Well, this may not be what you intended, but this is a serious call to action for me to finally look into whether or not I have bipolar disorder and, if so, start untangling that whole mess for myself. I'm terrified to journey down this rabbit hole, but it seems to connect a lot of dots -- and if getting medicated has helped you enough that it's worth listing here, that's a good push for me.
This is very much me. Except I didn't really pull myself out of it. It was the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic I was done with life. Basically my feeling was "Wait until my mom and dog die, then evaluate whether and how to end it."
Then the pandemic happened and it was insanely awesome. I loved working from home. I loved everyone being outside a lot. I loved that the drive ins re-opened. I loved my favorite bands having a Friday afternoon livestream I could watch as I finished up working (at home!) And then continue listening as I walked the dog. I loved every goddam thing.
And now Im.....a happy person. I literally never thought I'd say that. I've had that same feeling you and about the bridges. If the reaper came I'd no longer say "Thank God I hate it here." Now I'd say "That actually ended ok. I'm good. I'll come with you, Mr. D"
Im still WFH which is provably the biggest single plus. I miss some of the other stuff. No more packed tuesday night drive ins. But thats ok.
The fact that it wasn't me that did it is what terrifies me. The luck of the world gave this to me and could take it away. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. And I think I'll find some way to manage it. Even if it might mean an income cut or whatever.
Also combat sports were insanely important. Kudos. What do you do?
I lost 50 pounds and got an amateur title during the pandemic. (Actually I have a fight tomorrow, Friday 3/15. Wish me luck)
The satisfaction of "a really good, honest, connective, unpredictable conversation, of the kind that I would’ve been lucky to have three times a year previously,” is so hard to articulate, but I know exactly what you mean.
I'm particularly interested to know how Sasha's social patterns and habits have changed, to enable this. I feel like compared to when I was in college, it's 20x harder to make situations where a deep and connective conversation is possible.
Really interesting points. I also wonder if for some, their definition of happiness is skewed with what is status quo, even when that’s not aligned with their own personal version of happiness. In those situations a huge increase in happiness can be possible, but the person has to overcome a social barrier of contradiction and discover what their true happiness is and then work against the tide to achieve it.
Very thought-inspiring piece! To the list of things that make me happier I would add “drastically reduce my consumption of social media”. It has really helped, especially these past few months. So much less toxic noise in my daily life! I’d like to say “drastically reduce consumption of news” as well, but alas, I haven’t yet pulled that off. Also, can I add that doing something to make someone else happier also makes me happier.
There is one way in which the 'set-point happiness' theory seems helpful or accurate to me and that is the idea that once you're fairly solidly happy or content within yourself, it is hard for external circumstances to make you permanently miserable again. This is the finding that people who lose limbs (for instance) later on rate themselves as similarly happy as they were before.
I've always been a fairly optimistic person but I still became vastly happier in my thirties by becoming less self-hating/self-critical, more confident, more financially secure/capable, more able to deal with difficult emotions. Once you have these skills you don't really ever lose them, despite later difficult or traumatic experiences (perhaps this is what people mean by resilience).
I've had some objectively terrible stuff happen in the last couple of months, which is not resolved yet, but I woke up this morning not feeling scared anymore but rather kind of settled and thinking, 'well, we'll deal with this whatever comes'. Also, I'm in love and engaged and very happy in that, and I would be heartbroken if I lost my partner, but I am also pretty sure I would have the social support and resources to *eventually* recover from the grief and be happy again.
So I think the idea of a set point has some usefulness in the sense that once you've securely reached a point, you're at much less risk of slipping back down to previous levels.
Another issue here is that the research focuses on events that are easy to describe or measure. Studies that turned me on to the set point being legit focused on "does [not getting tenure/losing a limb/initiating a divorce] make you less happy" and the answer was "for a bit, then no because you return to your set point." but the experiences you point to here, which very much jive with my own, aren't happening to college kids or those otherwise accessible to researchers. If there was a study of happiness levels in people who had no concept of, then later sought, non dualistic experiences, it consistently failed to come up in my keyword searches.
ram dass liked to tell the story of the drunk looking for his keys under the streetlight. didn't you lose them in the alley, goes the joke. yeah, he says, but the light is better over here. turns out peer review happens in the streetlight too.
