
We Aren’t Built to Live in the Moment - rrherr
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/opinion/sunday/why-the-future-is-always-on-your-mind.html
======
ghthor
Hits the nail on the head. Our brains are back propagating, recursive neural
networks that are consistently making predictions about the next input in the
stream of input signals as it changes over time. When the prediction results
are correct we save a fuzzy recording of the higher-order-pattern that
resulted in our correct prediction. Each time our predictions are correct that
"memory" is reinforced so we're able to make faster predictions, at earlier
points in the pattern.

I hypothesize that the source of most anxiety or nervousness stems from our
brains making no correct predictions in that moment. This is supported
anecdotally by my patterns for overcoming social interactions that used to
make me anxious that I've now become comfortable with. My brain now makes
enough correct predictions that I don't feel the need to leave the situation.

I hypothesize that part of why I started acting on my transgender feelings was
because I'd become so uncomfortable in my own body that my brain wasn't able
to make accurate predictions about the sensations coming from my within. This
is supported anecdotally by the following.

I started 2 activities when I accepted my desire to transition to female. Both
were touted at reducing the feelings of un-comfortableness in my own body.
Female to Male hormone therapy and taijiquan. Both produced lots of new
feelings for my brain. Both gave me a sense of agency over my own body, the
understanding that I have the ability to shape my body into what I want. In
the end I stopped transitioning because taking the hormones(mostly the T
blocker) isn't known to be healthy for the body(Liver/Kidneys). Taijiquan is
almost unanimously a positive source of change in ones health for the rest of
their lives therefore I choose taijiquan and a long healthy life over my
desires to have female genitals. Practicing Taijiquan makes me feel better,
and in regards to my gender dysphoria taijiquan has cured it; I am very
comfortable with my male genitals now that I'm able to make enough consistent
predictions during sex to remain engaged with the situation and remain turned
on.

Edit Addition: I'd like to state that I still identify as a cross dresser and
I'm comfortable saying that love certain parts/styles of womens fashion and
accessories. Example, I love long flowing skirts. As a society I feel we
should reassess men wearing skirts as it is much healthier for our genitals.

~~~
imranq
When the steam engine was invented, we thought of the brain as a series of
pressures. When we discovered electricity, we thought of the brain as wires.
When we got the internet, we thought of the brain as a network. Now sure
neural networks have the word "neuron" in them, but they are far far away from
the wetware that produced this conversation.

~~~
Bulkington
Tangential, but worth sharing for HN crowd, I think. Psychologist Jung and
physicist Pauli worked very closely together to explore the unity of mind and
matter. Some of their theories are, frankly, difficult to grasp and so
intuitively unfathomable they're easy (for me) to just dismiss. But when you
consider that Pauli could conceive the idea of the neutrino, impress Einstein
with a critique of general relativity, etc., then maybe he's just onto
something. The collection of letters referenced below is really wonderful.

[https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/03/09/atom-and-
archetype-...](https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/03/09/atom-and-archetype-
pauli-jung/)

------
runeks
Just because it has been an evolutionary advantage for our mind to be
constantly active, doesn't mean that this can't change.

That's the point of evolution: we adapt to what's necessary and, for millions
of years, constant thought was the factor that made us smarter than everyone
else, and the humans in whom this didn't occur weren't smart enough, thus
their genes disappeared from the gene pool.

This, however, doesn't mean we can't keep evolving towards a state of
consciousness where constant thought isn't required, it just means that -- as
is always the case -- existence is challenging, because there's millions of
years of inertia behind the mind. It has a strong pull, because it was needed
for survival. But we can keep evolving.

It doesn't need to continue like this forever. It just means that, as opposed
to earlier, the people in whom thought is too strong and uncontrollable are
now the ones whose genes are removed from the gene pool, through mental
illness and anxiety.

