As I get older, the less I identify as my current state and the more I identify with the person who transitions through states. My change in perspective has reduced my anxieties and anger significantly. "This too shall pass" and all that. The more of my self image is focused on superficial things, the more I will take things personally. What we are angry about tends to be a reflection of ourselves more than the current state of affairs.
If I see myself as a busy professional I might be much more aggravated by someone at the grocery store holding up the checkout line with EBT (since I am busy they must be lazy!). If I see myself as a social climber I will always be worrying if people are using me for something (since I am using them!). If I identify with my wealth I might develop some neurosis regarding the sight of the homeless (since they represent ultimate failure!).
I don't believe in reincarnation but it is a helpful thought experiment to think about what benefits and drawbacks your particular incarnation of life holds and how those might be different if you were incarnated elsewhere.
I've had this experience myself. Actually, your description is so much kinder than mine that I think I will adopt it. What I have said up until now is that as I've gotten older, my emotional level has declined very substantially, especially in the last ten years. It's like the volume got turned down. Very few things bother me, and very few things excite me. I'd associated it until now with a sort of depersonalization but instead I will identify as just being the thing that passes through different states of being.
They're kind of the same thing, but I'd feel less weird saying it the way you did.
> Very few things bother me, and very few things excite me.
In my view, this is perfectly natural. Your emotions are tied to your expectations. As you grow older, you have seen more things, and better know what to expect. The first time you drop your ice cream cone on the ground as a child, you learn that a delicious treat can be destroyed so easily! When you drop your ice cream cone on the ground as an adult, it's like yeah, well, that happens sometimes, and hey, I've had ice cream a hundred times and I'll have it another hundred times.
In other words, since the second time something happens to you is less noteworthy than the first time, fewer noteworthy things will happen to you per year as you get older. Less noteworthy events means less excitement and a faster apparent passage of time.
I'd also say that emotional amplitude might be inversely correlated with wealth.
Considering your ice cream example: as a young adult, were I to drop my cone, I'd be distraught, because I've just lost the one little pleasure I so desired, and there's no money in the budget for replacement this week. Today, I'd just shrug and buy a new one.
This applies to almost every other situation in life too. If you have a cash reserve, trivialities just don't bother you anymore (at least until you can't get something because the store run out of stock; the influx of powerful emotions might come as a surprise then).
True to an underrecognized degree. It's a huge component of wisdom. And wisdom - which we might define as consistently well applied knowledge - is pretty ~= capacity for wealth.
More important in this day & age where big tech preys on attention in such a way that default increases emotional volatility.
a bit tangental :) recently I was wearing headphones for a zoom meeting, when someone in the same apartment asked me if I could turn down the volume, since it was so loud they could hear everyone on the meeting even with my headset on.
I had not realized how loud I was turning the system volume up in meetings, and after being conscious to it and joining at half volume, I noticed my stress during meetings and around calls in general has gone down a lot.
When I was a case worker that was one of my go-to's to get back control of a call. Turning the volume down on someone who's screaming at you over the phone makes them seem so small and reminded me that they can't hurt me. Stress goes down quickly.
I can relate. Everything is approaching a bland, grey state of "it just is".
Well, I do still talk down on and find myself frustrated by not progressing my career, but I think I am on a precipice of no longer caring. Reading HN too much is not good for my mental health though I suspect.
Aristoteles wrote this is the goal IIRC. In buddhism they aim for something similar, neither being swayed by your desires nor fears, stay calm enables being able to act instead only reacting to external stimuli on autopilot. Nothing wrong with it IMSO.
I think the word for this is "equanimity" and it is certainly a desirable state.
But it should not be "grey" like the sibling comment indicates but full of joy, bliss and wonder.
I think experiencing equanimity is a sign of releasing the ego which is natural as we age and become less attached to our ideas of who we are and closer to the reality of our impending death
i love coming back to the 4 thoughts (buddhism).
1. impermance
2. suffering
3. karma
4. precious human birth
suffering arises as a failure to recognize impermanence. thoughts and behaviors that reduce suffering create ripple effects (karma), and the same is true of thoughts and behaviors that increase suffering. and it is a rare opportunity to be born as a human and to reflect on our own conciousness and the 4 thoughts.
