In an earlier post “How to Defeat ‘Doom Scrolling’” I gave some practical tips for defeating Doom Scrolling, which can roughly be described as something like harming oneself (wasting time, agitating oneself) through using social media. In this blog post, I will first describe how the popular psychology idea of Flow coincides largely with a Christian ethic/aesthetic of joyful work and some technical issues about how Flow is lost. I’ll compare Flow with Doom Scrolling, which I identify as often being of the same species as “Educational Television” and corresponding to the vice Christians have called idle learning1. I will then describe the mechanics through which Doom Scrolling can make one depressed2.
Modern society and its “progress” have encouraged people to choose pleasure over pain, comfort & ease over work; the effects of this have been devastating. Understanding how this is done, we can fight back by choosing to work.
What does joyful work look like?
Work can be a wonderful, joyful thing, despite the pain and effort involved.
Knowing that the accomplishment of anything worthwhile will involve a lot of work, as a student, I begin trying to study ‘work’3 broadly through “Positive” Psychology4 and Business (science). So-called “positive” psychology tries to study what well-ordered psychology looks like, rather than focusing on disorders. Business science is similar in that it focuses on success; how is it that managers, employees, etc. are able to successfully do things?
Crucially, joyful work involves action. Study or “book learning” is important insofar as it can inform us in which actions are useful to take (a kind of discernment): a useful teacher or coach can help a person make progress by choosing exercises and other activities that help develop one’s mind and body to do progressively more difficult work. Difficulty might be measured in both the strength5 required as well as complexity. Joyful work is both enjoyable in the moment and forms a person to do more joyful work in the future.
Typically, Flow (which we can roughly call “joyful work”) is able to occur when a person is engaged in activity that has the correct balance of employing already gained abilities while being interestingly challenging.6 A person in a Flow state forgets any bodily pain as they are able to fully focus their attention on the work they are doing, acting with both speed and strength.
While one may experience this alone, experiencing Flow in a group is something even more joyful; in the Bible, I think this is one thing that is meant by harmony among brothers. In the context of singing, this could take the form of a group of singers all employing their own abilities simultaneously, building something greater than they could on their own.
Joyful work is often associated with manual labor and traditional arts/crafts because this work might be said to be more “natural” than lots of the modern toil that people do.7 Some things that might inhibit Flow are:
interruptions: (e.g. a phone call, text message notification)
legal/regulatory obstacles: one’s “hands are tied”, preventing one from working freely; one feels constrained from acting freely to the best of their abilities
excess baggage: additional possessions, obligations, etc. that steal one’s attention
lack of resources: one may like to continue some work, but they are constrained by lack of materials, funding, etc. that inhibit them from continuing their work
Thus, it is often work that is very inexpensive to do, without much legal supervising, that one can do away from phones/computers and other distractions that is where one may find Flow. More money and more possessions may often inhibit, rather than help one to find Flow.
With skillful hands, a person may be able to do huge amounts of work with their spirit free; just as when walking, one doesn’t need to think about their steps when all is going well, one’s body may move in very complex ways while one soars in contemplation, in pleasant conversation, in song…!
Idle Learning
As opposed to working knowledge, there is also idle learning. Idle learning involves dissipating one’s attention to things over which one can exert no action. One’s mind and attention are brought low to the futile building of wet sandcastles, collapsing under their own weight.
In our “Digital/Information Age”, we see huge emphasis placed on “education”. I think that this is one of the key reasons why people are depressed (=unable or resistant to doing things). What are we being taught and how does this drain our life?
Spaced out Gamers
One topic I like to smash again and again is that of “space” or modern “cosmology”. Lots of “Educational” television has been produced about “space” (as well as about Climate Change ™️ and other topics). What good does learning about “space” do for a person?8 Now, this is not a NASA deboonk article, but at least bear with my explanation here on how learning about “space” and other popular topics of Establishment mythology are unto depression.