''In my experience, happiness translates into capacity. Happy people tend to make other people happy, tend to have more emotional endurance and more flexibility, et cetera—the effects are prosocial.''. That rings so true.
At the same time, the time spent ''working/developping for happiness'' is not necessarily prosocial or immediately making one more prosocial in all respects. I'd be interested to hear / read about balancing between reaping and sharing effects of efforts at happiness, on one hand, vs engaging time and energy into developing one's own happiness, say (as is my case) through meditation and meditation-related activities.
For a time at least, and for me at least, meditation related effects can present as very much not prosocial, in the sense that if I was previously fundamentally motivated by, say, fear, I might disengage from a social commitment if fear is no longer moving me like it did. That might well be ultimately positive, and in the long term lead to making better overall decisions in commitments, and it does feel subjectively 10x better to not be gripped by fear, but in the short term it is probably very disagreeable to the people I'm not reliably showing up for.
Interested to read how other people are navigating this. :)
I think it's a matter of the scope of one's view. If you're trying to climb a small mountain, there will be ups and downs before you reach the peak, and it probably won't take more than a weekend and minimal sacrifice of the other parts of one's life. If you're trying to reach the highest point of an entire mountain range, that will take more sacrifice and more structural changes to one's life.
When we embark on the journey of meditation or spiritual practice, we're trying to traverse the mountain range, not just reach the height of one of the local foothills. It's going to take longer. Other parts of one's life are obviously going to require reduced attention for a period. When the journey is completed (or when one has reached a high enough peak that one is reasonably satisfied by reducing one's efforts), then one can look back down and see what one needs to do.
From that height, it may become apparent that many of the things we thought were pro-social actually aren't as impactful as we thought. And conversely, things we thought were unimportant may turn out to be vital. It may be helpful to have a degree of skepticism about one's own beliefs about what is "pro-social" and what isn't. How much of our beliefs in that regard are caught up in fears from childhood, misunderstood or mistaught lessons from parents or other authority figures, trauma responses, tribal ideological commitments, and so on? Hopefully less, as we go on.
Personally, I discovered the cost of getting caught up in a lot of those misconceptions quite heavily after spending 8 years in a codependent relationship with questionable boundaries, as well as overinvesting time and energy in commitments that I felt were vital for me to take on--but in retrospect I had no business taking on given how overwhelmed I was.
At this point in my journey (meditative and otherwise), I genuinely don't know what the most "pro-social" way for me to function is. But I'm not stressed about it. I've already seen that I'm more helpful and a better support for others naturally without effort when I'm happier and healthier. So I'll continue focusing on my personal practice for now and give the rest attention when it becomes obvious that it needs attention.
I often think about moving away from a small grey city to somewhere sunnier or more cycle-friendly, and then I think about how I'd miss my friends and scene. Any thoughts or experiences on this?
You write: “In my experience, happiness translates into capacity.” How do you square this with the fact that your favorite writers are or were sadness specialists? Do you think you would have enjoyed their works if they weren’t, on the whole, unhappy?
Super good question! I think productive writers need something to militate against or document. But that doesn't need to come from sadness. I can think of lots of productive writers who seem comfortable with being alive, from Peter Hessler to Tyler Cowen.
I still admire the sadness merchant artists I used to love on technique grounds – Elliott Smith still seems to me one of the finest melodists of the past century– but they don't speak to me as much.
Well, this may not be what you intended, but this is a serious call to action for me to finally look into whether or not I have bipolar disorder and, if so, start untangling that whole mess for myself. I'm terrified to journey down this rabbit hole, but it seems to connect a lot of dots -- and if getting medicated has helped you enough that it's worth listing here, that's a good push for me.
