[bingobongo1]

>After years of feeling guilty about not wanting to do everything...

Has the author asked themselves why they feel guilt about not wanting to do "everything"?

Is it possible that the form of discipline being promoted here under the tag "Productivity" is entirely unnecessary for a satisfying human existence, and that it is primarily caused by cultural forces?

Is it possible that such a focus on this relentless productivity, caused by our society, is related to the feeling of guilt that comes with perceiving oneself as 'undisciplined'?

Anyone who is commenting on how this opposes the nature of zen or other mindfulness lineages is on the right track and anyone who is still justifying cramming as much activity into every moment of their lives in the name of productivity is doomed to repeatedly feel the guilt and shame that comes along with not living up to these cultural standards.

[trilinearnz]

I agree with this, and know people who have an unhealthy ambition for "doing productive things" with no time set aside for compensatory energy recovery through relaxation. I see these people fall into de-facto relaxation through exhaustion. They end up relaxing, but will feel guilt during it. This kind of audience would not benefit from productivity advice, as they are already operating on an extreme level.

On the other end of the scale are people like myself, who have a real problem motivating themselves to do tasks which really do objectively need to get done (e.g. mowing the lawn, cleaning the bathroom). Why do they need to get done? Because if they don't they would have a net negative effect on your quality of life / even basic hygiene. It's people closer on this end of the spectrum that I think benefit from advice like this.

Certainly there is no absolute law that says you "have to" do anything. That's freedom of choice which we all ultimately have. In practical terms though, unless you are willing to accept an extremely low standard of living, certain basics do need to get done. People with depression will probably be able to understand where I'm coming from with this :)

[bingobongo1]

I agree and have been there in terms of looming depression preventing you from getting the basic human activities done, but I can't separate that depression from the spirit of my comment either. It was largely related to feeling trapped by our western work culture.

In terms of the basic activities of living, it can still help to address the aversion to the task head on by realizing the actual nature of the task.

The task isn't what it appears, but is in fact just a concept we impute to aggregate phenomena.

Is washing dishes standing at the sink? No. Is washing dishes the running water? No. Is washing dishes holding a single plate and sponge? No. Is washing dishes dispensing soap onto the sponge? No.

Washing dishes is the combination of several interdependent causes.

Tasks that we're averse to are simply aggregations of various other imputed concepts, and so the unified activity that triggers our sense of aversion isn't actually based on anything substantial.

Speaking personally, aversion arises for me a lot of the time as a sense of lost time to one activity or another, but the concept of 'just being' suggests that whatever activity you do is perfectly fine on a fundamental level.

No time is wasted because every activity you do is 'of one taste' essentially - it's all the same in terms of being aggregate phenomena wrapped up into a unified concept by humans that triggers aversion based on our individual conditioning.

So realizing that the aversion isn't real and substantial, reflect on the positive nature of completing the task and the positive effects it will have. Instead of repressing your negative thoughts (forcefully not thinking), see them as insubstantial.

Thanks for your reply :)

[Eugeleo]

Who _are_ you?

Now, don't take this personally; there's just not many people that I know that could out-smart plain old dishwashing on such a fundamental philosophical level. I'd love to know what's your background and how you learned think in this way — and I'm asking mostly because I could use some of this way of thinking in my life as well.

I am what most people would call a "productive person" — I'm at one of the best universities in my country, have top grades, have a part-time position in a pretty good research facility, and I'm also slowly chipping away at my startup idea.

Sometimes I'm all happy about this, but other times I see that there's not much time for being "myself" between all these activities. Now, please, bear with me — it's hard to put it in words.

Often I ask myself whether I actually care about these activities, or whether I do them just because it is easier to fill my free time with all sorts of different things and delegate the question of „what should I do next” to external factors. The fact that I don't really care for good grades but at the same time act as if I did care, for example, made me wonder whether the values I have been raised with are really _my_ values, or whether I follow and fulfil them just due to some kind inertia mixed with inability to find my own values. And I’m sure that not only my cowardice and the imprinted values are at fault — the western culture is surely doing its part as well.

But don't get me wrong — I enjoy being the best, I enjoy programming (@ the startup) and the hard work (@ the facility). I just don't know whether it's me enjoying the stuff or some frankenstein of my parents' values and general cultural views occupying the space inside my head... I’m not exactly unhappy, I’m just not sure whether I’m taking the right path here, that is to say „my path” [1]. I think that learning how to think about things on a fundamental level, as you did, could help me in my case as well.

[1] A little side note: From the practical point of view, being raised to be "the best" has its warts — e.g. when your entire self-worth depends on external measures of "bestness" and crowds of people that praise you for your brilliance. So, even though I'm not unhappy, I foresee that I certainly will be at some point in the future if I don't rethink my values and a big chunk of my life — so I might as well start right now.

[2]: In case this is too OT for HN, I'd be happy to chat at wybitul [at-sign] evzen [dot-sign] dev.

[bingobongo1]

Hello Eugeleo,

I'm no one special, just a person who has finally made some progress on these very issues.