If you're willing to spend some time watching your mind, you'll realize that
it already stops all the time, it's just a matter of noticing this, thus
strengthening its absence. But don't expect there to be a button to push to
make it stop. It was needed for survival, so its cessation has become
associated with fear. But, while you are conscious of this fact, it's not a
problem, just a challenge.

~~~
jamescostian
I do not think that we should focus on the present, nor do I think that we
should focus on the past/future. However, I think even the original article
was more convincing than this argument.

Yes, it certainly is conceivable that people will evolve to "live in the
moment". But arguing that those who don't do so have mental illness and/or
anxiety is a bit much. That's like saying people who "live in the moment" will
be taken care of by natural selection because they won't learn from their
mistakes and they won't see things coming until it's too late.

First of all, it's a strawman - just because you're focusing on the present in
general doesn't mean you're unable to look at the past or future, and just
because you're focusing on the past/future in general doesn't mean you're
unable to enjoy the present as well. In other words, even if you're "living in
the moment" overall, you can still recall mistakes and avoid repeating them,
and you can still have foresight. And even if you reflect on the past or
consider possibilities of the future, you can still be neurotypical.

Second, even if these things were all mutually exclusive, what evidence
suggests that one of the group's genes will be removed from the gene pool? I
know plenty of people who forget everything and also struggle thinking 1 step
ahead in tic tac toe, and I don't see them struggling to keep their genes in
circulation - they just have a different pool they choose from (other "near-
sighted" people). Similarly, I have quite a few friends with anxiety, and they
do just fine, because they date other friends of mine with anxiety.

> If you're willing to spend some time watching your mind, you'll realize that
> it already stops all the time, it's just a matter of noticing this, thus
> strengthening its absence

And if you're willing to spend some time watching your mind, you'll realize
that it already starts back up all the time. It's just a matter of noticing
that your mind is inclined towards thinking, and strengthening the presence of
thoughts in your mind.

The previous paragraph was not meant as a serious argument. Again, I am not
arguing that "living in the moment" is bad or that we should avoid it or
anything like that. The point of it was just to demonstrate that the argument
needs more to back it up.

~~~
mowenz
>to "live in the moment". But arguing that those who don't do so have mental
illness and/or anxiety is a bit much.

In school I had a headmaster who was all about the importance of living in the
moment (and related, nice-sounding advice). Naive as I was I spent too much
time trying to figure out what is wrong with me until I eventually decided
such people need not criticize the minds of young adults with selling this
kind of bullshit.

To each their own and measure one another by the value they create, and how
they treat others, not by some worldview such as this which basically blurs
the line between philosophy/religion and science.

------
gosheroo
'Living in the moment' is a metaphor. Thoughts about the future always take
place in the present.

~~~
gerbilly
Exactly this!

I'd also point out that thoughts of the past always occur in the present as
well.

And remembering something is not like replaying a movie, but every time you
revisit a memory you change it a bit based on your current state.

Remembering is an active process.

~~~
gosheroo
Yes indeed, including in some cases changing the temporal order of events
based on reason or new data. For example, I once misheard a drinking mug
shatter on the floor _before_ it slid off the kitchen surface.

But reason corrected the memory.

[https://hilo.hawaii.edu/~ronald/310/310-Dennett-
MultiDrafts....](https://hilo.hawaii.edu/~ronald/310/310-Dennett-
MultiDrafts.htm)

I'd like to add that I think 'living in the moment' is powerful and useful
despite not being literally true because it points to something real and
important.

~~~
gerbilly
Well the term 'living in the moment' is just a western paraphrasing of the
much more subtle and thorough explanation of mindfulness in the original
suttas.

------
pbw
This is a decent article but I strongly dislike the title. The phrasing "we
aren't built for" is so pessimistic, as if being mindful (living in the
moment) is hopeless or unachievable, or even undesirable or harmful.

Thousands of years of meditation practices have proven that living in the
moment is very possible. Yes our brains are constantly planning and scheming
and trying to derail us, but this can be addressed with a modest amount of
deliberate practice.

Perhaps imagining the future is emblematic of humans, and maybe that has
developed over the last 2 million years, but animals have been around 300
million years, and they are (presumably) quite adept at living in the moment.
We can be as well. Striving towards that goal is very beneficial and
rewarding.

One entry point to meditation is Sam Harris's book Waking Up which I describe
here: [http://www.kmeme.com/2016/07/waking-
up.html](http://www.kmeme.com/2016/07/waking-up.html)