With lots of knowledge of space, what can a person do but repeat stories… maybe identify some constellations in the night sky? The sorts of activities a person can actually do with this widely promulgated “knowledge” is extremely limited. And even repeating stories and looking at constellations… what will this lead to? Are you to worship ancient Greek deities and go on pilgrimages to US government federal agent facilities to venerate giant phalluses rockets? The Establishment will only give you a hand-wavy answer as to “why” we are to focus on these things (“to preserve monkey-man humanity” [for a few more gajillion years before the “heat death of the universe” and all is nothing]??).
For this reason, the topic of gamification has become a huge “selling point” in educational technology today. DON’T ASK WHY YOU’RE PLAYING THE GAME; JUST PLAY. The idea is to make boring, unmeaningful, idle learning “fun” via building fake/silly reward systems. If you forget that you’re building wet sandcastles, you might be able to engage your attention all day. As opposed to the real joy that comes from participation in reality and building virtue, games try to capture attention in a self-contained “sandbox” where results are doled out in a systematic way. The emphasis is technical; this is why Robos/AIs can do it. There is no “personal development”. Everything is controlled as the potential results of one’s actions are bound by the rules of the game/framework.
Let me show you pictures of things you can’t do
Sitting in front of a TV, zoning out, and becoming “fascinated by the cosmos” is a cosmic waste of time. Similarly, lots of the “facts” one can learn from watching travel shows, “history” documentaries, and other content is silly. Look up some “facts” listicles; approaching these actively, not passively clicking them when you are tired, and actually considering their contents can allow you to see how silly much of the Establishment and its gimicks are: 105 Fascinating World Facts You Have To Know - Facts.net. By trying to take away anything “unpleasant” or “negative” and package things “nicely”, the Establishment presents a sterile, limited picture of the world as a kind of already conquered/mapped out pleasure garden. You can travel around it and amuse yourself… and follow the rules to “be safe”. What’s left?
Constrained by money, time, and other finite resources, the Establishment offers you visions of an unwinnable game. On the one hand, you are shown luxuries you cannot afford or engage in (so you can live through them vicariously, or via rentals). On the other hand, the Establishment shows you images of great pain and suffering, making you feel guilty and powerless (how can you eat a burger when there are starving children?!). And so people are limited in pleasures they can enjoy, while they are constantly teased. And simultaneously, the Establishment incites despair by showing you situations (sometimes fictional) you have no control over: they play with your emotions.
Either way, whether “negative” or “positive”, the Establishment tells you about things you can’t do much of anything about. So, there is no peace in feeling either disempowered for enacting any positive change OR feeling anxiety as temporary riches/pleasures slip away. Different people respond differently to a blend of these two basic approaches ☯️, but the same principles are being put to work on us all.
Doom Scrolling is expending one’s time and attention gazing at the spinning Yin-Yang sign, looking at the snake eat its own tail… One enters into a self-consuming fake and grey Flow, getting nowhere while slowly bleeding out…
The utopian dream of “labor saving” devices has failed.
Contrasted with the concept of Flow given above, modern “Education” is often about little tricks and tips to get out of work. But, as Bro Science has long taught: “to get strong, you must repeatedly lift heavy things”. Education, by framing everything in a sort of gameable system, makes an environment where little, cheap victories may be obtained and sold. You can “learn”, but your knowledge is limited to the confines of the rules of the game/system.
Educational TV gives the illusion of learning, but one does not really learn much (and in fact may be misinformed by the repetition of fantasies/fictions). In contrast, finding Flow is something like doing lots of work actively and attentively and more fully engaging reality. Educational TV tries to offer a false, easier to understand reality (which is ultimately dull/boring) whereas active work/study with no shortcuts is the difficult but rewarding path of engaging reality. Educational TV is depressing (if everything is already easy/given, where is the fight?).
One does not climb a mountain to “download information”. Sweating and struggling to climb the mountain is very important, probably essential. Yet, now, people drive to “Vista points” and wonder why sunsets aren’t romantic. Positive affirmations and nature walks cannot bring joy to the one who hates work and complains.