I had the strategy/mindset that when you are born you get a fixed credit on how you want to spend your emotions in life.
When you are young you still have plenty of credit so you spend it on anger that other kids have a nicer laptop or whatever. When you get older you realize that you only have that much credit left to spend wisely on emotions in your life.
Pro tip from me: this mental model sounded nice in bad times. But I would not follow it again any more today, and I would say you have an endless credit of emotions if you want it. Saving your emotions for “the day when you need it” does not make sense any more to me and makes me more happy.
I have a different take after a childhood of repressed emotions and some years of therapy. Emotions come and go, and they aren't what make a person, they are just something that happens.
How we notice and react to our emotions is a choice. Having emotions is not a choice.
you sure that's not a depressive episode worth talking to your doctor about? depression isn't just the stereotypical dread and angst that the movies typically display. it's more of a nothing tastes great anymore, I'm apathetic toward life, nothing excites me, etc.
I'm not the OP, but I've noticed something similar myself. I still have certain things I'm passionate about. But I no longer feel the need (or rather I don't just automatically become invested in every topic that comes up in my environment).
People do outrageous things in the world, and an earlier me might have had a self-righteous anger about it. Today, while I certainly have an intellectual care, I have the luxury of putting such things out of mind and just enjoying my day. I still take proactive steps to better the world where I think it makes sense, but not out any emotional fervor. I save my passions for my family, hobbies, and a subset of professional interests.
I haven't read the book, but from the abstract, I suspect "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" by Mark Manson is basically where I arrived. I have learned I have only so my F's to give, and so spend them more wisely.
+1 for the book. There are too many things in this always-on world to give a f..k about. I've been trying to enjoy smaller things in life more and do not react to all the shif..ry that always seems to be going on around my immediate world. Much better state of mind.
I can echo what he said though and I can tell you I am definitely not depressed. Some things do excite me, some thing do still piss me off. But overall it's definitely less. Good on the getting aggravated 'for no good reason' side. Sort of sad (not in the being depressed way) on the being excited for something side.
E.g. I still have my pet peeves at work that I will passionately talk about or convince you of. I will not get mad at you any longer if you don't change that variable name to exactly the wording I suggested.
I'm going through this now, and feel embarrassed or ashamed that it might be depression. The phrase "Nothing feels good" is so apt, it keeps running through my head. I don't feel sad, I just feel like everything is meaningless, everything is empty. The only intense emotion that grips me now is anxiety about death, which I had managed to handle for a long time now.
I just post this into the void to avoid burdening my family and friends. I should go do the dishes...
Nothing to be embarrassed about... it's just your brain chemistry not being quite right. an illness like any other. perhaps it's a good idea to talk to your doctor or mental health professional about it?
Not OP, but at least for me it's the deliberate act of not reacting to shit always. Still enjoy a bowl of pasta at my favorite restaurant or a piece of dark chocolate.still joyful seeing the full moon or the occasional mars in the sky!
> Very few things bother me, and very few things excite me.
the bother part is fine, but i want to stay being excited even by everyday things like a good book, music, a small treat, a cup of coffee or a meal i just cooked for myself.
not worrying about everything does not have to mean not to be excited about everything.
(i guess it also comes down to how one defines "excited")
Self-awareness is how I look at it. And it is finally taking hold with age :)
I can better manage my emotions by simply being able to recognize them almost from an outsider’s perspective. My inner monologue switches to 3rd person
“Yeah you’re feeling super irritable right now, you better go chill out somewhere before you say something you don’t mean and then create a whole big thing for no reason”
Younger me would have started some shit and created unnecessary problems
This is similar to how I approach cognitive biases; I cannot prevent them, as they are innate to human nature. But I posit that if I try to make myself aware of the influence of bias, it might be more managable/less impactful when it affects me.
I've thought for a long time that the world is, in a sense, a mirror: what you see out there is a reflection of yourself. A social climber worrying about being used is a part of that I hadn't considered before.