~~~
ghthor
I almost didn't read the article because of the title. As a avid practitioner
of mindfulness meditation, I was turned off, "That's horseshit, being in the
moment is what makes me happy and keeps me safe!" But after reading the
article this just reinforces why meditation is so good at resolving anxiety
and depression. Our brains AREN'T good at living in the moment, they are good
at making predictions. Mediation is the process by which we LET GO and try to
only OBSERVE the wild prediction process going on in our heads. Understanding
this makes the article only reinforce the notion that meditation is so healthy
for us as it teaches us to step away from our predictions before they spiral
into depression or general anxiety disorder.

~~~
derrida
Once about half a month into a retreat, I was staring at blank space in a hut
in the middle of the forrest, constantly distracted by fantasies of "a better
blank space" \- perhaps a nice cave with a walk in, or how I could make a
little hut at home and go there every morning. It seems like once I had let go
of everything, the mind even had a tendency to want to imagine better blank
spaces. lol. The cases of people fantasising about better houses or cars are
easy to see, but the fact that I saw it's possible the human mind can do this
with blank space means it can do it with anything. :) It's just human nature.
Denying things like this can create shadows and so on :)

Saying this though, it's watching the mind. We aren't built to live in the
moment, but never the less, something can see this! Something watches all this
going on in the mind! What is that? Mostly we make a 'home' in attention and
identify as our attention. But whatever was seeing 'me' fantasising about nice
little architectural meditation huts in the middle of the forrest, that was
indistinguishable from objective reality.

~~~
ghthor
That's a higher level of awareness. Often when someone says we need a paradigm
shift in conscience this is what they are talking about. They've achieved this
state, a higher level observational level of the world. The neocortex is
hierarchical, the output of one level being fed as the input to the next
higher level. Learning to consistantly station our awareness at the highest
level in our brains is a result of meditation practices.

I hypothesize one of the most efficient paths to solving most of societies
hardest problems would be to focus our education around mindfulness concepts
about conscience. I feel the pairing of meditation and evidence based science
used as a new institutional rock(our "mandatory" educational system needs
replacing) will lead humanity into the next golden era.

------
pdog
What uniquely distinguishes our species, more than anything else, is our
ability to tell stories. From hunting a mammoth to constructing an atomic
device, everything depends on our ability to believe in a common story.

~~~
chillacy
I've been thinking about that a lot lately.

We tell stories about ourselves and call it our identity. Often, we believe so
strongly in our identities that we've killed for them or have been killed for
them.

One person can have one identity where they're a failure, then through
therapy, they change their story and become happier. Same events, different
story.

There's also the cultural story: we descended from these people, we share an
intellectual lineage with those people, these are the past events that are
important, and this is what they reveal about us, etc.

~~~
l33tbro
Sounds like you may be interested in reading Professor Dan McAdams and the
general field of narrative psychology.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_psychology](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_psychology)

------
krosaen
A lot of interesting points made in this article, but the assertion that
trauma plays only a minor role in depression, made in passing, raised an
eyebrow. There's quite a bit of evidence that coming to terms with trauma, can
be key for some. Trauma is of course related to imagining the future, and the
therapies involved are aimed at resolving the haunting past so you can engage
with the present and future unfettered, but it's not like you can tell someone
with PTSD to just look to the future more positively.

------
ktRolster
I wasn't 'built' to type letters.

~~~
tambourine_man
Well, we built the device you type them on to fit our body, not the other way
around.

