/improve/ - Self Improvement

>>2090 here

I ended up spending this month mostly without internet/imageboards because of technical problems with my ISP. Got my connection up today, and it just occurred to me that I felt a shittonne better these past days without chans/my usual methods of escapism, like a different person. I actually felt quite sad most of the time but a lot more alive. I read a few books and started getting things done, albeit slowly, because there was nothing else to do except to cry and stare at a wall.

No idea how I'm going to keep myself from browsing now though. You'd think it'd be easy seeing how I've finally realized how insanely bad this is for me, but here I am.

>>2537

just keep yourself busy doing the stuff you were doing before your internet came back

>>2537

This is exactly why you gradually decrease the amount of time you spend on your vice, as opposed to just straight out quit cold turkey.

Estimate the average amount of time you spend on the internet and slowly decrease that number. Use a countdown timer on your phone or something and say for example, you are limited to only 3 hours of internet time today, everytime you'd go on the internet you'd turn on the countdown timer and once it reaches zero and rings, you're done for the day.

If currnetly you browse 5-9 hours a day, decrease that amount by 30 minutes every 3 days. Yes it's slow but it's gradual, but because of this, in about a months time you will be fine and adjusted without feeling the large need to browse the internet all day, doing it this way will also help you get used to using the free time for something else.

In my opinion you should use this as an opportunity to create a bunch of small habits that will gradually grow as your vice gradually decreases, so once you reach your destination, not only will you not rely on the internet for fun but you'll also have a bunch of habits to show for this entire thing.

Doing 50 push ups a day is an example of something you can start small on. Yes initially it's just 50 but after a few weeks it'll be 300-500 a day and because you started small and gradually increased, it won't be a problem doing them. By 50 I don't mean at once, I mean you could do as many sets as you want just as long as you get 50 done. A good way of doing this is that every time you go to the toilet or something, do 10 push ups and then reward yoruself with an "I'm awesome" afterwards. Why do I say do it after going to the toilet? The toilet acts as a trigger, in the sense that it reminds you to do your new habit, triggers are established habits, for example, brushing your teeth, dinner, etc etc. Triggers are great for when you're trying to create a new habit.

>>2083

Maybe you should try the cosplay community? I mean in the spirit of self improvement you learn a lot of creative skills (sewing, painting, even DIY if you do your own weapons and armour).

Cosplay is probably one of the best /improve/ leisure activities that has a community you can talk to and hang out with.

That said sports clubs are another good way to meet people, some of my best friends growing up was because of my fencing and I have also been out for a drink with Judo friends too.

>>2543

Not that guy, but Idk man. Chans are really just a form of escapism to me. As I have easy access to internet and it's virtually effortless to lurk, it feels pretty good and relaxing in a way. One time I went to a very small city in the countryside and had no access to internet. I knew that would be the case, so I brought some paper, pen and books. Instead of reading, writing and studying, I just found the easiest way of escapism: oversleeping. I just slept all the fucking day, waking up practically only for food and small social situations with relatives.

>>2586

Dude, I can relate to almost everything you said.

I remember that video games used to be a large part of my time wasting and I actually went out of my way to combat them but in the end I just use image boards now even more.

I spend every last minute I can on computers. The only thing that would impede me is my job but if I even get the slightest chance I'll be at my phone or laptop refreshing. It's debilitating in the sense that we know we need to stop. Even while we're browsing but we just keep putting it off and because our minds lose track of time before you know it the day is over without having done anything.

I have managed to control it somewhat but just like video games it's mostly due to outside factors. For imageboards it's my growing disenfranchisement and disgust at the inanity of comments. Even now, /improve/ is one of the last places I post with all my heart. Everywhere else, it's like what's the point? And like with video games I'm waiting for a catalyst that will get me out of here. I thought 4chon's death would be it, yet here we are.

I have a bunch of books and websites saved as well to do things but I just can't bring myself to. It's as you say, we're waiting for the right time. But the problem is that the right time, at least for me, never comes. ALL of my optimal time is taken by imageboards and that only leaves the actual learning time to the breaks in between or the anemic hours of the night. It's as if imageboards are a parasite to my actual learning.

We're wasting away here. I recognized it in the OP but i doubt we can truly grasp how deep the problems run.

>>2587

Oh, I also made a thread here about consciously quitting imageboards. I lasted about two weeks and within those two weeks my productivity shot up to ridiculous levels. I brought my college classes back from failure almost and got pretty much everything in order.

Also I don't know how else to describe it but without imageboards most of my browsing ground to a halt. During which, I don't know how else to explain it, but my mind slowed down. Without the constant influx of information my mind didn't feel as if it was fried all the time.

