954 karma · joined July 23, 2016
Here to love stuff.
Please reach out if I can help: public[at]goodroot.ca.
Be excellent to each other.
My strange conclusion was to not capture analytics at all. My loose metric is now: which posts inspire people to email me directly?
I have decided I do not want to know what you read, how long you read it, where you came from... Only whether or not you felt something. And data will not tell me this.
It is the best choice I have ever made. I get to make great money, polish my writing and engineering craft, and day dream about my future fictions. In another 10 years, perhaps I shall pivot to fantasy. If not, I can point to dozens and dozens of popular, educational articles which people have enjoyed. And that will be enough for me.
In metaphor, each person keeps their affliction locked within a box. And each person must be the one to create their own key. A person must be willing to open this dark box and release whatever is in it -- the sexual abuse, the long lived depression, or the significant trauma --- and _decide_ to become healthy.
An intention is saying: "This is what I have locked in my box. I want to get rid of it. I want to get better."
Real examples are:
* I no longer want to be depressed.
* I want to get over past sexual, emotional, or physical abuses.
* I want to become sober.
Through the ritualistic component of the ceremony, individuals then go deep within themselves to find and create the narrative, the key, to open the box. The contents of the journey will be unique to each individual. For some, it is getting out of hell or exorcizing a demon within themselves. For others, it is going back to their younger selves to give them love, strength, and support to get over what almost destroyed them. Or, perhaps just catch a glimpse into the delightful madness that is beyond self.
However, there have been very nasty experiences that have happened as a result of not following the very strict guidelines of pre and post ceremony care. It is recommended that you abstain from alcohol, sugar, sexual conduct for varying time periods. It is also required that all medication - within reason and with a long list of disallowed contraindications - be weened off of prior to partaking.
The medicine is serious stuff. It is beautiful stuff. And it should be approached with great care. If you take it with a reputable group, prepare appropriately, and follow the post-ceremony guidelines, there is a high likely hood of a net positive experience. If you do not, well...
The experiences are ineffable and unlike anything perceived by prior physical sense. The integrative aspect - taking the ecstatic vision and letting it into daily life - is an ongoing process which often takes up to a year. And so good or bad is too simplistic a lens in which to judge the psychedelic experience.
Moments of sheer terror, perceiving the blackest of black, are common. So too are moments of pure bliss and the sensation of limitless loving grace. These become trivialized by the overall experience, which is powerful enough to fully reorient a person's understanding of what it means to be a human being.
The result depends heavily on the pre-existing mental framework that engages with the medicine. For example, people from traditional western religious backgrounds may manifest demons, angels, and heaven and hell within their experiences -- if that is what _they feel they need to experience_ in order to realize the intention that they have brought with them into the ceremony.
My personal view revolves around the entrenchment of an individual's ego. Those who meditate and who have comfort with nondualistic thinking tend to ride the wave better than those who have very rigid conceptions of their self identity and its resultant patterning.
A rewarding read was the academic 'Antipodes of the Mind', a phenomenological study from cognitive scientist Benny Shannon. It is the most rigourous resource that addresses the wondrous weirdness of the Ayahuasca experience.
I believe the key difference between plant medicines like mushrooms, Peyote, Ayahuasca and others and clinical mood altering medicine is within the ecstatic experience. It is one to thing to have a pill lead you to an empirically more "healthy" brain. It is quite another to embark on a deep, introspective vision which provides a narrative to match the chemical benefit.
I volunteer as a guide within Ayahuasca ceremonies in Peru. Many turn to Ayahuasca as a last resort for depression, PTSD, sexual trauma, and much more. I have seen people in ceremony live through what they interpret as a hellish exorcism, an active exploration of their lineage, or a direct confrontation and resolution of their deepest emotional and spiritual trauma. These people often undergo significant positive transformation after the experiences.
These profoundly "real" experiences appear to be essential to the healing process.