~~~
ghthor
We did a poor job of "fitting" it to our body and I personally fear RSI pains
every week due to how unfit our human-computer interfaces are. My dream is
that room-scale VR will become a productive way to perform my job(designing,
communicating and writing software) so that I'm up and moving around
throughout the whole work day, arms and all, no long stretches of time in the
same potentially tension producing position.

------
rasengan0
Ah, there goes present moment awareness mindfulness and all that ancient
millennial rediscovered new age mumbo jumbo.

Hey Buddha you ain't all dat!

My homo prospection:

In their foundational paper,"The authors speculate that prospection ..." that
will build up a novel cottage conference, paper, grant, VC money startup
generating industry catering to the buzzy AI/ML secular humanism
neurotechnopoly crowd starving for some paterno-religio-academic validation.
[1]

Carrie Fisher echos, 'Damn, we need you more than ever Pope Francis, you are
our only hope...'

I'd like to think computers are amazin' and my brain ain't one of em'

[1]
[https://www.prospectivepsych.org/sites/www.prospectivepsych....](https://www.prospectivepsych.org/sites/www.prospectivepsych.org/files/pictures/Seligman-
et-al_Navigating-into-the-future-2013.pdf)

------
suneilp
This makes a lot of assumptions, like we know what really went on in the minds
of our primitive ancestor's.

Meditation, yoga, and martial arts has taught me that being in the moment
actually makes prospecting easier and better. Not to mention the
stress/anxiety relief, being better connected socially, etc.

We've built up a lot of mental constructs over the millennia. These constructs
are things like how we're taught to react/respond to various stimuli like
emotions from ourselves and others. We're taught these by parents and society.
And we constantly refine them for better or worse.

There is so much going in this hyperconnected society that being in the moment
has become hard and/or harder to maintain.

~~~
ghthor
Perhaps being in the moment allows are prospecting to consistently start from
reality. Where if your lost in a maze of possible futures it's easy to keep
going to different starting points and generating lots of trash timelines.
Where if you are starting your imagination from this moment right now the tree
is shorter and more grounded in reality.

------
RichardHeart
"Homo prospectus is too pragmatic to obsess on death for the same reason that
he doesn’t dwell on the past: There’s nothing he can do about it."

Lots of things weren't possible, until they were. Focusing on paths towards a
goal beats focusing on paths towards failure. Not focusing on death =/= not
focusing on living.

Healthspan is one of the easiest things to increase, and has hundreds of
millions of people doing it whether they're aware of it or not, anyone that
eats well or exercises is pro-longevity whether they realize it or not :) That
could be considered anti-death behavior, without any need to focus on death at
all.

------
irickt
On the principal author's site this is referred to as the "foundational
paper":
[https://www.prospectivepsych.org/sites/www.prospectivepsych....](https://www.prospectivepsych.org/sites/www.prospectivepsych.org/files/pictures/Seligman-
et-al_Navigating-into-the-future-2013.pdf)

------
owenversteeg
Huh, this sounds interesting. I wonder how often people were pinged during the
day? Anyone want to go find the study?

> The central role of prospection has emerged in recent studies of both
> conscious and unconscious mental processes, like one in Chicago that pinged
> nearly 500 adults during the day to record their immediate thoughts and
> moods. If traditional psychological theory had been correct, these people
> would have spent a lot of time ruminating. But they actually thought about
> the future three times more often than the past, and even those few thoughts
> about a past event typically involved consideration of its future
> implications.

> When making plans, they reported higher levels of happiness and lower levels
> of stress than at other times, presumably because planning turns a chaotic
> mass of concerns into an organized sequence. Although they sometimes feared
> what might go wrong, on average there were twice as many thoughts of what
> they hoped would happen.

