The guide to stop worrying.
If you don't like reading, here is a brilliant piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5RH3BdXDOY
If you like to read and have 3 minutes, let me introduce my theory about 'not giving a fuck', broken down to 3 levels. Each level tells the same thing in increasing detail and complexity.
Stop worrying because it does not help you!
Technology to your social needs is what sugar is to your nutritional needs.
Technology = facebook, instagram, snapchat, whatsapp groups
Sugar is so addictive because we, humans have evolved to love easily available energy sources. It has made us obese and as much as modern agriculture is a bless and nobody ever goes hungry in our societies, it has spurred a new epidemic.
Social information is so addictive because we evolved to be interested in social news, such as who is friends and enemies with who and who fucks who. There used to be a limited amount of this information available and it used to be much more relevant. It is unlimited and less relevant today, and this is why you should go on a social diet.
here is my claim:
In big cities today, minimizing the tracking of social news yields happier people.
Diet is to sugar what nophone is to social media.
Exercise is to sugar what self-esteem is to worrying.
my claim re-formulated:
In big cities today, long-term happiness comes from genuinely caring less about others and more about oneself.
more practically:
In big cities today, people should practice a lot of mindfulness to steer their monkey brains away from self-harming.
Stop worrying!
Why? By now, you must know exactly why: it's useless.
What is it actually that you worry about? That people will like you less? That they will make fun of you? That your social status will erode? That you will be less secure?
All these superficial worries lead back to the actual worry: being less well-off due to less security and receiving less future services from friends.
Today vs then:
1. Your ancestors had more time and less information to process. It made sense to use their time navigating their limited number of options and maximizing their social choices (who they formed alliances with).
2. Your ancestors' setting was such that their social status and connectedness meant success.
Your income depends not on how up to date you are with gossip but on how your skills are and how well you can sell them.
Your degree of lovedness does not correlate with the number of likes you give on people's posts. It is the private, one-on-one moments of social interaction with people that genuinely care about you that creates sustainable, long-term emotional value.
Most of what humans' brains have been doing for eons is keeping track of those social interactions.
It is hader to do today than any time before.
Simply because we 'know' more people than ever before.
Another evolved human need is to know everything about people around you. It made total sense back in the days of tribal existence and even later on in villages, when you knew all the people you ever interacted with. You were worth as much as others thought of you.
Knowing your position and other's position in a social group was extremely crucial even just 100 years ago. It is arguably much less important now and it depends a great deal on what the size of your community is.
It is impossible today to get enough information about social interactions. Your facebook feed does not have an end. You can always get more pieces of the infinite social puzzle.
The same way you should have understood by now that sugar is bad for you and hunger sometimes has to be managed to stay healthy, you should also intuit that too much obsessive 'social gorging' is going to fuck with your mental sanity.
When in doubt, just remember that you are a collection of atoms on the surface of an average planet orbiting around an average star. Hopefully this will make you take things less seriously and will allow you to give less fucks and just be more content.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5RH3BdXDOY
If you like to read and have 3 minutes, let me introduce my theory about 'not giving a fuck', broken down to 3 levels. Each level tells the same thing in increasing detail and complexity.
Level I
Stop worrying because it does not help you!
Level II
Technology = facebook, instagram, snapchat, whatsapp groups
Sugar is so addictive because we, humans have evolved to love easily available energy sources. It has made us obese and as much as modern agriculture is a bless and nobody ever goes hungry in our societies, it has spurred a new epidemic.
Social information is so addictive because we evolved to be interested in social news, such as who is friends and enemies with who and who fucks who. There used to be a limited amount of this information available and it used to be much more relevant. It is unlimited and less relevant today, and this is why you should go on a social diet.
here is my claim:
In big cities today, minimizing the tracking of social news yields happier people.
Diet is to sugar what nophone is to social media.
Exercise is to sugar what self-esteem is to worrying.
my claim re-formulated:
In big cities today, long-term happiness comes from genuinely caring less about others and more about oneself.
more practically:
In big cities today, people should practice a lot of mindfulness to steer their monkey brains away from self-harming.
Level III
Stop worrying!
Why? By now, you must know exactly why: it's useless.
What is it actually that you worry about? That people will like you less? That they will make fun of you? That your social status will erode? That you will be less secure?
All these superficial worries lead back to the actual worry: being less well-off due to less security and receiving less future services from friends.
Today vs then:
1. Your ancestors had more time and less information to process. It made sense to use their time navigating their limited number of options and maximizing their social choices (who they formed alliances with).
2. Your ancestors' setting was such that their social status and connectedness meant success.
Your degree of lovedness does not correlate with the number of likes you give on people's posts. It is the private, one-on-one moments of social interaction with people that genuinely care about you that creates sustainable, long-term emotional value.
Most of what humans' brains have been doing for eons is keeping track of those social interactions.
It is hader to do today than any time before.
Simply because we 'know' more people than ever before.
Another evolved human need is to know everything about people around you. It made total sense back in the days of tribal existence and even later on in villages, when you knew all the people you ever interacted with. You were worth as much as others thought of you.
Knowing your position and other's position in a social group was extremely crucial even just 100 years ago. It is arguably much less important now and it depends a great deal on what the size of your community is.
It is impossible today to get enough information about social interactions. Your facebook feed does not have an end. You can always get more pieces of the infinite social puzzle.
The same way you should have understood by now that sugar is bad for you and hunger sometimes has to be managed to stay healthy, you should also intuit that too much obsessive 'social gorging' is going to fuck with your mental sanity.
When in doubt, just remember that you are a collection of atoms on the surface of an average planet orbiting around an average star. Hopefully this will make you take things less seriously and will allow you to give less fucks and just be more content.
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