We are creatures of story and psychedelics can help write a _most radical_ chapter of recovery.
> Similar to what some others mentioned, I'm more of an introvert so I find remote work makes me more social if anything as I don't "use up" my social energy being in an office and can instead use it more selectively on interactions that I get more value from.
I think this is key. Offices used to make me feel exhausted. I recall coming home from work and plummeting into a "crash nap" for an hour so that I could salvage my evenings. I worked hard to build my life so that I can move at a much slower pace and take things in a flow that works well for me.
But to your question: is what you are describing par for the course for an introvert working remotely, or are you taking social reclusion too far...
There seems to be two things afoot:
* You have been interviewing for a long while without success.
* You feel lonely and, in a way, depreciating, because of your confined way of being.
As for interviewing... I would agree that actual interviews _are_ practice - the best kind! But I am curious as to the other type of practice that you are doing. Are you working with other people to help you or are you studying textbooks like 'Cracking the Coding Interview'? We all feel a bit weird about recruiters, but there are services that will help you polish your people skills.
As for reclusiveness... It sounds like you might be taking it to an extreme. There are studies that pop-up on HN often about the benefits of social contact towards well-being and longevity. There is also intuitive proof; we feel much better when we have social validation. The inverse is depressing. I empathize. It sounds like you are having a tough time.
I would challenge a limiting belief like introversion. That is not a good reason for making yourself suffer alone. It might be time to write a narrative for yourself where you _are_ into athletic activities, meeting up with strangers, and being open to healthy and fruitful relationships. When you take care of yourself it will shine through in all that you do.
Remote working has allowed me to flourish socially. I have a recreational hockey team, we are part of a nice Yoga community, and given that we spend lots of time around our neighbourhood, we have met many friends, from the lady who cleans our building to the dude who owns the coffeeshop. Soon, I will be volunteering at the local hospice.
When you decouple social contact from work, the onus is on you to find a healthy replacement with the extra time and flexibility that remote life affords you. As is often the case when starting something new, you may find the first leap into a new social scene to be a harrowing experience. But it is rewarding! Much of this is because we live an urban life-style. I imagine being in a sub-urban neighbourhood might be much tricker to manage, as the people and amenities are further away. Consider how likely you are to stay working remotely. Perhaps a more "vibrant" area of town that allows you to walk to wonders might suit you better?
As an interim solution, my partner and I have both found that scheduling purely social calls, or 'no agenda, just banter' group video chats to be a fruitful means of connecting with the people with which we work.
But then what? What will happen when they need to spend time with themselves? How will they relate to other people? What happens when novel information is no longer novel? Will drugs help? How will they cope with the stresses of life?
This is a slippery slope. We are only now seeing how total the consequences to what it means to be a social people.
I once heard a metaphor on HN for the growth of software products. Building technology as War.
Start-up: Your initial core of members make up the ELITE team. They are the ones that storm the enemy lines, cutting the throats of the enemy generals, and bombing key strategic targets. Only the best, of the best, of the best, need apply. There is glory to be had.
Fledgling: Next, come the infantry. The boat is full to storm the beaches. It is gruelling work; support queries, scalability issues: bring the people, bring the degrees, bring the money!
Business: Finally, once the beaches have been stormed, its time to initiate the systemic takeover. Secret police and politics; restructure, assimilate, grow, grow, grow.
I do not repeat it because I like it. It stuck out to be because I felt it was accurate. It bothered me. Working in this industry for 10++ years has been psychologically bizarre. It is time to turn the page on this energy.
Tech no longer needs "War". It needs teachers, Moms, spirits, love, and patience.
Good luck, Project 5050!
I feel a sort of embarrassment on account of this marketing angle. The concept of digital wellbeing is a paradox. Yuck.
Can we approach this with an open-mind? These technologies have major promise. I do not see the use in being reactively closed mind and negative towards the efforts here. As an Ethereum - not a "crypto" - supporter, I feel brow-beat each time one of these threads comes up.