I think, and it may be a longshot, but if we could do on /improve/ what no-fap did to /r9k/(and no-fap DID work, I USED to be a serial fapper but no-fap slowed me down tremendously and now I masturbate maybe once a week if that) we could really do some ACTUAL change for the better to many of our users and even ourselves. Just like vidya, and no-fap, once we're conditioned to leave for extended periods we'll be too lazy to come back, or at least stay for extended periods.

I think it would be very good for us as our quality of posts will be higher as what we say will be said with much less exposition and with more IRL experience.

What do you think?

>>2588

final thought

the day that browser tabs were implemented was the day concentration lost the war.

>>2587

>I remember that video games used to be a large part of my time wasting

Same, from thousands of hours (in total) to not a single hour in a whole month.

>in the end I just use image boards now even more.

Yup.

>I have a bunch of books and websites saved as well to do things but I just can't bring myself to. It's as you say, we're waiting for the right time. But the problem is that the right time, at least for me, never comes. ALL of my optimal time is taken by imageboards and that only leaves the actual learning time to the breaks in between or the anemic hours of the night. It's as if imageboards are a parasite to my actual learning.

That feel.

Myself, I feel that the actual problem is that we question our choices and use of time. Is what I'm using my time and energy on, worth it? The problem with that is, of course, that it's so fucking extremely subjective that there is no real answer. So many, like myself, just end up wasting our time instead.

Not to mention that actually learning and studying uses a lot of willpower and energy, usually leaving you feel drained at the end.

>>2588

It's not that imageboards and the internet are bad, they're not. It's that we're wasting our on time on (bad) imageboards instead of using our time productively. Reading, browsing and contributing to good communities is not a waste of time like browsing /v/ (shithole) or whatever time-wasting crap you do.

The problem is that good communities means good users. As internet got flooded with normals through the 2000s, the good users had two options: Suffer the eternal september or move on with your life. Every public community on the internet today is vulnerable to normalfag lynch mobs. These mobs will rise up against you if you are in any way politically incorrect (impossible to avoid in any serious discussion these days) with only the slightest agitation, but they will also rise up if you are mean to low quality users (they'll complain about elitism, bullying, offensive language, meanness, people will try to troll you because they think you're a pretentious faggot etc).

So basically, if any joe shmoe on the internet can access your community, it will quickly turn to shit. See 4chan and forums with public registration. The more popular the forum, the worse this will get, since at some point the owners start caring about the income stream more than the pride they take in their community, and then they act with this mentality of trying to attract as many users as possible for the banner clicks/views, which means cater to the lowest common denominator (and fuck over anyone who isn't welcoming the lowest common denominator because they're concerned about board quality). The critical mass is different for everyone. Some sell out at the 10 users mark, some hold out for ages. Hotwheels so far has been remarkably commendable, but I have no doubt that he will eventually fall into the same "let's be more newbie friendly" trap as moot (either that or this site will die).

If registration is not as easy as creating a free account, it still won't make a difference if the barrier is trivial. See for example Something Awful ($10 fee for account) and demonoid (private tracker which occasionally opened registration and never banned anyone). Both started okay but quickly turned to shit in the same way that free forums do. The reason is that from the economics stand point, it really doesn't make a huge difference that you need to pay $10 or track down a demonoid invite first. Millions of people are still able to do it, and the same race to the bottom happens as soon as the dollar sign lights up in the admin's head.

If registration is actually difficult, but not very exclusive, the decline will be slow (and your individual users better be fucking quality contributors because there's not gonna be many of them one way or another) but still happens. See what.cd and similar private trackers that take themselves seriously (by enforcing rules, severely limiting invites, requiring a test). Even if you have 100 users on a tracker like what.cd, who's to say one of those doesn't turn out to be faggot and sell an invite to some richfag who doesn't give a fuck and start spreading it further to his other friends? Who's to say someone doesn't go full SJW and "break the news" in a Vice interview, leading to normalfags flooding in by the millions?

These days, an internet community needs to be locked down really tight to avoid being fucked with by the mainstream. The community must all know each other on some personal level (maybe not real identity but personality etc) and have some mutual assurance of integrity so that nobody betrays the community to outsiders. This is still possible online, but very difficult. So difficult, that at this point meatspace communities are just easier.

>>2590

So all the competent, intelligent people have used their intelligence and talents to place themselves in a cushy career, where they interact with many others like themselves. They form informal, IRL communities with such people, communities that you cannot join online. Some people failed, either out of autism or sheer bad luck - you can sometimes find them in places like this board: Tragic cases where the person clearly belongs somewhere better, but for whatever reason ended up here instead.

Once you do get the community rolling, word inevitably gets out about a sekrit klub being run by these assholes who have the nerve to think they're better than you, and you should go troll there to teach them a lesson. This is after you actually do have your community functioning and being active - if you cannot solve this problem, you will see everything you have labored to build turn to shit thanks to the flood.

