xaleb

Thanks for the recommendation! What genuinely surprised me was that the stoic perspective to trust your own self felt incredibly relatable to me. That and the various opinions on Roman society expressed by both Seneca and Aurelius.

I definitely want to read Nietzsche. I'm currently trying to get a broader perspective, and it seems that Nietzsche should be next in line.

Would you care to outline what exactly was Nietzsche's criticism?

I didn't read the actual Myth of Sisyphus, but I've listened to some lectures about it and read some descriptions of it. I can't quite convince myself that studying it is worth it, and I'd like to hear why exactly it is worthwhile.

From my perspective, absurdism seems like Greek stoicism, but created by a deeply depressed person. The stoic perspective is that we're capable of persevering through the worst possible situations in life and that our intelligences, minds are able to handle such problems, that if we just listen to ourselves we can see how to navigate the most difficult scenarios and to thrive despite them. What is also appealing to me about stoicism is that it's not only a perspective on life, it's a set of practices which can help you adopt the perspective (sort of like Zen koans are supposed to help you adopt the Zen mindset).

On the other hand, what I've heard of absurdism seems to tell me that its overall outlook is very similar, but it sounds far, far more depressive, which is quite impressive if I'm comparing it with a philosophy that tries to convince you it's good to think about your child's death when you're telling them goodnight.

Sorry if the take seems too hot.

I agree with the part where taking notes lets us structure our ideas and helps us remember. However, here's one principle that I found very useful: note-taking should be structured in such a way that you _encounter_ notes that you took previously. This is part of the idea behind Roam's backlinks, but I think no technology by itself will help here. The problem is having the correct approach: it should be possible to list notes on a topic, and they should be reviewed from time to time to see if they are relevant or not. This way, ideas which were noted down can be reviewed, kept track of, and pruned -- just seeing the title of a note is more than enough for this.

I've been doing that for more than half a year on various topics -- world locations, news, films and books I've seen/read, CS papers, research ideas -- and the results are great: I can remember more and I call recall and describe my memories more fluidly. What's important is that note-taking isn't the only way that "old" ideas can be re-encountered. If you want to remember information about the world, just take a look at the world map from time to time, point to places and think about what you want to remember.

Since calling it "talk therapy" might be off-putting to some people, here's my perspective. I've been participating in cognitive-behavioural therapy sessions for 4 months now, and the results have been genuinely astounding - I'm speaking as someone that would previously dismiss such things as nonsense. I've had trouble with sleep for the past 2 years, as in: I can't really recall a week where I slept well, without waking up. I had panic attacks. I had (anxiety-like) difficulties when talking with others that would qualify as a disability. I've had incredible trouble with stress. By now, all of that is nearly gone, just thanks to talking about my problems and figuring out the emotional patterns that are behind them.

Side comment: doing a PhD in a foreign country is no joke. First rule of doing a PhD is: don't do a PhD.