I am oft reminded of the comparison between a tenured professor and a sea cucumber; the latter swims around, avoiding predators, searching for a good spot on which to anchor. once it finds one such, it attaches and promptly ejects its brain, no longer having any need for it.
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RT @DavidSHolz
We so easily get caught in loops where time melts away. Life in the loop is easy, unconscious. Life outside the loop is startling and unreal. We …
https://twitter.com/DavidSHolz/status/1262204671797506048
many people do the same; they search for their economic niche, a mate, a place to settle down, and then once this is achieved, their brains sort of calcify, as there is no longer any real need for conscious contemplation. from an evolutionary standpoint, it would be inefficient.
this strategy works well in situations like "golden ages" where there truly is less turbulence, or if you're insulated from the same by some buffer, such as assets or a guardian. otherwise, people like this end up experiencing future shock; the world didn't pause when they did
calcifying once you've solved life is a tradeoff; you lose your ability to respond to new situations in favor of lower energy requirements, and more free attention for recreation. this is a form of overfitting, however, and is unwise, in a tumultuous world. keep some optionality.
once you've solved life, you can just zone out
QT 🔒:
people say "time goes faster when you're older", and there's some decent truth to it, but I've heard a good counter argument, and I buy it:
time goes slowly when there's novelty, and quickly when there's not