False progression & false enjoyment

[Nick_Asano]

I feel these are topics that aren't discussed nearly enough. What is false progression? Have you ever done something that you felt was progressive - like debating people on Reddit/Twitter, or platting a video game, or paving the way to "social success" on sites like Facebook and the now deceased Google+, only to later realize that you got absolutely nothing out of it but an all too fleeting sense of pride, or worse, disappointment? You could say this very post is a form of false progression. False progression in and of itself isn't always a bad thing, but it's important to learn how to distinguish it from the real deal.

False enjoyment is when you "enjoy" something because it's popular or because it's something that you "think" you like, but really don't. I used to read the heaviest books and manga that I could find simply because they were "intense", and had tricked myself into believing that intensity was what I enjoyed. I conflated "emotion", however morbid and fucked up with "fun". The more emotions that I felt the more I'd remember it, and the more I remembered it the more "fun" I surely must have had. But like porn, drugs or caffeine I found myself constantly needing something stronger. The more rape, homicide, drama, and existentialism the better. I had forgotten what fun was and had simply traded it in for intensity, much like how a porn addict has to move to a more taboo category every week, no longer satisfied by regular porn. Come to find out the things that I "enjoy" are much more tame, like Star Trek and the old Spider-Man comics. I also used to play video games for the achievements long after I had stopped having fun. It was when I quit porn and began meditating that I started learning how to differentiate false progression from real progression, false enjoyment from real enjoyment, and false happiness from real happiness.

 

[iwannachew]

I mean, i don't know, but i feel like "false progression" is kinda rampant throughout all of social media and the internet, its just that no one really wants to talk about it perhaps cuz no one wants to break their minds contemplating the notion that a lot of social media "progressive posts" could definitely be just underneath a facade for attention or to "follow the trend" or the "popular train of thought/mindset" amongst your peers and friends. Or maybe people are "trying to be good" but they can't be in real life. Or they're doing it in real life but is their heart really in it? Maybe people argue for sides and parties on twitter, reddit, and comment sections because they wanna feel alive, feel human, like they're doing things and having purpose as "online heroes" for someone.

Ouch, my mind hurts. I can't decide whether quarantine gives one more time to think or degrades your ability to think.

But i experience "false enjoyment" a lot tho. I have watched whole k-dramas cuz everyone said it was good but at the end, but then way later, i realized some weren't that good. "False enjoyment" could be part of life though, ya know? You try things out, you find out what you like and what you don't-- and some things in life take a little longer to figure out whether you actually enjoy them or not. Honestly, I'm still figuring such things out, so hey, wHAt dO I kNoWww.
Another thought i might add: i feel that sometimes "false enjoyment" can actually be called obsession. Especially when it is unhealthy or unnecessary to you.
I feel like I have a lack of experience or something to be talking about this, but the topic this discussion caught my eye and I didn't want it to be lost and have no one discuss it. So I kinda just dumped my thoughts as they came to me about this topic and attempted to organize them onto this submission box. It would be interesting to see the more educated(?) replies.

 

[ninjadork]

In the spirit of "sharing things I wish I'd known when I was younger"...

"False progression" is a very simple thing rooted in three factors.

1) People lie, and there's no feasible accountability. Almost always it's because they want something they know is distasteful to everyone else, and aren't willing to risk their skins to get it. On social media, where everyone uses false names / can block anyone at will / has plenty of tools to eliminate speech that might expose the lie / has given up and just accepted the datamining that is typically rampant in such settings, there is an overwhelming incentive to be dishonest. No consequences for lying, and you can't call them to account for it even when you spend hours and hours lining their ducks up in a row and loading your statistical rifle - they just block you and run away. You just cast information out into the dark and hope random strangers you'll never speak to find it useful.

2) As an addendum to #1, they say "history is written by the victors". The unspoken corollary to this is "there's a lot of history that is hidden because it's embarrassing to someone". Unless you put real journalistic investigative effort into something (and risk your skin against the liars a la #1), you will not know the full story. And that is both real effort and a difficult skill that many people just don't have the energy for.

