Why go out?

“You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the brain of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion. ... The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that -- well, lucky you.” ― Philip Roth, American Pastoral

The author sounds like she suffers from crippling anxiety and possibly depression, and I am incredibly empathetic because I have lived through similar things. I can understand from personal experience how a person could come to the conclusions she does.

But I hope that she manages to find the solution that frees her of this burden. Whether it's meds, lifestyle changes, or moving to a place that gets more sun, I want to believe that there is a solution out there for her. For me it was quitting drinking -- I never had a drinking problem in the traditional sense, but what I didn't realize was that it was making me emotionally very unstable.

It's hell being the kind of person who spends weeks reacting to one mean comment. It is the worst thing ever. But living a life that's free of that is the best thing ever. It's worth doing whatever it takes to find out how to achieve it.

On a Night of Snow

  Cat, if you go outdoors you must walk in the snow.
  You will come back with little white shoes on your feet,
  Little white slippers of snow that have heels of sleet.
  Stay by the fire, my Cat. Lie still, do not go.
  See how the flames are leaping and hissing low,
  I will bring you a saucer of milk like a Marguerite,
  So white and smooth, so spherical and sweet--
  Stay with me, Cat. Outdoors the wild winds blow.
 
  Outdoors the wild winds blow, Mistress, and dark is the night.
  Strange voices cry in the trees, intoning strange lore;
  And more than cats move, lit by our eyes' green light,
  On silent feet where the meadow grasses hang hoar--
  Mistress, there are portentas abroad of magic and might,
  And things that are yet to be done. Open the door!

"Never mind, I replied, turning the key, for my curiosity surpassed my fear."

And with that the author sums it up for me. I'm curious. I want to know. So I go out.

What a horribly sad way to live your life. People are no addiction, they're a necessary (and awesome) part of life. Regardless of your spiritual bent:

Athiesm - We evolved from social primates into other social primates. You're adding a lot of psychological stress at a fundamental level when you don't live the way you're bred.

Christianity/Judaism - God made us for community. "It is not good for Man to be alone".

Budhhism - Everything is interconnected, including other people.

Sikhism - All mankind is a universal brotherhood.

Shall I continue?

I think she is a little bit neurotic, and she missed all the evolutionary stuff - that we are hardwired for social interaction.

I live an overly solitary life, and I crave for company. My social circle is nearly empty, no GF, and almost all my friends have moved to other cities, so I have just one close friend.

Damn, I need to go out. I need more human contact, not less.

This article seems to be written from a completely different perspective than my own life experiences. Perhaps it is introvert vs. extrovert, or perhaps it is something else entirely.

I was called an introvert all throughout high school because I was quiet. Everyone was certain of it. I knew I wasn't an introvert because I gain energy from being around other people. When I am alone, I get tired and depressed. When I am around a few others or in large groups, I am happy and gain energy.

Probably the reason New York City has so much appeal to me.

Mirrors are not the only way to gain insight from an externality - other people hold up mirrors we can't see.

After the perceived slight from the conceptual poet, I would have pointed out that their question might not be a challenge or putdown but an invitation to a debate - best answered with another question. "Why would you think that your work is not intrinsically interesting to everyone?" etc. This insight did not and probably could not have come from within.

And again, "whenever I go out into the world, whenever I get involved in a relationship, my idea of who I think I am utterly collides with the reality of who I actually am."

That's at least one great reason to go out.

This is off-topic regarding the actual article, but has anyone else noticed the keyword stuffing spam in the page footer if javascript is disabled?

I sent a quick email to the site contact address describing the problem, but I'm curious if anyone has any better ways of informing people about this sort of thing?

I've tried a few times for different sites in the last few weeks, and I never hear back; I assume the words needed to describe the problem are themselves liable to get spamfiltered and so nobody even sees my mail. Or it looks like a phishing/scamming attempt itself (although I'd like to think with better spelling & grammar), and gets binned for that.

I don't think there's any desperation in her voice at all. She sounds genuinely bored with something she has plenty of - and no trouble getting - other people.

To be honest she comes across as a rich person complaining about the shallowness of people seeking money.

Back in high school I felt the same way. I couldn't understand why I went out. When I didn't I felt bad and as if I was doing something very unnatural. I come from a smallish town where everyone knew each other. After awhile I got to be known as the boy who didn't go out, which hurt. After a few years I got over it. I realized I didn't dislike going out per se, the people in the small town just weren't people I liked, we never 'clicked'. You can't like everyone and as I realized this I started going out and being with friends and doing all the stuff I had missed out on.

It's not about being an extrovert or introvert, it's more about not understanding why other people and/or yourself put certain demands on yourself when you feel like something else. Nowadays I don't care about what I 'should' do or what I'm expected to do. Not doing something like going to someones birthday party has certain implications to people, but I understand where it's coming. Now I make a choice between the consequences of my actions, not because an abstract idea of having to do something.

