Comment by curun1r | Hacker News Reader

Comment by curun1r | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> ... Left to your own devices ...

I'm going to take one small phrase you wrote entirely out of context because I think there's a point to make.

I'm suffering from burnout at the moment and trying to figure out a way past it. I recently attended a 10-day silent meditation training and one of the requirements was to surrender all my devices (phone, computer, etc) and any other forms of distraction (books, pen and paper, playing cards). Basically, I was alone with only my mind for 10 days, unable to speak or communicate with others for the entire period. It was hell for the first couple days, but by the third day I was really starting to enjoy it.

As I've re-integrated my devices again, the burnout and stress has returned and I've lost a lot of the benefit I found at the meditation center. I'm already planning to go back to try to refind it and be much more conscious about reintegrating my devices afterwards. I'm starting to believe that, at least for me, burnout is an overstimulation, and things that I didn't even realize were forms of stimulation were contributing. But the biggest forms of stimulation, Internet, computers, phones and television are all things that I now realize I have to use incredibly judiciously.

I think we'll look back at this time, when we introduced all these devices into our society without any concept of the damage they cause, very similarly to the times when we used lead paint on our walls or asbestos in our ceilings. It may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but once we study the effect it has on our health, we'll be horrified.

P.S. On the doing nothing front, having spent 10 days being forced to do nothing but think in between the meditation sessions, it's really underrated and I wonder whether you've given it a fair shot. You really have to go days of doing literally nothing but thinking before it starts to give you any benefit. But once you do, you can just feel the stress melting away. The hard part is making it through the initial stage and then maintaining that benefit once you start to reintegrate with the rest of society.

Funny was thinking something similarly. As much as I enjoy working when I want to, deadlines and avoidance of failure is killing me. I would never give up programming but for the past week it's a struggle to bring myself to spend even a half hour of writing code. The need to get things done has blocked me from getting into other things but the frustration I feel from a single problem when I sit down is causing me to get nothing done.

A shepherd's flock is essentially his passive sustenance. A lifestyle where you're physically active every day and don't have to answer to anyone all the time is my idea of freedom. We've all succumbed to tech and toys and while I can simulate reality on my phone I don't think I'm living a better life than people 200 years ago. I think there is a boredom that sometimes arises if we cannot exert our intellect to create something, but life costs too much to work at a leisure pace.

http://modernfarmer.com/2013/12/10-things-learned-lambs/ Look liberating that looks.

Grew up on a farm. Before all these gadgets existed. Definitely a low-stress time in my life. Nothing to do all day but some physical chores, and wander or read. I got very comfortable being alone in my head with my thoughts. I think many modern gadgets are about avoiding that very thing - how many folks have ever been alone with their thoughts for more than an hour in a dentist waiting room? And how painful folks find that to be. Speaks volumes for the modern psychological condition.

People don't know how to handle boredom anymore and it's taken a huge toll on society.

I'm glad you've found something that helps you.

One minor additional thought about this: "the burnout and stress has returned and I've lost a lot of the benefit I found at the meditation center. I'm already planning to go back to try to refind it [...]"

For a long time my model was similar, that this sort of change is something I could lose and find. I was excited to find it, sad to lose it. When I had it, I expected to keep on having it, and was surprised when it was gone. But it doesn't behave like an object.

A more useful model to me is one of homeostasis and calibration. When I end up in a different equilibrium than the one I prefer, I think of myself as also having some sensor (or perhaps sensor weighting) out of calibration.

For example, relating to stress and burnout, I was poor at noticing the subtle bodily sensations that occur early on in that cycle. When my body offered me alarms, I had a tendency to hit snooze, treating the alerts as unimportant. And I was over-sensitive to other people's desires and my (generally good) desire to do things "right", by which I mean in accordance with readings from other sensors.

Now I don't think I'll ever have peace, as if it were an object. But I do think I can create peace, that I can sustain peace. For me, though, that requires careful attention to keeping those sensors well-calibrated and respecting not just the big red warning lights, but the small yellow ones.

That's an interesting change of perspective and one I'll keep in mind. It fits in with the teachings of my course, as well, as we were told that we don't crave or have aversion to an object, we crave or have aversion to the sensations in the body caused by our perceptions of that object. The key, as you've pointed out, is to learn to recognize and objectively view those sensations in the body and react to them consciously rather than subconsciously.

I also wonder, based on the training, whether those sensations are signs of burnout or whether the reactions to those sensations are actually what's causing the problem. Perhaps by noticing those sensations and teaching the body to react with equanimity I'd find the same effect that happens with other sensations of aversion. I've experienced the power of that equanimous reaction with something as simple as physical pain, which became a shadow of itself. I'm curious whether burnout is similarly inflated in severity by the mind's reaction to it.

This may be a bit of a tangent, but one of my favorite recording artists, Grimes, has said after her breakout album Halfaxa that shutting herself away for 10 days or more without any contact was vital to experiencing the "visions" which gave rise to her music... the recount I heard, did not seem happy, but necessary.

Oh, that the secret does lie within us, and that we must cross a frozen field to arrive at it. Who knows

Thank you for saying this. I sort of know it in the back of my head, but it needs repeating. Paradoxical place to read and write this though :) When I'm done with this thread this computer's switching off.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com