Safety, Security, and the End of Enjoyment
How is it that we’ve seen a proliferation of “Educational” programming accompanied by a decline in people doing actual work/activities and likewise a general increase of misery? Every year we see more and more computers and fewer and fewer people finding satisfaction with their work. I think one of the main proximal causes of a rise in idle “Educational” learning is the promotion of safety and security as a substitute for virtue. Rather than trying to develop excellent people, as a society we’ve decided to focus our efforts on making safe practices and secure systems. Ultimately, the idea is that if we get some engineering (social, managerial) airtight, we will eliminate the possibility of failure and everything will go smoothly.
Note that all of this is predicated on a rejection of God. Living in fear and not trusting in God, one can invent countless scenarios in which harm comes for no good reason. Believing the world is random and chaotic and dangerous and that “bad things happen to good people” without reason logically leads to being a safety-weenie.
Buying into this general fear-based attitude, many people opt for the “safe” choice of avoiding known pain/discomfort, trusting in systems. This is very similar to “Utopian” thinking or even “progressive” thinking generally. Asking a progressive how society has progressed, they are likely to refer to how technology, democracy, etc. has somehow managed to eliminate drudgery/oppression from past times and eras. These claims can be investigated in future blog posts if anyone is interested… suffice to say, many of us modern people (gen x, milen gen, zoomer…) were raised in an environment where questioning the notion that world became gooder was a big societal taboo, because it was only with this notion that we would accept the increasingly constraining society tightening around us.
No! Turn off the stove! You might get burnt!
No! Don’t cut with a knife, use a SLAP CHOP, you might cut yourself!
No! Don’t drive, you might crash and die!
No! Don’t go outside while its raining, you might slip and fall into the gutter!
No! Don’t research yourself, you might get misinformed by the Russians!!!!!
I think this is one of the big ways in which “Educational TV” has sunk its claws into the population. Many people in my generation (milen gen) were raised on lots of this stuff because we weren’t allowed to do other things; children were thrown “educational” this and that because it was presumed to be good/helpful. I think we were fed a lot of information that wasn’t really well-audited by the adults that were supposed to instruct us… being labeled as “educational” (just as food that is labeled as “healthy”) was given to us because this was the expedient thing to do and it seemed neutral enough, even if not beneficial.
Thus, many of us were deprived of work that could have been unto our proper formation. Rather than gaining experience by doing different sorts of work, we got boxed in and gained more experience “video gaming” the Establishment.
The appeal of “Educational TV” is that it is easy and that it is passive. Rather than actually going forth and studying things, doing some useful work, etc., educational TV gives people assurance that they are “learning” by repeating weirdo esoteric numbers and “facts”9.
Consulting as Game Development
A rather silly example of idle learning may be learning about fictional worlds. This is a big thing in the “educated” West. This helps train people to become builders of myths/fictional worlds. As a child, for example, I familiarized myself with the (150+1) original Pokémon. What use could this possibly have?
Many of our “industries” rely on “gaming” in fictional worlds. One could look at how careers in advertising, law, …and I will argue further below “science” very often involve model diddling more so than actually doing anything. So, students with a lot of energy may get good at getting high scores in video games, drawing Pokémon, or writing My Little Pony fan fictions thereby developing some “skills”. But this type of “work” often feels empty, hollow, and fake because rather than directly giving some beneficial result, one instead is stuck developing so-called “critical thinking”, “computer skills”, and other plug-and-play Establishment abilities. Rather than acting as a horse10 running free on an open field or performing useful and work under the direction of a skilled rider, we are strapped into a machine, forced to exert energy on a very restricted track.
Alan is Chinese. He’d known about building the railroads. - Anonymous
“Learning” is restricted to technical skills, training a person to stay on a particular mind prison track.
So why do we put up with this at all? Idle learning can be appealing, because the world gives some degree of prestige to it. One can fancy themselves as being “learned/educated” or “knowledgeable” having given themselves to any number of things. I think in Christian texts, there is discussion of people being “puffed up” by idle learning, coming to have a higher opinion of themselves than they ought.