The problem is mainly hipster-hipsters: People who are bothered by hipsters and go out of their way to one-up them. This never happened "back in the day". You didn't have communities try to endlessly shit talk on each other, mainly because there wasn't a centralized huge website like twitter or tumblr for gossip queens to congregate at, and there wasn't anonymous going around looking for people to ra/i/d and troll. The mainstream did not know what trolling is, the techies had no appetite for drama. The trolls had no market. Now with all these normals on the internet, and sites like gawker making a living off selling the drama, there are people like anonymous going around trying to stir shit up, and if your community ever gets past the stillborn phase, these people will find you and do their darndest to ruin it for everyone (I don't mean literally Anonymous, I mean any similar internet mob such as small gangs of tumblr vigilantes or gossip subreddits about you).

The meta-hipsters popularize your community in an effort of gaining social status for themselves by showing they are even more hip than you, and meanwhile wannabe meta-hipsters start flooding your community because it becomes fad/rite of passage (just like 4chan was, and later individual smaller boards of 4chan)

Rules are just one of the ways you can filter people. Ultimately, it's not about rules, it's about users. In a place like an image board, users are very hard to pin down, so rules are enforced instead in the hopes that undesirable users will eventually get tired of constantly getting banned or deleted and leave. But if your members have identities, you could just as easily ban them based on their conduct, not individual acts or rules. So you can easily have no rules, if people are vigilant about not letting shitheads in. IRL communities function this way: Your tight-knit group of friends doesn't need any rules, since no one is going to associate with shitheads anyway (until that one guy goes full retard and brings his girlfriend to something at least).

All the best communities I've participated in were good because people had to find them by themselves. After any number of users or administration gets the idea of telling others about it, the doomsday clock starts ticking. Then, it becomes only a matter of time when the threshold of too much broadcasting invites the fucktards. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes it happens almost instantaneously.

I was never able to get into traditional forums, I'd make an account, set up an avatar and a signature, start discussing shit, and eventually get tired of trying to keep a reputation online, most forum users always had their user pages neat and decorated with a blog post and pictures and they'd have lots of comments from other user on it. Me? Nope! Just a blank and uninteresting user page, I simply never ever had the dedication to really get into that kind of shit, then I discovered anonymous imageboards, and it's so much more free, you don't need a username, no shitty blog pages, no avatars, no signatures, just text and a reaction to what you say, fucking simple, there really is no better community than an anonymous imageboard (with strict moderation).

Eventually, /invite/ will fall to the depths that all other good online communities have fallen to.

I just hope there are still some good active invite-only online communities out there and that eventually, I will be part of them.

>>2591

/improve/* not /invite/

>>2590

>Who's to say someone doesn't go full SJW and "break the news" in a Vice interview, leading to normalfags flooding in by the millions?

You're right. Wizardchan never stood a chance in hell. They were mocked and ridiculed and paraded through the streets only to be thrown away and forgotten. Not that they weren't complete losers but they didn't' deserve that.

I agree with pretty much all your post because I've seen it happen. 4chon was incredible at one point. It was total synchronization of a userbase that I had never seen. Call me a newfag or whatever but it was just insane.

The amount of OC, the down to earth and witty humor, the banter, the raw sense of community. I had to watch that degrade over 2 years before it had the plug pulled.

Now all that is left is the old source code that serves this place. And a single friend from that time

Forums I could never get into either, they just seemed full of retards. I've been trying to look for other communities but I just can't find anything. Most of my e-life has been spent on imageboards so I'm clueless as to where to go. I have one though, that evolved from an imageboard into something more experimental but even so.

For those like me, I think eventually we'll just shun the internet all together and return to IRL now that most "normals" are on the web and IRL is emptier than it used to be.

Strange how we've almost come full circle. Truthfully, I don't even want to commit to anywhere new. It's just too risky these days. At least on imageboards I can recognize the signs of impending doom.

It's exactly as you say, the clock is already ticking. Probably even faster than usual due to 8chan's notoriety. There's tons of other imageboards out there, mostly dead, but the way I see things now, this is the end of the road for many.

>>2594

That's why IRL seems better every day.

That will be the new escape route.

I just wanted to say that *chans helped me a great, great deal. Some times a kind anon would, perhaps involuntarily, feed me a topic to delve into, and the research that followed would let me learn something new and useful.

Nowadays browsing chans feels for the most part like wading through an endless stream of mud looking for gold nuggets. I still do it, and will keep doing it, always trying to give good advice to other lost young men like I was and am. Because I will never be able to repay my debt to you fuckers. I love you all.