~~~
matt4077
You can do more than read the study, become a part of it:
[https://www.trackyourhappiness.org](https://www.trackyourhappiness.org)

~~~
kevingrahl
I feel like this is something where I should probably read the whole Privacy
Policy and possibly the ToS before using it at all.

------
mrkgnao
The comments on this remind me of the somewhat-related koan (from the Jargon
File?) about how an apprentice tried to randomize the weights on a neural
network to "rid it of preconceptions", and the master responded by closing his
eyes "so that the room would be empty".

------
tim333
Vaguely related: I've been experimenting with positive visualisation - you
picture yourself in the future achieving something or other. I think it may
help focus the brains pondering / neural pattern recognition on positive stuff
rather than what junk's on TV etc.

~~~
matt4077
I've always been extremely sceptical of the "positive thinking" school of
thought. Not only were there quite a few studies showing no or negative
effects, I just can't get over the mental image of some car salesman screaming
"You can do it" at his mirror every morning.

~~~
tim333
I'm a little skeptical too although it seems to work for sports planning
physical movements. The other stuff I'm not so sure.

------
leoc
"We are never living, but hoping to live; and whilst we are always preparing
to be happy, it is certain, we never shall be so, if we aspire to no other
happiness than what can be enjoyed in this life."

------
jashper
To think that our achievement was singular, is rather disappointing.

------
hypertexthero
From the Longnow Foundation’s about page:

> Upon moving to New York City, Brian (Eno) found that “here” and “now” meant
> “this room” and “this five minutes” as opposed to the larger here and longer
> now that he was used to in England. We have since adopted the term as the
> title of our foundation as we try to stretch out what people consider as
> now.

— [http://longnow.org/about/](http://longnow.org/about/)

------
gallerdude
I do wonder where this fits in with meditation. Perhaps it's "clearing the
cache," letting us re-explore options.

~~~
ioddly
See:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25904238)

Saying "built to" is a pretty strong statement. Constructing narratives about
the future is one thing the human mind can do, and is clearly advantageous.
Focusing on one thing to the exclusion of all else is another.

------
nebabyte
Not according to Google [0]!

Given their pitch to advertisers, we are built _exactly_ to live in "moments"
\- all conveniently full of advertising opportunities ;)

Depends on who you ask, I suppose. lol

[0]
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=cplXL-E1ioA](https://youtube.com/watch?v=cplXL-E1ioA)

------
ddmma
We're like a little scared squirrel that looks back and forth not having the
capacity to understand and enjoy 'this' moment. I guess is because of how we
perceive time and what we can do about it.

------
raverbashing
I might agree with the conclusion, but I mostly disagree with the rest

Humans making plans? Religion? That came as an afterthought and it's mostly
_forced_ through society (living the moment). Most people, most of the time
_will do_ what gives them pleasure right now instead of what might give them a
reward later on. One just needs to look at obesity/lack of exercise/smoking,
those are big problems.

The past is important, because all the predictions we do _are based on past
experiences_ even if there might be some random factor. Even artificial neural
networks learn with time and what happened in the past is ingrained onto them.

Thinking about the future is certainly good but unless people fix their
mistakes the outcome will be the same

------
mattbgates
We weren't built to pay taxes... but for some reason, someone thought it was a
good idea and everyone else followed suit.

~~~
mattbgates
To clarify with the people who feel that we were built to pay taxes: it is not
to say that we shouldn't help others and even establish forms of law and
government and pay our dues. The social contract affirms that we must do this
and it isn't free. So we must be willing to pay something "into the system" to
have this.

It is the fact that... how much in taxes do we have to pay until enough is
enough? Our paychecks are taxed. Our toilet paper and food is taxed.
Everything in life is taxed and even our deaths, at least our estates, are
taxed.

We weren't born or built to do this. This is an enforcement upon us that we
agreed upon and we continue to do in order to live in the "social contract".
We continuously feed this unending hungry greed money machine and "this is the
way it is."

Of course, there are people who "live off the grid" and found their way to pay
nothing. There are also rich people who prefer to pay other people to find
loopholes in order to avoid paying taxes too.

