Eudaimonia

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3132208

it's important to understand how shame and guilt actually work before you try to use it for good.

Not that anybody asked, but I think it's important to understand how shame and guilt actually work before you try to use it for good.

It's a necessary emotion. There are reasons we have it. It makes everything so. much. worse. when you use it wrong.

Shame and guilt are DE-motivators. They are meant to stop behavior, not promote it. You cannot, ever, in any meaningful way, guilt someone into doing good. You can only shame them into not doing bad.

Let's say you're a parent and your kid is having issues.

Swearing in class? Shame could work. You want them to stop it. Keep it in proportion, and it might help. (KEEP IT IN PROPORTION!!!)

Not doing their homework? NO! STOP! NO NOT DO THAT! EVER! EVER! EVER! You want them to start to do their homework. Shaming them will have to opposite effect! You have demotivated them! They will double down on NOT doing it. Not because they are being oppositional, but because that's what shame does!

You can't guilt people into building better habits, being more successful, or getting more involved. That requires encouragement. You need to motivate for that stuff!

If you want it in a simple phrase:

You can shame someone out of being a bad person, but you can't shame them into being a good person.

It was nice to see this put so clearly. This election cycle has left me exhausted and demotivated, and this hits it square on the head.

stolen from https://grungekitty-77.tumblr.com/post/754482938951892992/fun-fact-that-was-literally-what-inspired-me-to

hi hello, rather ironic title, considering i spent the last day and a half on my feet continuously (i'm a chronic chair sitter, as of the last year or so) and so my physical body is kinda fucking through the wringer right now. Plus i'm feeling kinda shitty right now for one reason or another. And also i've got an operation tomorrow, which will rock my world for a bit, i'll be fine though. No worries about me.

also some context here, anytime i say "body" i'm referring to the whole physiological construction of yourself, body and mind included, though not explicitly mutual. There are instances where it wouldn't be.

Anyway, i wanted to talk about something i don't really see anybody talking about, or at least i feel like people should consider more frequently. This would be utilizing a better understanding of your body and how it works, as a method to improve your life (hence coping in the title)

As someone who probably has ADHD and/or autism, as well as some other unimportant distinctions here, i would like to complain about the incessant pushing of "habits" and "big pharma" solutions, not to knock on anybody, i just don't know if it's the correct solution. (rest assured, no pharma talk yet, it's too much to get into for this post)

Particularly with habits in this case, i find that people often tend to use them as a stop gap measure to prevent certain problems from arising (forgetfulness for example) and while it's often useful to do such things, i think it's also important to consider what causes these problems in the first place. I feel, at least for me, and i imagine some others as well that often times you don't need a habit to exist, you just need a cooperative environment. (let's call them environmental habits for now)

Let's take a simple example here a cluttered desk. A lot of people would probably start at "well you should regularly clean it" which isn't bad, as well as "you should be careful to not clutter it" however this is where i differ. I think to the best of your ability, you should configure it in such a manner that it minimizes the potential for clutter. This doesn't just force you to build habits, but will also subconsciously reinforce them.

in my case, i have a rather large desk, it's very messy. It always is. Were i to rebuild it i would build it smaller, and designate certain spots for certain things that need to be on it. Which will help to fundamentally minimize the clutter on it. Another example would be an organization system for something like KNEX (if anybody remembers those) The simplest most fundamental solution here is what i want, bins with pieces sorted by type. Trivially accessible, ideally through some sort of shelf that enables them to be individually slid out. Anything more and i won't build, and less and i won't be building productively.

Any who, enough of this boring chitchat, let's apply it more broadly, that's more exciting! I'll call it auto-physiological research for now. I think there is considerable benefit to be had from applying this train of thought in a more broad fashion. One thing i like to do every couple of years or so is to change a significant aspect of my life, just to see how my body handles it, how i handle it, and how it impacts my life. If i drink coffee, i might stop drinking coffee, if i have a regularly scheduled sleep cycle, i might try a natural schedule to let my body deal with it instead. If i socialize a lot one year, i might spend another isolating more.

Research is often times about trying to forcefully separate the conjoined variables and constants of any given concept. You can apply this to your body in a similar manner, in order to "reverse engineer" how you work as a functional person.

Here's a rather trivial one to mess with, most people have pretty regular and strict food consumption schedules. We generally consume the same foods everyday at the same general times. Literally just change it. See what happens. The body is a remarkably adaptable organism. (just don't hurt yourself, that's no good)

Tidbit of the day:

Find something in your life that bothers you, or that you don't understand, and try different things, see how you handle them, see how your body responds, and most importantly learn something and try to use it to your advantage.

It's important to constantly learn new things and keep your brain busy, it helps your mental health and prevents cognitive decline. Thusly it should apply doubly so when it's your body that you're learning about.

ok, goodbye now, i will return later once my lucidity returns :)

I wrote this a long time ago. It might be insightful to some of you.

I'm back again, after a few weeks, have had some time to mull over my thoughts and i've been bothered by something recently so figured, i'd dump it here since this place is pretty slick.

I see a lot of people engaging with certain things e.g. politics (this isn't about politics dw) on a very surface level manner, and i have a few problems with it, i'm not getting into the meta problems here since it's not about politics. But i will get into the more social problems i have with it.

The biggest problem that i have with it is that it promotes an unhealthy level of interaction with topics and concepts, it promotes focusing on the optics more so than the underlying mechanics which can lead to you having incredibly shallow beliefs (another topic i'll probably come back to in a later post) which can undermine your belief structure. As well as leading to you feeling or believing that you are accomplishing something, when in reality all you're doing is yelling at someone on the internet. Anger is an incredibly powerful emotion, that's why it's been commoditized so often.

Most of the time, when you end up engaging in this kind of rhetoric, it is intentional, not on your side ironically but on the side of social function of it's purpose. Let's take an example from history, the salem witch trials are a perfect example of this problem. From a social aspect, the purpose is to exert control over society. It's understood differently from a personal view, and that's intentional.

Try to be conscious of how you interact with people, especially those in group settings. Try to speak for a purposeful manner. It's important that the collective meaning of the words you convey primarily go towards improving things. Now i'm not saying that you shouldn't have fun with your friends, goof around, be silly and just generally have a good time, that's different we're humans and we're social creatures, it's important to do that as well. I'm just saying that it's important to be conscious of what you're consuming, how you're contemplating it, how you respond to it, and most importantly how you engage with other people.

Don't think too hard about the things you see online that irk you, ultimately in the grand scheme of things, they mean nothing and they will never amount to nothing. It's more important that you try and genuinely interact with other people, the most powerful force of change is human interaction. Oh and if you find yourself engaging in this, don't be hard on yourself, just be consciously aware of it and it's impacts.

A classic from Cracked. I even blogged about it back in the day

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15004731

Found here, where the image also has the text as an ALT image description. https://chaos.social/@saxnot/112349120606446433

i regret to inform you that you have probably created one of the more interesting communities to me, and i will almost certainly be back. I have a lot of thoughts in regards to living life to a productively healthy state. anyway, for the first post, since it's late and i have things to be doing, I'll be keeping this short.

I believe that in order to mutually benefit other people in a positive manner, I.E. positively impact others lives. That you must be happy and fulfilled yourself, much like maslows hierarchy of needs. You must first be content and happy with your life, before you can extend it to other people.

Tonight's message is that indulging in selfish behaviors can be productive, you just need to know when to apply them.

Too much of society is focused on how you can benefit others, or be collectively productive for society, rather than allowing you to grow as an individual. Which often times benefits society greatly.