Does RP Think Effort Is A Waste Of Energy?

[orewashin]

In his book, he mentioned that inhibition and using prefrontal areas too much are a waste of energy. He seems to promote "flow" and natural interest, rather than "effort".

I pushed myself hard into optimism, which RP also says is good. After a couple of weeks, I'm burned out. Any stimulation is painful (RP says novelty-seeking is good), I can't exert any more effort, and I'm so weak that I can barely function.

If effort should be preserved, should a person only try to be outgoing around others, like a phony, and be a weak and passive person when alone?

Does novelty add to a person's energy pool, or does it cost energy? Maybe it depends on if effort is exerted. If a person is relaxed, novelty can add energy, whereas if someone resists, it wears them out.

I thought positivity would be a better use of energy than inhibition or other functions, but after burnout, I'm not so sure that effort in general is good to exert on anything.

 

[boris]

That was Selye's point of view. Basically "Don't even bother if something is hard"

I think Peats view is different from that, but I couldn't find direct quotes.

 

[Gone Peating]

I think this type of thinking is unhealthy. Take Peat’s dietary advice into consideration, but don’t feel like you know to be obedient to everything he’s ever said

 

[mrchibbs]

@orewashin

No he doesn't. People listen to a few interviews or read quotes and then they feel like they can summarize the entirety of Ray's thinking and perspective on life.

You need to be realistic about yourself and your life. It's normal to be unhappy about circumstances and they are at odds with your expectations about your life. Coming off a low-thyroid, high serotonin state can release emotions and remove the veil of delusion (serotonin can make people falsely happy despite terrible circumstances).

There is a balance between stimulation and inhibition. If you have been stressed for years, any stimulation will lead to adverse effects, and an inhibitory period is a necessary part of any recovery. (read up on GABA) At the same time, stimulation is necessary in the latter part of the recovery.

Positivism and forcing yourself to be happy all the time is not helpful, and you get burned out at some point. Some gratitude is essential though, like being alive, and appreciating the little things in life like being healthy, listening to music etc.

Watch Ray's interview with Jodelle from about a year ago, more specifically around the 1h mark:



Basically you need to do away with the useless stress factors in your life and design your life according to what you want and what is meaningful to you. If there is meaning in something, putting in effort is amazing and constructive.

 

[LUH 3417]

This is a very interesting question and something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. RP speaks positively about the pursuit of health but what about when that pursuit becomes so stressful and non enjoyable that you end up less healthy than you were before. I’ve struggled with turning my life and self and body into a project. I know there are better ways to look at it and when I’m feeling good it’s not this reductive but sometimes I get caught in a slump of being tired of “fixing myself”.

 

[mrchibbs]

I know there are better ways to look at it and when I’m feeling good it’s not this reductive but sometimes I get caught in a slump of being tired of “fixing myself”.

I think we all would much rather not have to fix ourselves in the first place. I often wish I could go back before all the trouble started, but alas that is not how it goes.

 

[Dobbler]

I thought this today myself: Being positive and thinking optimistic takes much more energy than negative mindset / being pessimistic . For me, atleast right now, the latter mindset takes no energy and kinda is the default, ever-present. And thinking optimistic definitely takes alot of effort and energy.

 

[orewashin]

@orewashin

No he doesn't. People listen to a few interviews or read quotes and then they feel like they can summarize the entirety of Ray's thinking and perspective on life.

You need to be realistic about yourself and your life. It's normal to be unhappy about circumstances and they are at odds with your expectations about your life. Coming off a low-thyroid, high serotonin state can release emotions and remove the veil of delusion (serotonin can make people falsely happy despite terrible circumstances).

There is a balance between stimulation and inhibition. If you have been stressed for years, any stimulation will lead to adverse effects, and an inhibitory period is a necessary part of any recovery. (read up on GABA) At the same time, stimulation is necessary in the latter part of the recovery.

