Meaningness

Not knowing what to do is a tricky problem, and lots of people seem to be suffering from it at the moment. The negative side of middle age is knowing the bad effects of things like new technologies, so finding it harder to get excited about them.

I think we've destroyed lots of the support structures that at other times would have helped. So yes, first of all - it's not necessarily just you, the environment is involved too.

I think there's a wise route out, and people do get there. I don't know what it is. Some things that might help in case you haven't tried:

1. Psycotherapy. Even if you don't have clinical depression, this can still be valuable. Look for a practice (better than a single person as they're vetted, can find the best person for you, and mentor each other) and words like "integrative therapy" and "transactional analysis". It can be expensive. I've a friend who goes for a few months every two years even if mentally well, as it helps. Like a very emotionally aware life coach.

2. Life changes. Things like meditation are so popular to almost be a cliche, but I think they can help. If you're more philosophical maybe things like https://meaningness.com/ will inspire more than more hippy materials. Getting just a bit healthier, sounder sleep, improved diet but do so in a simple way by following someone non-obsessive, non-fadish - I recommend podcast and books by https://drchatterjee.com/

Good luck! You're not alone.

Not a classic nor even something that's stood the test of time nor even something that's done yet, but I've been interested in David Chapman's stuff

https://meaningness.com/

https://meaningness.com/eggplant

https://meaningness.com/further-reading (some of his influences and suggestions for reading, much of which is philosophy or philosophy-adjacent)

Mental models are one of his primary focuses (especially in In the Cells of the Eggplant). (He has a background in formal AI and a longtime academic interest in how an AI, or a human, could usefully model and act in the world. More recently he's been a serious student and practitioner of some less-well-known-to-English-speakers sorts of Buddhism, which he mostly tries to describe to his website readers from a secular, naturalist perspective.) I appreciate that he's kind, curious, thorough, intelligent, and eclectic. I sometimes think I'll be doing well if I get to 30% of his attainment in any of these areas!

I bounced a bunch of times too for similar reasons.

Is it worth checking out? emphatic yes

Summarize? I will try, and probably not do a great job; I'm still digesting it.

The world is both "nebulous" [1] and patterned; observed patterns aren't really out there so much as a combination of "there" and in our mind. Some of these patterns are incredibly useful. One pattern is "the rational / modern world view", which lets science work. It is very good, but not complete.

Post-modernism noticed that no pattern is a perfect fit on the partially-nebulous world, and went nowhere with that, and ended up in a nihilistic, bad place. That isn't good.

The goal is to see patterns as useful, conventional truths, not ultimate truths. Then you can pick the right pattern / conceptual framework with which to approach a given situation.

[1] https://meaningness.com/nebulosity

I can only speak for myself, but to me Bitcoin exists in a weird space where it's both 1) a legitimately interesting piece of technology that a "hacker" should find interesting, and 2) a magnet for hucksters and pseudo-philosophers to hype up as the way of the future and profit (ethically or not) without understanding or caring about what's happening technically. When I see many people who fit into bucket 2), it makes me not want to spend any more time around the Bitcoin community. Maybe that's a shame. I'd probably be more willing to put up with 2) if I thought 1) was super interesting, but I'm not that excited about it, for whatever reason.

Alternatively, if you subscribe to the "geeks, mops, and sociopaths" theory of subcultures [1], Bitcoin seems to me to be well into the "mops and sociopaths" part.

[1] https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

You're kind of leaving out the whole "literally poisons the user or gives them cancer" part. I certainly wouldn't trade slightly better thermostats for a higher risk of heavy metals poisoning.

Also LED bulbs are great – they're much more efficient, and much cheaper. They can be great for reading, you just need to get one of the correct brightness. You can even do things like https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens which would bankrupt you (figuratively) if you used tungsten filament bulbs. Obviously you want to get LEDs of the right hue, and LEDs tend to be a bit colder than tungsten by default. Of course the upper range of tungesten is higher but this is irrelevant for all practical purposes (unless you're staging a West End or Broadway production).

This is a great take.

I'd recommend you read this text, or skim it, to see what happened with NFTs
https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

Basically sociopaths have taken over the space and they are promoting absolute crap.

BUT
There is real art and artists in the space if you take your time to look for it.

Look at - https://www.fxhash.xyz/ - you'll see a remarkable thing: real innovation, Generative Art being placed right onto the blockchain. Something that would be very hard to monetize only 2 years ago is now a liquid permissionless marketplace for Generative Artists to experiment. It's like shadertoy has become an art market. You can now spend your days experimenting with shader art and make real money. That's incredible to me.