Exactly, they are putting deliberate focus on something, in this case work, that distracts them from the underlying meaninglessness, and enables them to not face it, because deep down, they find it (and/or have been taught to find it) objectionable in some way.

This deliberate turning of the head away from the existential fears creates this sensation of “winding”, but they accept it, knowing that they have methods of “unwinding”. I understand less why this is called balance, when it really sounds more like oscillation.

Of course, the winding is multi-dimensional; there is more or less stress about different aspects of life, varying over time. Relationships, finances, social status, existential angst, etc.

I’m proposing that it is possible to be OK with the meaninglessness, and even feel good about the state of things, and even while consuming minimal entertainment and distraction. I’m saying there exists a state where not consuming entertainment does not feel like you are depriving yourself at all.

>even if one achieves such a state, how much good can you do for the society if your existence is so remote from it already?

Well, the promise is literally freeing all living beings from suffering. Of course, to do this, one does have to “come back down” from time to time, and 100% agreed that coherently integrating this with existing society is a challenge. But it’s not a binary thing, and I think the level of coherence can improve over time.

It's late and I'm tired so most likely I'm not understanding your point properly. Aren't those literally the most fundamental and nearly universally known (i.e. preached by popular science) results from (a) evolution and (b) neuroscience research, respectively?

This is too extreme. Corporations, governments et. al. are not original generators of these things, they just co-opt them.

Exercise is co-opted by many groups, but it didn't originate with those groups, it has always existed and worked really well. Same with most of these things.

The fact that an agency decided to make money off of it (why wouldn't it? Why is that, in itself, a negative?) in a capitalist society (where things are valued through money) is... expected? And, in many cases, it's a positive development: making it easier for people to exercise.

I'm just not really seeing the nihilism.

You have no way of knowing what is truly endogenous desire, from what's not - even if you perceive it, after some reflection, that it's endogenous... the reality it that it just might not be.

A chunk of us is a product of what surrounded and surrounds us. It's the human condition.

So I maybe the exercise you should do is to accept your humanity? The fact that you are human and that's doesn't have to be a bad thing, to the point of being resented about it. You can see it as a constrain, but it can also be a source of freedom once you accept it.

I guess I’ve never formalized my thinking about this, but I believe it’s a sad outlook on humanity if the goal is to partake in pleasure at will. There seem to be much more fulfilling pursuits. Maybe I’m taking this the wrong way.

I ended up in essentially this state for several years. It was about as blissful as you would imagine. The problem is, what got me in to that state was an intense drive (among other things) that becomes increasingly hard to sate without a meaningful purpose.

So I've voluntarily made my way back into "capitalist systems" and have to consciously remind myself that it is optional and a choice I've made. It's hard to find lasting contentment.

There is nothing original about this. Practically everyone is doing all they can to pretend to be busy, to the point that many people actually believe that they are, and all to avoid meaningful interactions with the people around them. Meaningful interactions are risky and costly and modern people have lost their nerve. It's so much easier to watch Net Flix when you want to feel. I'm sick to death of this. I want to surround myself with people who live deeply and with meaning.

Think about it, how many people, other than your family, really give a shit if you live or die? For most people that number is close to zero and it's not going to change if you buy in to this bullshit that the solution to your problems is to guard your time or focus more on yourself. In my experience, the only people who say they need to start thinking more of their own needs are the ones who have always done so.

This reminds me of this guy with the bookshelf in his garage that went viral on youtube years ago. I honestly don't think gamifying your life and jumping on the hedonistic treatmill is a step up from eating cinnamon rolls at 3 am, just the flip side of the same coin. It Reminds me of Baudrillard in America

"The skateboarder with his Walkman, the intellectual working on his wordprocessor, the Bronx breakdancer whirling frantically in the Roxy, the jogger and the body-builder: everywhere, whether in regard to the body or the mental faculties, you find the same blank solitude, the same narcissistic refraction. This omnipresent cult of the body is extraordinary. It is the only object on which everyone is made to concentrate, not as a source of pleasure, but as an object of frantic concern, in the obsessive fear of failure or substandard performance, a sign and an anticipation of death, that death to which no one can any longer give a meaning, but which everyone knows has at all times to be prevented. The body is cherished in the perverse certainty of its uselessness, in the total certainty of its non-resurrection. Now, pleasure is an effect of the resurrection of the body, by which it exceeds that hormonal, vascular and dietetic equilibrium in which we seek to imprison it, that exorcism by fitness and hygiene. So the body has to be made to forget pleasure as present grace, to forget its possible metamorphosis into other forms of appearance and become dedicated to the Utopian preservation of a youth that is, in any case, already lost. For the body which doubts its own existence is already half-dead, and the current semi-yogic, semi-ecstatic cult of the body is a morbid preoccupation. The care taken of the body while it is alive prefigures the way it will be made up in the funeral home, where it will be given a smile that is really ‘into’ death."

