the snail shell


What Exactly Tanks Are Filling or Draining

in my ongoing quest to figure out how to be just generally more ok, I keep noticing times that make me feel ok and times that make me not feel ok. Unfortunately, they don’t lead to a concise theory of “what I need to do.”

It does seem like there’s one variable I care about, and it is something like “joy” or “desire for life”. Let’s call it “energy*” here. Clearly there are a lot of inputs to that, though.

ThingTanks
Accomplishing a home repair sometimes increases energy*, especially if I feel like I learned a new thing, it went pretty smoothly, and I am 100% done with it. Home repairs sometimes drain energy* if they don’t go well or if they end up messy and undonemastery, cleanliness
Getting a lot of tickets closed at work gives me energy*. Spending a day writing a design doc drains energy*cleanliness, progress, mastery
Winning at Slay the Spire increases energy*mastery
I did standup comedy for the first time. Increased energy*mastery, socializing (new people)
Seeing friends usually increases energy*. But seeing friends with our kids usually drains energy*socializing (old friends), chaos
Spending an hour with basically any kid (under… 10?) drains energy*chaos, boredom
Work socializing increases energy* to a point, then drains itsocializing (new people)
Doing puzzles usually increases energy*mastery, cleanliness
Gardening increases energy*cleanliness, nature, peace

So, tanks I’ve found:

So, get enough mastery, socializing-new, socializing-old, cleanliness, peace, progress, and nature; and not too much chaos and boredom, and I’ll be set? Hmm, I guess it’s not that I don’t know what to do, it’s just that I can’t do it.

This thought is by no means complete, but it is hard for me to get a post out there, so I’m publishing this for now, and may come back and add things.



Big's Backyard Ultra

Big’s Backyard Ultra is a race where - well, it’s not really even a race. It’s an endurance challenge. The track is a 4.1 mile loop, kind of hilly, through the woods. All you have to do is run it in an hour.

And repeat.

Until you’re the last one standing.

It doesn’t sound too preposterous until you start to think about it. Seven in a row is more than a marathon, but you’ve got 7 hours, so, ok. 16 in a row is a 64+ mile ultramarathon, but you can sort of imagine it. Once you think about 24, well, you’re running through the night, doing about 100 miles with no sleep. The current record holders did it 124 times, running 516 miles in slightly over 5 days.

I’ve tuned in to watch it, and it’s brutal, but not obviously. You see the runners hit the finish line and they go sit down, drink water, eat something. Maybe they take a little nap. 4 miles in an hour isn’t that far; usually they get back with 15-20 min left, so they can microsleep a bit. They just have to get to the starting line when the next hour’s whistle blows.

Frequent readers may guess where I’m going with this: It’s the best analogy for parenting I’ve ever come across. Each individual lap isn’t impossible, but you have to do it over and over and over. Sometimes it’s not so bad if the weather’s good and you get a good second (, third, fourth, 500th) wind. Sometimes it’s the middle of the night and raining and your ankle got twisted last lap. And you can’t quit.

I’m sure there’s great camaraderie among the runners. And I bet there are great runners’ highs too, and afterwards a feeling of accomplishment. I’d like to say you get these parenting too, but … well, there kind of is no “afterwards”. And camaraderie is real, but every time you’re with a friend and your kids, it’s such an impoverished adult interaction. I’m sure the runners would say it’s sort of an out-of-body experience, striving for something beyond yourself. And I bet the ones who do the best are the ones who are best at dealing with absurd amounts of pain.

In Big’s Backyard Ultra, the winner officially gets “1st place”; everyone else simply gets “Did not finish.”



Hormesis and Toxicity

Hormesis

Hormesis is when a large dose is bad but a small dose is good. “Antifragility” is similar. Exercise is the classic example: if you lift weights it tears your muscles a little, but they build back stronger. Getting a little bit of “muscle tearing” every day is way better than never getting any. Other examples:

Toxicity

Toxicity is when a large dose is bad and a small dose is also bad. “Allostatic Load” is similar. Examples:

What about them?

It’s important to distinguish between them accurately! Imagine if you thought muscle soreness was a “toxicity” problem and you never exercised. Or if you thought you should eat a little mercury every day to prevent mercury poisoning.

But it’s extra hard to distinguish between them in psychology. Probably a lot of things are hormetic:

What’s toxic? Maybe depression, ennui, or existential dread/angst? Look at the most flourishing people you know; they do have the full range of emotions including sadness, but they don’t seem to have any dose of the muddy stuck blahs that depressed folks have. And depression seems to be self-reinforcing: you don’t do all the outgoing active social things that might pull you out of depression.

One reason it’s hard to distinguish is that “bad” includes both toxic things, and hormetic things where you’ve just been getting too high a dose. E.g. sunburn is toxic, but sun exposure is hormetic, so maybe it’s more fair to say “sun is hormetic but sunburn indicates you’re getting out of the hormetic range.”

I don’t have much of a conclusion here. Make sure you know what’s hormetic and what’s toxic.1

  1. With the taste of your lips, I’m on a ride / You’re toxic, I’m slippin’ under / With a taste of the poison, paradise / I’m addicted to you but really you’re hormetic / Large doses are bad but a bit is terrific ↩︎