Godspeed
Good luck. I've seen quite a few people get a lot better after being diagnosed in the bipolar support groups I've joined.
kudos to you and good luck, friend
This is very much me. Except I didn't really pull myself out of it. It was the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic I was done with life. Basically my feeling was "Wait until my mom and dog die, then evaluate whether and how to end it."
Then the pandemic happened and it was insanely awesome. I loved working from home. I loved everyone being outside a lot. I loved that the drive ins re-opened. I loved my favorite bands having a Friday afternoon livestream I could watch as I finished up working (at home!) And then continue listening as I walked the dog. I loved every goddam thing.
And now Im.....a happy person. I literally never thought I'd say that. I've had that same feeling you and about the bridges. If the reaper came I'd no longer say "Thank God I hate it here." Now I'd say "That actually ended ok. I'm good. I'll come with you, Mr. D"
Im still WFH which is provably the biggest single plus. I miss some of the other stuff. No more packed tuesday night drive ins. But thats ok.
The fact that it wasn't me that did it is what terrifies me. The luck of the world gave this to me and could take it away. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. And I think I'll find some way to manage it. Even if it might mean an income cut or whatever.
Also combat sports were insanely important. Kudos. What do you do?
I lost 50 pounds and got an amateur title during the pandemic. (Actually I have a fight tomorrow, Friday 3/15. Wish me luck)
My boxing match ended with a split decision loss for me if you were curious.
:(
I've got a rematch in 6 weeks. This guys going down then.
You've got this, Amos!
Ty. Needed that, bud.
Love this, thanks for writing, and for helping argue against the lazy automatic connection people make between intelligence and misery
The satisfaction of "a really good, honest, connective, unpredictable conversation, of the kind that I would’ve been lucky to have three times a year previously,” is so hard to articulate, but I know exactly what you mean.
I'm particularly interested to know how Sasha's social patterns and habits have changed, to enable this. I feel like compared to when I was in college, it's 20x harder to make situations where a deep and connective conversation is possible.
Really interesting points. I also wonder if for some, their definition of happiness is skewed with what is status quo, even when that’s not aligned with their own personal version of happiness. In those situations a huge increase in happiness can be possible, but the person has to overcome a social barrier of contradiction and discover what their true happiness is and then work against the tide to achieve it.
Very thought-inspiring piece! To the list of things that make me happier I would add “drastically reduce my consumption of social media”. It has really helped, especially these past few months. So much less toxic noise in my daily life! I’d like to say “drastically reduce consumption of news” as well, but alas, I haven’t yet pulled that off. Also, can I add that doing something to make someone else happier also makes me happier.
There is one way in which the 'set-point happiness' theory seems helpful or accurate to me and that is the idea that once you're fairly solidly happy or content within yourself, it is hard for external circumstances to make you permanently miserable again. This is the finding that people who lose limbs (for instance) later on rate themselves as similarly happy as they were before.
I've always been a fairly optimistic person but I still became vastly happier in my thirties by becoming less self-hating/self-critical, more confident, more financially secure/capable, more able to deal with difficult emotions. Once you have these skills you don't really ever lose them, despite later difficult or traumatic experiences (perhaps this is what people mean by resilience).
I've had some objectively terrible stuff happen in the last couple of months, which is not resolved yet, but I woke up this morning not feeling scared anymore but rather kind of settled and thinking, 'well, we'll deal with this whatever comes'. Also, I'm in love and engaged and very happy in that, and I would be heartbroken if I lost my partner, but I am also pretty sure I would have the social support and resources to *eventually* recover from the grief and be happy again.
So I think the idea of a set point has some usefulness in the sense that once you've securely reached a point, you're at much less risk of slipping back down to previous levels.
Another issue here is that the research focuses on events that are easy to describe or measure. Studies that turned me on to the set point being legit focused on "does [not getting tenure/losing a limb/initiating a divorce] make you less happy" and the answer was "for a bit, then no because you return to your set point." but the experiences you point to here, which very much jive with my own, aren't happening to college kids or those otherwise accessible to researchers. If there was a study of happiness levels in people who had no concept of, then later sought, non dualistic experiences, it consistently failed to come up in my keyword searches.
ram dass liked to tell the story of the drunk looking for his keys under the streetlight. didn't you lose them in the alley, goes the joke. yeah, he says, but the light is better over here. turns out peer review happens in the streetlight too.