Just like when we “automated the boring things”?

Instead one of the primary goals seems to be to prevent people in fields one doesn’t understand from making a living.

I have my doubts about people ever being “freed”. And what is free, really?

There is a reason monks sitting on mounds of treasure pit themselves through paces of physical and supposedly menial work. Its not because they choose some kind of holy suffering.

It’s the same reason creating a work of art means going through the paces of practice and growth. Otherwise it’s kind of empty, and you don’t learn anything.

Our chores aren’t the things imprisoning people.

There is a strong incentive to craft a narrative where their present lifestyle (live in a filthy city, busy all the time, etc) is, if not the best possible, at least unavoidable.

The alternative is depression.

I'm convinced that people derive meaning from restrictions they have to overcome. In the land of perfect convenience, everything would be instantly possible, and nothing would be valuable, so nothing would be worth doing. What would make people tick?

In this vision, convenience merges with powerlessness, leaving no options. At some point, we could observe that making things easier doesn't benefit society by freeing up time, but harms it by removing meaning.

As a believer in a transhumanist future, this possibility concerns me.

Would love for you to share this with me.

I am doing my own thing as well. A friend and I have been talking about how to raise others consciousness about all of this if it is possible and the only conclusion we come to is to push the Overton window so far that it jolts peoples mental system.

So we are striving to live a life like Franciscans, Buddhists, and Daoists. What do we really need to be content? How do we cope with our deconditioning from all the material wants?

I almost stopped reading that article because of the beginning paragraphs. Glad I did not.

Not to toot my own horn, but I struggled with this myself and ended up 'inventing' my own psuedo life-philosophy 'Experientialism'[1]. You might find this an interesting way of going about the problem.

[1] https://braunshedd.com/philosophy-and-metaphysics/what-is-ex...

Yes, I'm saying you would be better off dropping that, and instead just engaging in pure creation without any dependencies.

> Why would I be doing this if I was only going to keep all of it to myself?

That's my whole point. You shouldn't need a reason beyond "fun" or "just because" or even "keeping the hands/ears busy".

People are unreliable, having reasons that depend on other people are unreliable. Letting go of that and having only reasons that depend on yourself is reliable.

> Otherwise, the entire effort is nothing but toil with no sense of reward.

Once again, it is entirely possible to just do it without any sense of reward. I know because I've developed this mindset, while I used to crave reward.

Why do you think that getting that indoctrination is in any way whatsoever valuable? I don't watch television or listen to the radio, and don't read or watch the news. I don't miss any of it at all, and I am not in any way whatsoever harmed by it.

Most of that stuff is just distraction from the things in life that are actually important, like the people around you, or the fact that our society is explicitly designed to rob and oppress billions of people.

Getting all of that stuff out of your face and head really lets you think and focus on the things you can actually do to enrich yourself, those around you, and the world/future generations. Reject mass media and focus.

You say that, but when you're poor and society talks you down by arguing that you only get what you deserves, it feels like you're cheating and behaving like a stubborn thug.

At the end of the day, I put so much pressure on me, I ended up believing I was mentally ill, and it enabled all sort of self confidence issues and distorted views on society.

> Reality may be socially constructed, but, taken in its totality, it is not the work of any nameable individual and it certainly has little or nothing to do with any one of us.

I still have trouble projecting my lonely self in that big scheme that is human society. This whole civilization seems scary and often too full of things I'm scared of.

Ah, but at least I'm trying. And as for those others who have tried, failed, or even done harm - I'm glad that they tried, too. The major pitfall that I see people falling into is not having any real, positive goal that is bigger then themselves. Sure, you can make mistakes attaining that goal - but the biggest mistake of all is to go through life aimlessly.

I would say it is hard to live a good life if you don't value the things you create.

It is interesting to see that people weren't able to predict this behavior. However, people are unable to predict many of their own behaviors, so that isn't a damning result by itself.

At 43, having achieved a few things that even most people at this relatively high level have not, I wonder if I have not accepted too many times that the delay of gratification, was, in and of itself, evidence that the action would take me further toward my goals. Unfortunately, I don't know any way to learn how to recognize suffering-for-the-sake-of-suffering except by getting caught in those traps now and again. I have read philosophy, law, psychology. It doesn't really seem to have made a difference. Maybe it has and I simply can't perceive the mountain for all the gravel.