Positivism and forcing yourself to be happy all the time is not helpful, and you get burned out at some point. Some gratitude is essential though, like being alive, and appreciating the little things in life like being healthy, listening to music etc.

Watch Ray's interview with Jodelle from about a year ago, more specifically around the 1h mark:

Basically you need to do away with the useless stress factors in your life and design your life according to what you want and what is meaningful to you. If there is meaning in something, putting in effort is amazing and constructive.

He mentions a long-range vision and prioritizing things according to what you care about.

That's something I really can't relate to anymore. My life has been lived in fantasy. Sexual fantasies and philosophies, I end up accomplishing absolutely nothing, and it was that way even when I could go out freely. The real world is so disappointing, and people were so unwelcoming to me, that I can't say I even want a future.

I'm so complicated and without identity that I have no way of relating to people. I've thought about creating one-way conversations with people because I'm nobody with no beliefs, but there wouldn't be a connection, and I'm ultimately not very interested in people because unlike sweet fantasies, they can't make me happy.

I don't understand why people keep living anyway. Life is just a series of problems. Why do people have relationships if it only creates conflicts? I remember RP saying people who like to squabble at the same time should be together. Why keep the drama going if one person can have full control of the other person, and conflicts can be permanently settled? This way of thinking is definitely anti-RP, but it makes sense from a stress-reducing perspective.

It's similar to how desire is said to be bad in Buddhism. Of course, desire is neither good nor bad, it just is, but why keep suffering?

It's not that I don't want anything, but why do I have to form long-term goals out of desires that my body has? I'm not my body or my desires. I know that desire is just a black hole, that a person wants more and more if they are given happiness, I don't care to promote that cycle.

 

[Hugh Johnson]

Effort is psychological. Playing a computer game can be intense and complex, but is rarely effort. Answering work emails is ostensibly easier, yet can be an effort.

Peat did however have a good childhood, so he might have no experience with how most people manage, and how to stop efforting.

 

[Lejeboca]

That was Selye's point of view. Basically "Don't even bother if something is hard"

I think Peats view is different from that, but I couldn't find direct quotes.

From Ray Peat Interviews Revisited, for example:

15. In an interview, Hans Selye was asked what his personal attitude was towards the stress that was put on him. Part of his philosophy was: “I don’t fight for things which I don’t win. At least I must be convinced I can win, otherwise I don’t fight…..I just give up. I admit defeat and do something else ”


Do you have any personal philosophies or maxims you would like to share with us on how you deal with stress?


RP: Always being ready to move ahead with problems that had seemed unsolvable is important.

 

[lampofred]

It's hard to distinguish between laziness and going with the flow, but I think a biological way to look at it would be to focus on lowering PTH. Lowering chronic muscle contraction and hyperventilation is very important for lowering PTH, and when PTH is lower you need to put in much less effort for good health. I think PTH is somewhat analogous to sense of self, and with a reduced sense of self you feel less emotional pain, and emotional pain (character armor) is the root of all degenerative issues like cancer, heart disease, fatigue, hair loss, etc. Increased GABA is the good way to reduce sense of self (GABA = orgastic potency as Wilhelm Reich calls it) because it lowers sense of self by increasing flow (you become less of an individual unit and more a "vessel" for the "universe"), but increased serotonin is a bad way to lower sense of self because it lowers sense of self by killing you.

False and forced positivity is essentially lying, and lying consumes a lot of brain energy, leading to burn out. That's why autistic people don't lie, they don't have enough brain energy to be able to lie. No negativity towards autistic people, just mentioned that as proof that lying does consume brain energy.

 

[orewashin]

From Ray Peat Interviews Revisited, for example:

15. In an interview, Hans Selye was asked what his personal attitude was towards the stress that was put on him. Part of his philosophy was: “I don’t fight for things which I don’t win. At least I must be convinced I can win, otherwise I don’t fight…..I just give up. I admit defeat and do something else ”


Do you have any personal philosophies or maxims you would like to share with us on how you deal with stress?


RP: Always being ready to move ahead with problems that had seemed unsolvable is important.