~~~
Bakary
I feel like you may be underestimating the value of this social contract. The
convenience of the rule of law and developed comfort only really become
apparent once they are gone.

------
psyc
That's why so many people train the ability.

------
blubb-fish
we aren't built to juggle three balls either. but it can be learned and it's
worth it.

------
6stringmerc
You know how I can smell bullshit in this article? Right here:

> _Some of our unconscious powers of prospection are shared by animals, but
> hardly any other creatures are capable of thinking more than a few minutes
> ahead._

That's simply not true. Evolution and historical knowledge are intertwined
with our RNA/DNA more than we know.

Citation:

[https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/animal_eqs.php](https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/animal_eqs.php)

We are completely built to live in the moment, if only we are wise enough to
learn from the past. Learning when to trust the hairs on the back of the neck
perking up for a sense of future danger is important. I've waited tables. I
can tell within 15 seconds if you're generous or a cheapskate.

The article ends up basically trying to state, clumsily, that we don't live in
the moment because we're seeking the meaning of life. You know, Flying
Spaghetti Monsters. I guess I'm just surprised this article wasn't the result
of a NYT All-Star-Idiot team up of Brooks & Friedman. This kind of smells like
their brand of shitty intellectual posturing.

~~~
nnq
> Some of our unconscious powers of prospection are shared by animals, but
> hardly any other creatures are capable of thinking more than a few minutes
> ahead.

>> That's simply not true. Evolution and historical knowledge are intertwined
with our RNA/DNA more than we know.

These are two very different kinds of informational processes:

\- the one done by _evolution, using genes and other non-conscious supra-
individual "devices"_: (1) does not produce information that can be shared
_horizontally_ (unless you're a bacterium) through communication, (2) is not
_processed consciously in communication_ , aka "you don't talk about it and
analyze it collectively in conversations" (unless you're a scientist talking
about evolutionary biology) and (3) it does require individuals to _break-out
of the moment and think a bit deeper on shit,_ even if this may have the side
effect of making you less attentive and sometimes makes you seem insensitive
bordering on either psychopathy or autism depending on your social skills (or
an "evil ego-centric not-living-in-the now intellectual" for less
sophisticated minds)

\- the one done by individuals, using their brains, either consciously or not,
and usually in data formats that can be easily encoded in language for people
to be able to _talk about their visions of the future_ and _" infect"_ others
with them; this is _the realm of memes_ and _visions_ and most of the
interesting shit happens there

Also, the article mentions some pretty deep insights when talking about
depression, anxiety etc. Imho there's quite a lot that could be done in
psychiatry and positive psychology through more "future-vision focused"
therapies. Yeah, it's dangerous shit to play with, we know what happened when
Hitler did "future-vision therapy" on a whole nation and it went wrong... But
it's a tool with great potential, that requires you to break-of-the-now a
little bit. And yeah, generally the powerful tools that result from "breaking-
out-of-the-now" tend to be dangerous, like nuclear weapons and nuclear power
(not "thinking in the now" sane person would develop technology that requires
millenia-long waste disposal planning), but we're sure gonna be glad to have
these tools once we start moving around the universe more...

(Oh, and I dunno what's with this anti-NYT sentiments Americans have lately...
as an European I find it the most enjoyable source of Sunday morning reading
from the american press, once you learn to ignore it's obviously partisan
political agenda and focus on _the actual content._ )

~~~
nnq
EDIT: my point (3) from above obviously belongs under the second bullet point
and should be labeled (1)... did a stupid text moving around and a renumbering
thing I guess... sorry for the confusion and hope you didn't understand
backwards what I was saying :)

------
lngnmn
Bullshit. We are built by evolution to live in this particular physical
environment and had no trouble living there for last few millions of years or
so.

