Enjoyment

... is a thing I'm trying to focus on more. Some scattered thoughts about it:

Someone gave me a book on alchemy, and after rolling my eyes, I had a read. It was only like 50 pages. The first few pages are dedicated to explaining how alchemy isn't really about "lead -> gold"; it's about becoming a whole/purified/fulfilled human.

Chapter 2 is about what we do when we waste time. What we do for its own sake. Some kind of argument about how that is how we become divine. (Catholics, the author gives a shout out to the Mass as performed by monks for themselves. My opposition to the mass was always that there is no point. The monks would agree that there is no point, and yet that would be why they like doing it.)

Ok, well. I've been feeling a bit joyless recently, and so I guess it's a good idea to tune into that part of the brain. Like, if you're trying to learn to play music, or maybe to write music, you try to listen to what sounds right sometimes and amplify that. If you're trying to be a good chef, you have to pay attention to what tastes right. You can't really notice it if you're not even listening or tasting. So I guess if you're trying to exist in our modern world, you try to listen to what feels right.

One useful framing to me is, "would I do that again?" Like just looking out over the last minute or hour or day and say, "if I had a time machine and could go experience that again, would I?" If the answer is yes, then you just enjoyed something! (This sounds like the most basic thing in the world, maybe, but uh... I'm kind of an alien sometimes? This thought experiment helps me untangle things like "well... it's good for me, I guess" or "well, I got paid" - if you'd go back in the time machine, and redo it for no other reason than to experience it again, that's enjoyment! Everything else is a different thing!)

Anyway, it's tough, though! Especially if you keep looking back and going "nope, not that; not that either; hmm, hasn't been anything for the past few days really." It's like writing a bunch of bad music in a row, I guess, or tasting a bunch of bad food. You begin to doubt your ability to write/cook.

Some examples:

Video games, primarily Slay the Spire. I have enjoyed this quite a lot! However, two problems. One is that it gets me in this amped up achieving-things state. Another is that, if I lose, it gets me in this amped-up kinda angry state! The whole thing is usually a net positive, though, so I'd say I enjoy this.

Biking. This is a mixed bag. I enjoy going fast; sometimes it feels really nice. Sometimes I get nice endorphins too. Sometimes I see nice scenery. Sometimes it hurts a lot and I just want to get home. On the whole, I'd usually say I enjoy this.

Flitting through the internet. I ... don't know. Sometimes I love it, usually involving weird humor. Sometimes I'll have wasted some time and feel kind of strung out.

Meditating. I'm starting to, sometimes, occasionally, enjoy this. It's far from a thing I'm looking forward to, but I can see how it could become that.

Note that this is different from the question of "should I do X?" This is a separate question from "did I enjoy X?" Right now I'm just sharpening the enjoyment sense. More like "did that food taste good?" than "should I eat that food?"

Also note that there are a few levels of granularity. It might be worthwhile for me to notice, not just "did I enjoy this whole bike trip", but "did I enjoy the last 5 minutes in the middle of this bike trip."

Tryna slow down a bit, kinda

This blog is real interesting for self reflection. I recently noticed that I started a post in early March that looked like this:

"I've been feeling energized. One thing is, I've recently been traveling; that often tends to energize me. I'm doing a project at work that's more execution and less deep thinking and that's kind of energizing; it's within what I feel like I can do.
I'm feeling more connected to music and stuff than usual. Like, I feel like I want to *make art*, despite the fact that I have zero experience actually making art, and whenever I give myself a large chunk of unstructured time, I can't say that I do amazing things with it."

This is no longer the case, and I forgot that it even happened, and so recently! Though I do now remember it; it was busy and only pleasant in a kinda hyped up way. Plus, said work project became kinda a bummer, but then finished, so I'm feeling some sense of accomplishment and relief, but mostly just glad to be done with it.

These days, well. For the last couple years, I've been working with at least one professional, often two, sometimes even more, that kinda... help me be a person? Currently it's therapist J and meditation teacher K. It changes sometimes, often with moves, but sometimes otherwise too. It's nice to have a couple outside perspectives, and it's extra nice when they converge.

Recent convergence I've been summing up as "think less, feel more." Step 0 of getting good at meditating seems to involve being able to switch between the fast, feeling system and the slow, focused System 2 thinking system. Living in the present, not worrying about the future; applying your awareness like a floodlight, not a laser; being, not accomplishing.

This essay about "bandwidth" feels relevant. Quote:
"Personal "bandwidth" implies that we must move through the world like machines; and that experience is, to use a different metaphor, something that we need to process, and process, and, process, up until we hit some kind of capacity."
And that's what I've been doing: optimizing for processing the most information, basically. Or for churning through the most tasks on a list.

So, I don't know how relevant it is, but I've been trying to stop thinking about myself as an information processor. Some ways:
- sleeping more (because what do I have to do so late, anyway?)
- listening to podcasts almost entirely
- playing Pokemon go, finally. It wasn't even fun anymore! It was just a way to spend every spare 30 seconds accomplishing something!

Some things that have made this hard:
- Slay the Spire is a great new video game that I like a lot, and I kinda want to spend all my time playing it. I can't decide if this is Good (because I'm doing something I like!) or Bad (because I sure do feel like a computer while I'm doing it).
- I mean, work and stuff; there's kind of a lot of things you need to do just to exist. Work, errands, appointments, etc.

It's a thing I'm thinking about now, anyway.