Let's take a deep breath, explore it, and try to help it realize its potential instead of instilling doubt and criticizing. This is a community for forwarding thinking builders...
* No SIM, data only.
* Safari is hidden via parental restrictions.
* I have Bear Writer for notes, Headspace for meditation, Spotify for music.
* iMessage for im, ProtonMail for email - notifications disabled.
* My everything else folder has undeleteables, 1Password, and an authenticator.
I schedule a daily block to check notifications and read blogs, publications, and check out the front page of HN.
No browser on the phone is a huge step. If you have a portal to the Internet, your phone is very much intelligent.
I have written a blog on this topic. It relates to work I have done working with Shaman and plant medicines in Peru. Here you go: https://goodroot.ca/post/2018/03/06/the-garden-axiom/ !
New technological approaches like this will help us peel back the veil of the tangible, 'ordinary' realities of which we are comfortable. The world will be a much more funky and weird place once we realize there are non-ordinaries realities that we can explore, too.
I have been a proponent of gaming on Linux most of my adult life, but I can't help but think that Valve might be missing the boat by sinking resources into gaming on Linux local hardware. Times are a-changin'.
Buddhism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Shamanism; there are all sorts of neat philosophies you can abide by that have deciphered the non-dualistic nature of reality. In doing so, they provide you with tools to cope with this truth and lead a full and joyful life of belief.
It excites me to consider that there were once entire axioms of culture, intellect, technology, spirit, and society as a whole that we have forgotten. Who knows what sort of mysteries we unlocked through entheogen-enabled consciousness exploration. Who would we be if we could find reconciliation?
There was an interesting study[0] done on Facebook users in University that had the following conclusion. A quote from it:
The multivariate analysis indicated that those who have used Facebook longer agreed more that others were happier, and agreed less that life is fair, and those spending more time on Facebook each week agreed more that others were happier and had better lives.
We tend to get blasted with other peoples' expectations and visions of success. Without establishing our _own_ definition, we'll never find that illusory success that we've projected upon other people and other circumstances.
What's _your_ definition of success? Everyone's will be different. It might be helpful to shorten your question: How to stop feeling depressed? The bleak patterns of depression are masterful at creating a monster to slay, in this case, for you: "being successful". If that dark knot was gone, would it matter?
Beautifully said. After creating my own healing, I feel compelled to give back in some way. Anytime I see a thread like this, it's a reminder how much work there is to do.
https://www.dhamma.org/en/about/vipassana
After dabbling for awhile with nothing but a pillow and my psyche, I participated in a 10-day silent meditation program by Dhamma. They do them in many places; they're free -- the food was great, the instruction, and the accommodations were excellent. It was powerful.
Daily meditation is a slow, gradual process. A couple years of consistent practice in most case should result in a noticeable change in perspectives. I enjoy Headspace for the routine but philosophically Andy never gets too deep. That can be good a general audience, but for the intellectual, perhaps not.
I mentioned Ayahuasca; I know this is not everyones cup of tea and hesitate to recommend it to due to the amount of New Age dogma and legal ambiguity that surrounds it. But in my own personal experience, I had something deep, a knot in my spirit that needed to be unwoven.
My Opa (German for Grandfather) was conscripted in WW2, work-camps, forced enlistment, combat, murder, torture, the whole wretched shabang. He escape, to Canada, had a family. He was, as a result of his environments, understandably terrorizing. He suffered. My father suffered. My brother suffered. I suffered. Born into it, like I mentioned.
As a busy etch-a-sketch becomes a clean slate for new art, so did my mind, body, and spirit after Ayahuasca. It was only when that knot had been removed that the tools I had learned through meditation could take me, day by day, into a beautiful new narrative where I am content and fulfilled.
Perhaps you need something to get that knot out. I truly hope that you find it, and give you all my love and empathy, dear stranger.