Seems like RP is intentionally making a direct counter-philosophy to Selye with that statement.

Confront the difficult and feel less helpless, or avoid the difficult and make no progress. The former takes effort, whereas the latter saves energy.

We all have fears, and if we never confront them, we won't expand, but stay the same.

Should a person grow and put themselves at risk, or stay the same and avoid risk because that's what comes easiest?

I wonder about RP's attitude toward risk. There are a lot of people who stand to lose a lot of capital because of him, and his outspoken nature suggests he's a risk taker.

An attitude I take is to assume that I'll die soon because nobody knows when death will come. I wonder what RP would think of this, since I avoid building a future for this reason, whereas RP said he wants people to plan for a future that they would see as desirable.

It's hard to distinguish between laziness and going with the flow, but I think a biological way to look at it would be to focus on lowering PTH. Lowering chronic muscle contraction and hyperventilation is very important for lowering PTH, and when PTH is lower you need to put in much less effort for good health. I think PTH is somewhat analogous to sense of self, and with a reduced sense of self you feel less emotional pain, and emotional pain (character armor) is the root of all degenerative issues like cancer, heart disease, fatigue, hair loss, etc. Increased GABA is the good way to reduce sense of self (GABA = orgastic potency as Wilhelm Reich calls it) because it lowers sense of self by increasing flow (you become less of an individual unit and more a "vessel" for the "universe"), but increased serotonin is a bad way to lower sense of self because it lowers sense of self by killing you.

False and forced positivity is essentially lying, and lying consumes a lot of brain energy, leading to burn out. That's why autistic people don't lie, they don't have enough brain energy to be able to lie. No negativity towards autistic people, just mentioned that as proof that lying does consume brain energy.

The concept of forced optimism as lying makes a lot of sense. And yes, not necessarily "lying", but specific functions like that in general are deficient in autists. They are very "wholesome" and "natural". That being said, forcing optimism may simply be another self within a person, and not necessarily a false self. RP is not in reality who we imagine him to be, no matter how well we know him. Even if we knew him in person, or anyone for that matter, we can never truly know a person, just our image of that person. And that's why optimism may not be lying after all. It's blanketing the world with a concept, just as we blanket "RP diet" with our own visions of what it is. Autists have a style that's less abstract and more concrete. If they imagine RP, they may picture an exact visual representation of RP from memory and not think about what he abstractly stands for.

 

[Homo Consumericus]

Seems like RP is intentionally making a direct counter-philosophy to Selye with that statement.

In light of Selye's answer, I was able to interpret Dr. Peat's statement as a corollary principle. Selye says don't waste energy on problems you can't solve. Peat says, when the problem becomes solvable, redirect energy toward it.

Note: To help render the two positions compatible, one could view 1) Selye giving up as a temporary position which Peat adopts while the problem is unsolvable and 2) Selye becoming convinced that he can win as the point at which Peat's problem becomes solvable, allowing and necessitating forward movement.

PS: I have not read any of Selye's work outside of where Peat quotes him, so take this mental gymnastics for what it's worth.

 

[Lejeboca]

Should a person grow and put themselves at risk, or stay the same and avoid risk because that's what comes easiest?

Dr. Peat answers this question along with describing learned helplessness:


Transcript of 2019-11-19-ORN at [81:43]
PT: This is an interesting question: is risk taking in life conducive or not to be or not to the state of learned helplessness?
....
you talk about learned helplessness?

RP: Oh quite a bit. yeah serotonin turns on the stress system but it can also turn off the
adaptive things, such as production of progesterone. And you can break out of learned helplessness by increasing your
energy. Thyroid is a crucial thing in stopping learned helplessness.

PT: and what exactly is learned helplessness?