The “gaming” aspect of Establishment myths is also a means by which one may participate (via slavery). Many people had to help build the Tower of Babel, after all. So for those that are itching to do something and cannot sit and watch “Educational Television”, one can rage and spend their efforts chasing Establishment Reward Tokens (e.g. US Dollars) spinning the Establishment hamster wheels. Endless time can be spent comparing scores, statistics, and other bean counting.
Nerds who have invested lots of time and effort into idle learning are especially prone to propping up the idle learning complex because the honors they receive are dependent on the integrity of that complex: a nerd that looks funny but is good at some “science” has his learning as his “strength”—the stronger the Establishment is and the more he embeds himself within it, the more power he derives.
Doom Scrolling: Educational TV Compressed
Doom Scrolling has the same mechanism as “Educational Television” in that one passively receives descriptions of reality, as interpreted by 3rd parties, through voluntary passive participation. Scrolling, one “fishes” by lazily floating down an Establishment approved stream, perhaps encountering some stimulus (poke, prod).
Note that many people justify their social media activity by “bringing awareness” to issues. Another way to describe this opportunity might be… agitating other people. People may equate become agitated/disturbed by their Doom Scrolling as a kind of virtue: e.g. by saying, “I can face the terrible facts about the world” or “by increasing my AWARENESS I thereby become more empathetic/kind/…” or some variation thereof.11
Usually, from my own experience doing some Doom Scrolling, I think that Doom Scrolling is simply used as a kind of an uneasy rest, a way to manifest anxiety by filling one’s time doing something on the one hand “easy” but on the other hand having enough involvement to keep one awake, in the most mundane, clinical sense. People will often choose to Doom Scroll to “kill time”; or if they may be trying to lazily “be productive”, by say… scrolling through tips and tricks for this-and-that.
…but then one may ask, why is one so occupied with being “productive”?
The Gnostic STEM of Evil
The modern world likes to justify itself in terms of bean counting, asserting how because this-and-that metric is quantitatively better, then the world is getting gooder.
Lots of Doom Scrolling and television is about this vision, satirically depicted above. The “Doom” of Doom Scrolling comes from people talking about numbers and how things are bad, or getting you involved emotionally in stories/events you have no control over. The “Scrolling” comes from increasing the quantity of this: one overloads their system laughing at something silly here, seeing how a person is being stupid there, seeing how violence/tragedy is occurring over there...
The Establishment doesn’t just leave you hanging. They provide various ideologies for people to identify with, so that they can believe that they’re “part of the solution”. One must of course ask, the solution to what?
The Doom Scroller is faced with questions such as,
Why is there pain and suffering in the world?
Why do “good things” happen to “bad people”, and “bad things” happen to “good people”?
How can I keep going?
How do I avoid thinking about XYZ?
Perhaps the Doom Scroller doesn’t consciously think of all these questions, but I think that these are pretty fundamental questions that we try to “answer” through our actions.12 The Doom Scroller is told that (s)he can alleviate pain and suffering in the world (mainly through research & development13, and the kindness illustrated in “feel good” stories). Similarly the Doom Scroller is told they can help prevent “bad things” from happening to “good people” by signing up for the things that good people sign up for, e.g. registering to vote, buying insurance, buying cars with the latest safety features… If all of this isn’t already exhausting enough, the Doom Scroller needs some blends of “motivating” (=makes you move) content: music/dance play a strong role in helping people groove into Establishment rhythms. Finally, much filler content must be added to simply avoid thinking about death or whatever unpleasant realities screens can help divert our attention from.
Similar to how the quantified “nutritional facts” of some Establishment prepared meal may offer all the essential ingredients to “live” another day, the Doom Scrolling diet offers just enough to keep on going another day doing the same thing…
Where is life found?
Doom Scrolling offers a “safe/secure” pseudo-life. One can experience controlled emotional fluctuations and wander the streets of the Information Superhighway giving a nod/thumbs-up to this or that. One can passively experience a “sanitized” version of life day after day… until the day comes when one has no more days to actively choose.
It is like the techno-soy version of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, trying to live in the shadow shows forever. It is choosing to go back into “The Matrix”. It is choosing to reject reality and instead passively or tentatively embrace an anti-reality (“in the place of reality”) where a story is told about how you are already one of the good guys.
