Everyman Day 4 – 12/10/2011
HUGE update. I believe I should get an experience bonus for character development.
06:15
I'm not gonna say much, except it's worse than yesterday. Youch. This is really rock bottom on day 4, like described in most blogs. Most people fail now. I certainly feel like it, but will not let myself.
I should point out, before the more condescending of you speak up (some already have
), that I will stick with schedule so long as I am following the symptons described by the others on a rough timescale. If I do not experience some rejuvenation before the end of the first week, then my symptons are deviating enough for me to call a halt and say that I am honestly just not compatible with this stuff.
23:12
(This part gets quite personal, as I ponder and ponder the implications of today. I'm facing, or rather, faced some personal demons, here. I don't mind being open about stuff like this – in fact it's refreshing – but if you're like to feel unsettled, just don't read it. This is something that I have to put down on paper, to solidify it to myself – today was very important to me, personally.)
The naps are getting better, definitely. I got a lot more tired the immediate half hour before all of my naps today, though I've had bouts of tiredness in-between as well. I'm in the middle of one right now, trying to pull that last stretch towards the three-hour core at 3:00 AM that always crushes me so the next day.
So, on to the exciting stuff.
Today, I was extremely close to breaking. So very, very close. A hairs breadth from giving up. You really are your own worst enemy – when you are tired enough you can rationalize
anything if you're not absurdly careful.
It was in class during the first hour, and I felt, quite frankly, as if I was dying. I kept having the sensation of falling backwards and down, spiraling. I was shivering, and feeling cold, and it took constant, hardcore effort to keep my eyelids even half open. It took all of my concentration to stay even barely awake. It feels very much like being extremely ill, except you're not
weak in that fashion, and it comes and goes as your brain tries to find out what the hell you're doing. (I know that sounds like serious symptons, but it's all in the lists of how I should be feeling right now at this stage, so not really worried here.)
Desperate for sleep, my brain tried to push a devilish scheme upon me. It would even allow me to save face with my friends for failing. I'd go to the bathroom, saying I felt bad (quite true, though in a different). Then I'd spend a few minutes there, and go back, pretending to have vomited all over that place. I'm sick, I would have said. Sick with the flu, or somesuch. I certainly look ill enough already. And being sick is what everybody doing polyphasic sleep says is a sure-fire signal that you must sleep all you can. Now.
I
did go to the bathroom. Tried to fake the effects of having thrown up. Then I paused, and thought, ”Really? This is fucking piss weak as hell, Tor.” It might allow me to save face with my friends, but it would not allow me to save face with myself.
But eh, my brain noted seductively, turning my mind to other things, like pillows and unicorns,
screw that.
I walked back up to the class fully intending to carry out my nefarious scheme, and just, just as I was about to open the door, I halt. And think. I stand there for a few minutes. That stretch into long minutes, as I realize and fully trail out the implications. I shiver slightly.
Use that bayesian utility stuff you've been reading so much about lately, I think to myself. This feels instinctually wrong, as if I'm forgetting something important. Think rationally, follow your actions through to their consequences.
The scheme wasn't nefarious, in that my mates wouldn't really lose or gain anything.
So, who would?
I certainly wouldn't gain anything; I'd be back to status quo pre-Everyman. I wasn't even at genuine physical risk, I knew exactly when to quit, if I got the signs.
I would, however,
lose a lot. I would lose the effort I'd put in so far. I'd lose the potential to succeed at this and gain essentially 20% more
life than the average person. But
even that was small stuff; most of all, I'd genuinely lose my trust in my ability to control myself, my trust in myself. I'd lose faith in myself. And that was like, really fucking bad. I hadn't realized what kind of huge personal stakes I'd had in play here so far. And now I realized how close I had just gotten to really screwing myself over, grand style.
This is that final test of personality that I've been waiting for that I've given myself, without noticing it. The culmination of many a year of mental growth and maturation. And now there is no way back. I will lose, or I will win. And losing this trust in myself, that thought genuinely, really scares me. I've always had doubts about the real strength of my will, and decided that nothing but total control over myself will do. Anything less than that, and I am a slave of myself. But I've never known whether I had that control. To emphasize, there is only one thing I'm more afraid of than not having that control of myself, and that is death. Because there can be recovery from this in time, but there is no recovery from death.
But now is the time for the answer. I'm determined to make it the right one.
Okay, damnit, my brain conceded.
You win.
Suddenly, I feel refreshed, and not that tired at all. In my head, my estimates of my chance at pulling through this entire ordeal increase
vastly. I bounce happily into the classroom, suddenly full of energy.
Whew, I think to myself. Smart brain. Clever. That was
way too close to the abyss for my taste. You almost had me. I decide to watch out especially for behavior like this again. It's deceptive and seductive, and extremely, extremely hard to resist.
But now I'll always have the knowledge of this, that thought, that awareness at the back of my head that my brain will have failed to calculate all the necessary information to make decisions this important. Never act on instinct in matters like this. This will help in the future.
I've often heard people describe just how horrible it is to stop smoking. And I thought that was silly. ”Can't you just stop?” I thought. ”It's that simple, isn't it?” Oh, how stupid you have been, boy. (And most like still am, in other ways. Don't get arrogant.)
Now, however, I figure it must be exactly like this is. And boy, I feel bad for all smokers out there.
Being in the middle of my awakening as a
rationalist, I had failed to notice that I was, well, failing to notice my own confusion. And it is always true that
your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge.
I must never forget this basic tenet.
Note to self: Your debt to mister
Eliezer Yudkowsky of
Less Wrong just went up like, a hundredfold. Seriously unending gratitude there, for giving me the tools to deal with this and so many other things. For some things, saying thank you isn't really enough; I believe this is one of them.
The rest of the day went considerably easier, following this little internal piece of drama. All in all, I am in a
very good mood.
Cheers.
) if all of this is as real as you say it is. Either way I'll be following your posts very intensely.