RP: the term relates to the old studies in which they convinced a rat that escape was impossible but the animal in that state
would allow itself to drown very easily because it saw no use in swimming its heart would simply stop after, maybe, just a few minutes of resisting but if they put the animal in the tortured situation that caused it to become helpless if they then showed it some exit possibility, it in effective vaccinated it against stress so the when dropped into the water instead of drowning in a few
minutes sometimes they would resist and swim for more than a day, simply a mental change, something they learned. That's why it wasn't called a physical thing it was a learned helplessness.

 

[GreekDemiGod]

Being positive and thinking optimistic takes much more energy than negative mindset / being pessimistic

I beg to differ. Trapped emotional energy results in trapped physical energy.
Worrying about what other people think about you, how they perceive you, zaps you of physical energy. It's not just 'in your head/mind'.

 

[orewashin]

Dr. Peat answers this question along with describing learned helplessness:

Transcript of 2019-11-19-ORN at [81:43]
PT: This is an interesting question: is risk taking in life conducive or not to be or not to the state of learned helplessness?
....
you talk about learned helplessness?

RP: Oh quite a bit. yeah serotonin turns on the stress system but it can also turn off the
adaptive things, such as production of progesterone. And you can break out of learned helplessness by increasing your
energy. Thyroid is a crucial thing in stopping learned helplessness.

PT: and what exactly is learned helplessness?

RP: the term relates to the old studies in which they convinced a rat that escape was impossible but the animal in that state
would allow itself to drown very easily because it saw no use in swimming its heart would simply stop after, maybe, just a few minutes of resisting but if they put the animal in the tortured situation that caused it to become helpless if they then showed it some exit possibility, it in effective vaccinated it against stress so the when dropped into the water instead of drowning in a few
minutes sometimes they would resist and swim for more than a day, simply a mental change, something they learned. That's why it wasn't called a physical thing it was a learned helplessness.

So even cortisol can be used to break through inhibitions on occasion, despite it being a stress hormone?

I beg to differ. Trapped emotional energy results in trapped physical energy.
Worrying about what other people think about you, how they perceive you, zaps you of physical energy. It's not just 'in your head/mind'.

Yes, that applies if you're more outgoing than people generally like, in which case holding back would take effort. But if you're a socially inhibited person, it would probably take more effort to "put yourself out there". It's even in the wording. Vs "minding your manners", "leaving that person alone", and "STOP being annoying".

I'm selfish, weird, gross, and other things, so I got accustomed to not saying anything to people. Even when they tell me to speak up more and open up, it's easier for me to be quiet. And because I expect people not to like me, breaking through and talking despite the high likelihood of a bad response is all the harder.

 

[boris]

@orewashin that‘s the point of stress hormones. Short bursts of energy so you can overcome something. The big problem today is continuous stress.

 

[boris]

Look up Hans Selye‘s General Adaptation Syndrome.

 

[orewashin]

@orewashin that‘s the point of stress hormones. Short bursts of energy so you can overcome something. The big problem today is continuous stress.

So then it could be argued that exercising effort to put yourself in an optimistic state of mind, for example, is a form of stress that could be used to break free.

So autopilot is the ultimate "low-stress state" for when there are no challenges, it preserves energy for when there are challenges.

Where does meditation, such as mindfully observing your body and your emotions, lie? Is it another form of stress, or is the energy recycled somehow?

 

[orewashin]

Look up Hans Selye‘s General Adaptation Syndrome.

So stress causes an adrenalin rush.

What's the meaning of recreational stress, such as music and exciting tv shows? Is it simply a waste of energy? Should music only be used to increase strength of political messages and promote social interaction, whereas tv should only show the truth and no deaths of fictional characters?

While RP says orgasms have a positive effect, are sexual feeling not a waste if they aren't experienced with someone else, in which case they would help foster bonding? Are cravings a source of potential stress and should be eliminated, or are they a form of stress that can push through learned helplessness, and motivate a shy person to approach people for sex?

If I had not practiced false optimism, I would have not met my first woman, and if I had not practiced nofap and driven myself into a frenzy, messaging dozens of women, I would not have met my second. Both of these were due to stress, I didn't meet them out of casual conversation.