe: fundamentally friendly or hostile. These orientations seem to be not logically determined, eg on this axis you can still find elements of “faith” in a strict materialist.

13 questions I ask my marketing clients by Visakanv and A Feral Guide to Marketing by Aella

Two posts about “marketing”, both from Twitter microcelebs and amusingly posted within a few days of each other. I imagine these are useful for anyone marketing an actual business, but they both not-so-subtly apply to pretty much everything in life– career, dating, general life direction. Visa’s questions are operational and introspective; Aella’s post is pointing at some non-trivial ways people’s attention and desire works.