There's many degrees of accuracy for truth that have nothing to do with ourselves. What you see and experience generally can reach a high level of accuracy -> "He is already an L6 by 30."
It is the motives and reasons behind events that are most subject to gap filling with our personal experiences "He must be climbing the corporate ladder."
When the Bible (via Jesus) speaks about judging, it is referring to being cautious with assessing motives, not drawing conclusions about factual happenings.
So true. I read an article ago where they studied aging and they found that everything about a person degrades, eyesight, strength, cognition, etc with the exception of impulse control and patience. As you age, you mellow out and are less tethered to knee jerk reactions.
For me, as someone approaching 'early geezerdom', I see it in my work interactions. What used to bother me, I can now let pass.
"As I get older, the less I identify as my current state and the more I identify with the person who transitions through states."
This sounds neat, but once you set the states aside - what's left? :) Who's that person? Our identity is a sum of these states. The rest (navigating through states) is an illusion. Just like movement in a video is an illusion created by consecutive frames. The sense of continuity is a magic trick.
I could agree that some (perhaps most, who knows) self-identifications are unnecessary and burdening, toxic even. And possibly cost more than the value they bring into our life, especially since we tend to cling on to them for too long.
"This too shall pass", if meant as a universal motto, isn't an attitude that would inevitably stem from this observation, though (in my view).
Say, being a parent is also a phase, in a way, it's just a state of my life and personhood. Not the essence of myself. But I do care about my son nevertheless. This makes me more vulnerable and potentially frustrated, but well, that's what constitutes being a person.
"What we are angry about tends to be a reflection of ourselves more than the current state of affairs"
That's no different from what we're happy about, etc. Without personhood all is just an enormous cloud of elementary particles floating in the dark
> Without personhood all is just an enormous cloud of elementary particles floating in the dark
I don't understand. Dropping personhood and ego doesn't mean dropping feeling, wisdom or meaning. In fact, it is precisely when the ego is dissolved that we can feel most meaningfully connected to ultimate reality. Our personhood is not what makes raw matter ("elementary particles floating in the dark") vibrant, alive and coherent. Personhood is a very useful social-cognitive illusion but, when dropped, the world tends to become richer not more empty. Nah?
Aside, but for those like me who can't help but wonder: EBT (I believe) stands for electronic benefit transfer, apparently an electronic payment method issued by welfare departments in the USA.
Yes - it is the successor of food stamps. Every time I’m back home and see someone ahead of me paying with it, I say a prayer of thanks that I’ve never had to make do with it and another prayer that I never will.
Right, I work to keep my identity small and to be adaptable. Making things "always about you" is seeing the world through that identity tainted lens and positioning the world as if you are the center. I instead try to be observational and LARP into any situation as if I'm in an improv show.
I think the homeless don’t scare people necessarily because they are a what-might-be but rather because of being a what-is. In the us you might get a bad conscience if you see a homeless person but hey at least your salary is good. In Europe we pay so many taxes that it feels a bit different.
"What we are angry about tends to be a reflection of ourselves more than the current state of affairs."
Absolutely. It is definitely hard to cut through all the fluff when we are emotional but this realization has helped me so many times and, this applies not just at work. Just as we are going through these states and the self-awareness is important, it helps to also realize that others are transiting too through these different states.
I'm reminded of an another thought that was shared here a while back that I try to remember often:
“Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone.
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.”
Your comment is very well put and reminds me of this quote from Boethius:
>It's my belief that history is a wheel. "Inconsistency is my very essence" -says the wheel- "Rise up on my spokes if you like, but don't complain when you are cast back down into the depths. Good times pass away, but then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but it is also our hope. The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away".
If I see myself as a busy professional I might be much more aggravated by someone at the grocery store holding up the checkout line with EBT (since I am busy they must be lazy!). If I see myself as a social climber I will always be worrying if people are using me for something (since I am using them!). If I identify with my wealth I might develop some neurosis regarding the sight of the homeless (since they represent ultimate failure!).
I don't believe in reincarnation but it is a helpful thought experiment to think about what benefits and drawbacks your particular incarnation of life holds and how those might be different if you were incarnated elsewhere.