3) Talk is an excuse to do nothing. Even when you have miraculously managed to eliminate the problems caused by #1 & #2, people are afraid of doing the wrong thing. They are afraid of making mistakes, especially when those mistakes have real lasting consequences. They are afraid of making too much of a fuss and attracting knives wielded by #1'ers. They are afraid of being shamed and shunned by others. They are afraid of risking what they have to acquire what they don't.

Every single person who reads this knows exactly what I'm talking about: you've all gotten into conversations where everything that can be said has already been said, yet people keep trying to find clever ways to rephrase old talking points and they grow increasingly incoherent as they try to browbeat each other into submission with more and more multifarious verbiage. The time for discussion is over; the time for action has come. But nobody wants to turn away and risk taking a knife in the back. Nobody wants to risk being seen as having "lost" an argument. Nobody wants to risk that this time maybe, just maybe, there's some hidden facet of the conversation that will bring "victory" if only it can be discovered.

So they talk. And they talk. And they talk. Because as long as they talk, they can fool themselves (and maybe others) into thinking that all these words are in and of themselves important.

As long as they talk they can ignore, for just a little longer, that ideas and philosophies and rhetoric and words are worthless until they are taken out of your head and put into your hands and feet.

Talk has its place - it is a precursor to action. Without the latter, the former is trivial and useless. But when you have no idea who you're talking to and can't enforce penalties for lying, the only course of action after saying everything that can be said is to walk away and move on.

It is worth remembering that there is a LOT of relevant information that can't be found on the internet. What you see on your screen is never more than a fraction of what can be found outside of it. There's no shame in walking away and looking elsewhere for what you want.

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

I have a problem with getting motivation to watch the animes I know I will enjoy.

 

[Nick_Asano]

@iwannachew You could be onto something. I think a lot of obsessions start out as something genuine. But then we pigeonhole ourselves and all we know how to do is dig straight down. In Minecraft I was the kid that dug straight down until he hit lava and killed himself. It wasn't dissimilar in that way to porn, or books, or anime, or manga, or music, or social media, or S/H, or even caffeine and scalding hot showers. I think I was hoping for an answer in all of that darkness, pain, and nihilistic excess. Or maybe I was just addicted to feeling. But in the end I wasn't really enjoying myself, and all I accomplished was numbing any emotions I would have in the future, but that could also be a byproduct of brain development. Like how teenagers feel strongly while adults are calmer and more collected.

 

[Tamerlane]

One thing I've learned is the value of impermanence, and that how everything is fleeting. No matter how great you are and no matter how much you accomplish, you will die and you will eventually be forgotten.

People think this is a depressing or a grim look to have, but in honesty, it's quite liberating. You lose sight of becoming obsessive over petty shit that doesn't matter and become more focused on finding peace within yourself. What's important is what matters to you. What others think of this is irrelevant, and doing things to placate a crowd or some clique you're apart of for one seemingly fading moment is just going to bring you down to a state of a dull miserable shade of what should be a man.

It is only when you learn to liberate yourself from such pettiness, and find what truly makes you happy that you can move past the superficiality of life and find contentment within yourself.

 

[dabson]

@tamerlane
Says you LMAO I'll live forever and so will my accomplishments.

 

[iwannachew]

@Nick_Asano ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜) 🧠✨💖glad to know some of my rambling made sense. 👍
@ninjadork and @tamerlane seE, W😲W................. d=====(￣▽￣*)b （*゜ー゜*）...(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ 𝕨 𝕠 𝕣 𝕕 𝕤 ✨✨✨.....i could never come up with. *cLaP, CLaP*

@DANDAN_THE_DANDAN that's a mood i have for too many shows, videos, webtoons, and mangas that are currently collecting dust in my watch/read later box on various apps/this site. I know I'm gonna like them. I've started or gotten substantially far into some of them. But sometimes I just fall out of things in this rabbit hole of life and fall into things and back into things and slip past things and that is why--
I'm a mess. ＼(((￣(￣(￣▽￣)￣)￣)))／ ʙᴜᴛ ɪᴍ ᴏᴋ, ᴅᴏɴᴛ ᴡᴏʀʀʏ.