Adding one more data point (not me):
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZbgCx2ntD5eu8Cno9/how-to-be-happy
Thanks for writing this, Sasha!
''In my experience, happiness translates into capacity. Happy people tend to make other people happy, tend to have more emotional endurance and more flexibility, et cetera—the effects are prosocial.''. That rings so true.
At the same time, the time spent ''working/developping for happiness'' is not necessarily prosocial or immediately making one more prosocial in all respects. I'd be interested to hear / read about balancing between reaping and sharing effects of efforts at happiness, on one hand, vs engaging time and energy into developing one's own happiness, say (as is my case) through meditation and meditation-related activities.
For a time at least, and for me at least, meditation related effects can present as very much not prosocial, in the sense that if I was previously fundamentally motivated by, say, fear, I might disengage from a social commitment if fear is no longer moving me like it did. That might well be ultimately positive, and in the long term lead to making better overall decisions in commitments, and it does feel subjectively 10x better to not be gripped by fear, but in the short term it is probably very disagreeable to the people I'm not reliably showing up for.
Interested to read how other people are navigating this. :)
I think it's a matter of the scope of one's view. If you're trying to climb a small mountain, there will be ups and downs before you reach the peak, and it probably won't take more than a weekend and minimal sacrifice of the other parts of one's life. If you're trying to reach the highest point of an entire mountain range, that will take more sacrifice and more structural changes to one's life.
When we embark on the journey of meditation or spiritual practice, we're trying to traverse the mountain range, not just reach the height of one of the local foothills. It's going to take longer. Other parts of one's life are obviously going to require reduced attention for a period. When the journey is completed (or when one has reached a high enough peak that one is reasonably satisfied by reducing one's efforts), then one can look back down and see what one needs to do.
From that height, it may become apparent that many of the things we thought were pro-social actually aren't as impactful as we thought. And conversely, things we thought were unimportant may turn out to be vital. It may be helpful to have a degree of skepticism about one's own beliefs about what is "pro-social" and what isn't. How much of our beliefs in that regard are caught up in fears from childhood, misunderstood or mistaught lessons from parents or other authority figures, trauma responses, tribal ideological commitments, and so on? Hopefully less, as we go on.
Personally, I discovered the cost of getting caught up in a lot of those misconceptions quite heavily after spending 8 years in a codependent relationship with questionable boundaries, as well as overinvesting time and energy in commitments that I felt were vital for me to take on--but in retrospect I had no business taking on given how overwhelmed I was.
At this point in my journey (meditative and otherwise), I genuinely don't know what the most "pro-social" way for me to function is. But I'm not stressed about it. I've already seen that I'm more helpful and a better support for others naturally without effort when I'm happier and healthier. So I'll continue focusing on my personal practice for now and give the rest attention when it becomes obvious that it needs attention.
I often think about moving away from a small grey city to somewhere sunnier or more cycle-friendly, and then I think about how I'd miss my friends and scene. Any thoughts or experiences on this?
Social stuff is hard to replace! Try this: https://www.benkuhn.net/lux/
Positive therapeutic experiences are something I could relate to. Such a wonderful tool for many!
Hi Sasha,
You write: “In my experience, happiness translates into capacity.” How do you square this with the fact that your favorite writers are or were sadness specialists? Do you think you would have enjoyed their works if they weren’t, on the whole, unhappy?
Super good question! I think productive writers need something to militate against or document. But that doesn't need to come from sadness. I can think of lots of productive writers who seem comfortable with being alive, from Peter Hessler to Tyler Cowen.
I still admire the sadness merchant artists I used to love on technique grounds – Elliott Smith still seems to me one of the finest melodists of the past century– but they don't speak to me as much.
Great Inspirational Post! Love to see poeple walking their talk. Thank you.
I too frequently consider that I might be about to die while crossing a bridge 😅
Just found your stack, I love your vibe!