I've struggled for quite a while with the same fundamental questions about self as you seem to be struggling with now.

>I'm at one of the best universities in my country, have top grades, have a part-time position in a pretty good research facility, and I'm also slowly chipping away at my startup idea.

All of this takes hard work, these are certainly accomplishments that bring temporary satisfaction and happiness.

>Sometimes I'm all happy about this, but other times I see that there's not much time for being "myself" between all these activities.

This is a very subtle form of suffering. Things are going well, there isn't necessarily something obviously wrong, but still you can't shake the feeling and it has the potential to cause (a lot of) anxiety.

>I’m asking myself whether I actually care about these activities

There's no need to find yourself at one extreme or the other (caring or not caring). You do care about these things, but perhaps you overestimate their ability to provide you with lasting happiness and satisfaction. As you say, it's a never ending search for the next source of momentary satisfaction: "what's next for me?".

>Often I ask myself whether the values I have been raised with are really _my_ values, or whether I follow and fulfill them just due to some kind inertia mixed with inability to find my own values.

Inevitably, it's both. All of us are a result of an unbroken chain of cause and effect which started long before we were ever born. Part of your value system comes from your parents, part of theirs came from their parents, and so on. On top this, your personal experience and conditioning is overlaid. Recognizing this fact is important if you would like to break out of this cycle of questioning.

>To be frank, I’m not sure what to do about this. I’m not exactly unhappy, I’m just not sure whether I’m taking the right path here.

Yeah, I get you.

--

To answer your technical question, I stumbled into the Tibetan school of Buddhism known as Dzogchen several months ago, this has exposed me to the wider landscape of the Madhyamaka (or middle way) view in Buddhism. I hesitate to scare you off thinking I'm trying to convert you to a religious practice, but as I've discovered myself, this is a highly logical and first-person oriented form of scientific philosophy that had been developing in India for at least 2500 years before Hinduism took over. Buddhism continued to develop in Tibet and has been well preserved by the Tibetans. In fact, quantum physics and modern science and the Madhyamaka view are in stunning alignment when it comes several factors, including the reality that things do not exist exactly as they appear to us.

There are two techniques (neither involving faith) to decomposing phenomena as I displayed with washing dishes.

The first is known as Shamatha, which means quiescence, calm abiding mind, singled pointed concentration, or even meditative equipoise. Shamatha is the act of meditating single-pointedly on some object with unwavering focus. This leads to mental stability overtime because through the process of cultivating Shamatha you develop right-thinking about discursive, roving thoughts, and eventually the waves settle (so to speak) and you're left with a very calm mental disposition (which can easily bring you joy). You may know of similar westernized meditation techniques in the mindfulness genre, they were almost certainly developed based on Shamatha, where one of the most popular objects of meditation is the breath or "mindfulness of breathing".

The second is known as Vipassana, which means wisdom, true seeing, or true insight. Vipassana is a form of analytical meditation in which an object of meditation is decomposed and deconstructed over and over again, forcefully illustrating the true nature of the object (which is always empty of inherent existence). Emptiness does not mean that the conventional world we live in does not exist, but rather that nothing in the conventional world exists in its own right as an independent object (as we humans tend to take for granted), but that everything manifests from one or more interdependent causes. This is known as dependent origination. Lucky us in the modern world, we already know that every thing we see is actually composed of sub-atomic particles which are constantly in a state of flux. This was actually something that took people a LONG time to fundamentally accept in the ancient east.

A common example in the literature is a chariot.

What is the chariot? Is there anything substantial to this notion of a chariot?

Is the chariot the wheels? Is it the axle? Is it the bars that connect to the horse? Is it the seat for the rider? Is it the wood?

Of course, the answer is no, that none of the parts are the chariot, and that even the parts themselves are empty because they can be decomposed all the way down to the sub-atomic level.

Therefore, the chariot is simply an imputed concept over an aggregate and has no inherent existence, even though it appears to simply exist when we look at it.

Okay, now ask yourself how do phenomena that are essentially empty trigger afflictive thoughts and emotions (which are also empty)? Then ask yourself, if thoughts and emotions are fundamentally empty, how can they cause me to suffer?

The answer comes from not seeing reality as it really is and is at the core of my example about the dish washing, which is a display of Vipassana.

There are countless entrypoints to this philosophy, some lean more on the classical Buddhist side and some lean more towards a purely secular approach, although like I've said, if you think that Buddhism is based on faith, then you're 100% misconceiving its nature. Therefore I don't view it even in the slightest as a faith based religion. The Buddha Shakyamuni himself urges you not to trust his words any more than you'd trust gold you buy at market, which is to say you must test and experience these truths yourself for there to be any lasting benefit.

I'll point you to two books by the same westerner. This was not my entrypoint, but it may serve you well and he's been immersed in Tibetan studies for most of his life so he is legit I promise. It's called Minding Closely by B. Alan Wallace (a great person indeed)[1].

If you'd like to continue this discussion or have any questions, simply reply again and we can link up over email or something. I hope this brief introduction helps you if even in the smallest way.

[1] - https://www.shambhala.com/minding-closely-2302.html