Life is found in the joyful work of repentance, turning to God and willingly taking on all manners of labors and sufferings for Christ’s sake. This reality continues to this day, and if one seeks it, they can find it.
⭕ ← Escape the infinite loop, eating itself; Bill Gates recycled poo poo water u drink
💧← Find the streams of living water
A salmon swimming upstream is not dead; it is an image of strength and vigor, fighting for life! May we find our Flow and labor fruitfully for the Kingdom 🎶
It is the project of News Magazines (intelligence agencies), NGOs, public schooling, and other institutions to confuse our language. One thing I do is undo this confusion, unpacking newly coined words by identifying the things they describe in older, (more) universally translatable language.
Using a rough definition like “feeling weighed down, unable to act, lacking motivation”.
Specifically, one can look at research into “flow” states, studies on especially successful people in their given fields, and anthropological works on traditional societies, which we may deem ‘healthier’ than our own in many ways. I think that these things are kind of like the secular equivalent to the Lives of Saints and ascetical writings in the Orthodox church. Rather than studying Saints and how they lived to accomplish what they did, abundant secular literature is available to study which can tell you about what makes a successful businessman, piano player, runner, etc.
Strength can include things like… memory in addition to muscular strength. Strength might even include money/resources. C.f. “Love the Lord your God with all your strength” = all of the resources you have available to you, whether in your body, your possessions, etc.
For a Christian, any of life’s trials, including bearing illnesses, dealing with bureaucracy, or suffering from hunger/thirst can be conducive to a “Flow” state in that one’s mind is turned towards pleasing God and correcting oneself, uniting with the heart.
You can read “The Industrial Revolution and Its Consequences” on Xah Lee’s website with some commentary.
My ElonApp post going over some ways in which “space (exploration)” is a cornerstone in the Establishment narrative, and thus why people often react angrily (or even violently) to any challenges to this narrative.
You may notice strange recurrences of certain numbers, such as 66- and 33 when looking at reported measurements of cosmological things. It is almost as if occultists (un)consciously plaster their fingerprints all over their corrupted models.
Note that the word fact comes from the Latin word factum meaning “deed, feat”. Whereas facts might refer to things accomplished, such as the Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Establishment instead uses the term “fact” to refer to little bean counter measurements about inconsequential, changeable things.
Note that the word Trivia comes from what used to be a real sort of general education (the Trivium); now “trivia” is used to mean “useless facts”.
See my blog post “Horse Lifestyle”.
I think there is some partial truth to this, but one must check themselves by seeing if they are willing to get up from Doom Scrolling and take out the trash and do other chores readily; if the activity of Doom Scrolling overpowers this, perhaps there is no magnanimity to be found.
Note that (Orthodox) Christians have long had answers to these questions. The Christian answer of the Cross, however, is foolishness to the world that tries to optimize for comfort and ease. If God showed us His way was to voluntarily take on suffering, enduring all manners of injustice, teaching us that to gain life, we must lose life, what is this all about?! Christ also told us to turn away from the sins of others (don’t “cast the first stone”) and instead purify ourselves, concerning ourselves with cultivating our own virtue, not looking at our neighbors’ vices…
In this blog, I give STEM (“Science Technology Engineering Math”) a lot of hate. One reason for this is because I think that lots of STEM “learning” basically amounts to either (1) Idle learning, OR (2) slavery—surrendering your life to the Establishment (Military-Industrial Complex, etc.). It is no surprise to me that lots of people that work in STEM careers spend their off-work hours doing anything but STEM, because rather than being an energizing, “flow” conducive thing, STEM often is a draining, “soul-crushing” thing…
Yet the Doom Scroller often puts his hope in STEM to solve the above listed fundamental/existential questions that every human must face.
Even the Doom Scroller must know that STEM can only help alleviate some pain in this life (at great cost…), so even if everything goes “successfully”, STEM offers nothing for life after death. Well, that’s why the Establishment is working on spreading the “upload your consciousness” myth to give a kind of soy-based “salvation”…