What we are not evolved to do is to live in an overpopulated urban areas,
forced to wage slavery and to constantly compete for everything, even a place
in a subway, while being awashed with emotionally charged verbal and visual
bullshit 24h, hipsterism and other forms of idiotic cosplay of unearned
success and presumably high social status by each and every one passed by,
while being over-regulated by stupid laws imposed on us by a bloated self-
serving "government" so even a straight look of contempt at a tasteless, fat
woman in some stupid yoga pants would lead to trouble.

the Moment has nothing to do with this. It is so called "human society".

~~~
ghthor
I'm perfectly happy living in one of those urban areas. I speak out when the
people around me are doing things that are rude or dangerous or disgusting and
then I move on. My actions towards others are intended to avoid causing all
the problems you're describing(anxiety, self-doubt, nervousness); hopefully
they inspire others to be considerate or change their behavior. The
mindfulness skills that cities help cultivate are acceptance and
releasing(letting go).

If you find yourself constantly angry or stressed or nervous about other
people you should probably remove yourself from the situation, relax and let
it go. If you aren't prepared for confrontation or are worried about the
situation escalating then use the moments before you let it go to come up with
other ways to potentially solve the problem. Get crazy with it, like making a
bunch of untraceable fliers, or making a long anonymous post to some digital
community related to the location or activity. Their are lots of ways to
influence how people act in the long term, in the short term direct
confrontation almost always works.

Situations where you're unable to remove yourself from the area to avoid
someone are the worst. This is why performances on the subway piss me off so
much, or people ranting about something. I've been making a point to directly
confront anyone doing anything that makes me uncomfortable on the subway and
tell them why it makes me uncomfortable and that they need to stop. Just today
some women came on the train and started yelling about eating a plant based
diet, how it was good for the planet. I agree with her and I'm on and off
vegan, but it's NOT fucking cool to start yelling on the subway unless you're
getting violated by someone or you're in danger. I snapped her with my
spectacles repeating, "ma'am, would you stop yelling on the train", ending
with, "You're making all vegans look bad." She did finally stop

~~~
crush-n-spread
I think the point is not that humans can learn to cope with urban
environments, like you suggest - The point is that humans weren't meant to
live in them. Everything the parent poster says is true, and you're just
saying "Humans can get to a point where it's tolerable." I for one think I
should not have a verbal and visual barrage of bullshit hit me with full force
everyday, powered by the interests of multinational tech companies or
governments. Peace and quiet is something that should be treasured, not lost
and then made up for with mental tricks.

~~~
ghthor
I agree. My long term plan with my life is to acquire the wealth and knowledge
to build and maintain my own life using permaculture. I'd say I agree with you
and the thread OP that we weren't made to live in these nasty, dirty,
stressing urban environments.

My main point is that the knowledge in this article arms you with the idea
that you can cope and live within these non-humane environments by basically
hacking your brain(avoiding negative prediction paths). You could call it
raising your awareness to a higher level of consciousness. So, while you still
might notice from time to time someone is doing something gross or that would
annoy you, you no longer focus on it. You let it go, you focus on something
else, your breathe, your balance, what you making for dinner, how much you
love someone, how bad our infrastructure is, how to solve that problem at
work, how not to solve that problem at work, how did that nasty ass smear get
on the subway door's window?

~~~
crush-n-spread
I think you make a good point calling it 'A higher level of consciousness'. It
makes a lot of sense: In rural environments there is less stimulus and so your
brain adapts less; in a city environment, there is a lot of stimulus, so if
you want to manage your emotions and productivity, you must adapt. I submit
that the conscious brain adaptations that a person makes will give them
greater emotional and mental control, or willpower.

------
gallerdude
Off topic: I love all the great longform NYT stuff HN posts, but can never
find it on my own - where can I find it on my own?

~~~
zachrose
Long-form NYT stuff is generally in the NYT Sunday Magazine (and its online
equivalent).

~~~
gallerdude
Thanks!

~~~
tim333
See also: [https://longform.org/archive/publications/new-york-times-
mag...](https://longform.org/archive/publications/new-york-times-magazine) and
similar