The author starts off with a nicely logical analysis of whether companionship is worth it, backed by anecdotal evidence from her life. I think she doesn’t give enough evidence for her conclusion that people don’t “provide satisfaction and relaxation” – she only mentioned one story, and didn’t describe any times when people were good – but at least she tries to base her decisions on evidence. And then at the end she says “perhaps our solitude is just saving up energy for companionship” – and then stops there, assuming that that first hypothesis is right (and concluding based on that assumption that being around people is worth it, after all). Where did all her logic go? She has given no evidence of any kind for that, unlike everything else she discussed before. She’s wasting her previous painstaking analysis by ending with an unsupported storybook, feel-good decision. That’s too bad; it makes this article significantly less useful as a guide to deciding whether going out is worth it in my case.

I am surprised at how often neurotic artists and writers seem to think others are like them. It's perfectly fine to feel the way this writer does, but does she realize it is unusual? Or does she assume others feel the same way but are just faking it? Lives of quiet desperation, etc?

I go out to enjoy the scenery, get exercise, interact with people, catch up on fashion, check up on prices, try new things, golf, hike, and just enjoy life in general.

Unfortunately most all of those things listed above that I love cannot be done inside one's own home.

What I got from the article

i. Childhood issues

ii. Possible serious psychological disorder

iii. Appreciation for my enjoyment of people

Q: "Does anyone actually enjoy more than one party in six?" A: Yes.

I don't wholly agree with the contents of the essay, but that was so delightfully well written!

We have evolved to be social being. Being independent and content with yourself is a good thing, but total isolation can have disastrous effects on the human psyche (Look-up reports of POWs who were kept in isolation for extended periods of time).

I first heard this (or an adaptation) on the CBC podcast Wiretap: http://www.cbc.ca/wiretap/episode/2012/05/04/hell-is-other-p...

I'd recommend it if you enjoyed reading this, it often carries features of a similar calibre.

My best friend is a rabbit.

Unusually well written.

I first simply want to address the smoking bit. _Something_ about smoking is habitual, or rather, not to see that a drug addiction could instantiate or engender a habit which itself re-enforces the addiction, might be the main problematic of 'quitting advice.' Rather, ignoring that cigarettes prompt a way of life only suggests to me that said advice treats an idealized person, or biological system, a model.

We are not models. In my comment history I've noted that Juan Enriquez talks of 'living organisms,' not 'life.' Again here I wish to point out a semantic mix up. We are a mix where the advice is technically valid: we have a bio-logical imperative as an organism to reduce or differentiate carcinogen-affected cells, waste, etc. Our bodies do it and so basically we are duty bound to respect, or harmonize, with our more basic functions. 'Just quit' ignores the basic psychological component of smoking, even if that component cannot be exhaustively explained as habit. Habit has two primary forms, situational and dispositional.

When we say, 'Just quit!' We suggest that the dispositional habit is indeed ficticious. It _is_ an addiction. Being internally compelled implies a form of determinism that the agent in truth has no basis for judgement. To suggest that one has such a habit implies a personal capability to predict the conclusion of one's own habit. That being said, one only admits to the internal rules which drugs instantiates within the biological system of the agent. To one must accept the imperative, should one say it is a habit of this sort.

However, a situational habit is different, a more robust problem. At first prompt, we are forced to investigate all the various ways in which cigarette smoking enters public consciousness. To 'quit,' indeed, in similar fashion blocks any fruit that may be drawn from the situational benefits of a situational habit.

I, for instance, often decline cigarettes from close friends where the situation prompts a longform discussion. Another friend has mentioned, in passing, "I don't trust anyone who does not smoke." Andy Clarke has been lauded for his smoker's style. I personally took rolling on as a Special Interest: I can roll a perfect cigarette, reliably, almost systematically. And if anyone ever asks me to do so, I religiously oblige. This is not an internal habit, but it makes sense to describe it as habtiual in _some_ sense. I might share in some activity with this person, call it 'smoking'.

What I am not doing is romanticizing smoking. What I am suggesting is that 'cold turkey' advice should be replaced with descriptive or behavioral models which may lend to therapeutic or narrative models for therapy. 'Just quit' isn't diagnostic, and attempts to reduce the solution to smoking to our basic biological imperative. Fair.

Also, easier said that done. -- So actually work to make this advice relevant. It's blindly proscriptive, where integration and therapy should accompany.

I mean, may I just put it so prettily: "freedom from slavery"? Slavery isn't anything like a biological function of nature. When one quits cigarettes, one is avoiding something external to one's self. Slavery isn't some inevitable feature of, trade, or political systems, that one chooses or does not. The whole way of putting it, as freedom from slavery, does more harm than good. I think it misleading and sensationalist. Cigarettes are evolutionarily novel, indeed, but what still remains is that they are a feature of civilization, the mix of the raw forces of selection and human intelligence.