>>2605

>Nowadays browsing chans feels for the most part like wading through an endless stream of mud looking for gold nuggets

Because that's what it is. Truthfully, those that helped us out are either long gone or on completely different websites now.

As for the debt, yeah, I feel that way too but maybe it is up to us to move somewhere else where our help will be better appreciated and used.

/improve/ is one such place, for now anyway, because it's and improvement board. but imageboads in general are rotting shells of their former selves.

>>2605

Nowadays browsing chans feels for the most part like wading through an endless stream of mud looking for gold nuggets

>>2626

>I've also come to realise that due to all those times where I missed a something (happenings on /pol/, sonic ultra pack on steam for $5 or some shit, nudes that get their links deleted, other cool threads, etc.) that I, out of fear of missing something, developed a compulsion/addiction. This is the key behind all addictions, it's always driven by a fear. There's a part of my mind that is genuinely convinced that the "next coolest thing" could be just around the corner, I just need to stay on the lookout. Even right now as I type this, I feel regret over all the years I missed of potentially cool content on /t/ and that one thread on /ic/ that was dedicated to some japanese guy's art style and his books explaining it.

I think this compulsion is also driven by a fear. A fear of regret, ironically. I want to know everything that could be worth knowing so that I can live the perfect life with the perfect strategy (classic "nice guy" symptom). There are a lot of periods where I look back on previous incidents on my life wishing I could just hit quickload and redo it properly.

You understand. You understand all our plights.

This is it right here. I know this is it because I too fear missing out. That's the only reason to browse.

But how DO WE FUCKING GET RID OF IT

We have it in our hands now boys. We've pinned the problem down. But what the fuck do WE DOOOOO??

I've tried going out IRL but ultimately imageboards are so easy to access, so easy to lose yourself into, and for wanting to fit in we try to browse as much as possible to soak in all the culture we can for e-peen.

The only solution I can come up with is that IRL we do things that blow imageboards by comparison out of the water. Things that just engross us and that we can brag on imageboards without competition so that we slowly lose touch with them.

Say you start climbing mountains right? You take shit tons of pictures and post them here. You'll bask in awe but slowly you'll realize that no one really gets you and that imageboards just don't cut it. Andlittle by little you're cut off and alienated until you just don't come back.

I've had this play out to some degree, IRL shit while harder to get into beats the fuck out of browsing but browsing gives such a consistent kick that IRL shit just can't really compete.

I dunno, i'm rambling.

>>2630

At ease brother, we have clarified the problem. We haven't had that in years. FOMO is a documented effect. Now it's only a matter of time. I'm not sufficiently educated in the matter.

>>2636

>Another one might be to make a genuine investment into one's attention span. I think it's possible that if you are truly attentive to what's going on in your life as you experience it, you'll internalise it, see more patterns and thus, come to propose more theories and get more research ideas.

What do you think this would entail, exactly. Just enjoying the simple things or generally just trying to be more aware of what's gong on?

I used to be pretty addicted a few years ago.

I tried quitting cold Turkey but now, I just check all the boards I browse once a day. For like ~1h in total.

>>2637

Trying to be more aware of what's going on, yeah. Just paying attention to what you do as you do it. Just making a genuine effort to avoid daydreaming or your autopilot mode and actively being present in what you do as you do it.

http://www.satrakshita.com/self-remembering.htm

>>2605

It's insane how one man can be so red-pilled.

>>2626

I'd just like to go back to what I said earlier. The problem I have is that I question my choices and use of time. Is what I'm using my time and energy on, worth it?

The problem with that is, of course, that it's so fucking extremely subjective that there is no real answer. I just end up wasting my time instead.

>I've also come to realise that due to all those times where I missed a something (happenings on /pol/, sonic ultra pack on steam for $5 or some shit, nudes that get their links deleted, other cool threads, etc.) that I, out of fear of missing something, developed a compulsion/addiction. This is the key behind all addictions, it's always driven by a fear. There's a part of my mind that is genuinely convinced that the "next coolest thing" could be just around the corner, I just need to stay on the lookout. Even right now as I type this, I feel regret over all the years I missed of potentially cool content on /t/ and that one thread on /ic/ that was dedicated to some japanese guy's art style and his books explaining it.

>I think this compulsion is also driven by a fear. A fear of regret, ironically. I want to know everything that could be worth knowing so that I can live the perfect life with the perfect strategy (classic "nice guy" symptom). There are a lot of periods where I look back on previous incidents on my life wishing I could just hit quickload and redo it properly.

IKTF

Everything takes such a long time to achieve that I've come to the conclusion that without passion one is fucked.

There are so many different things you could do and you have to start soon or else you'll have to compete with people who have more experience. There are so many different things that you don't have enough time to try them all out properly. Especially since one is rarely left alone and always has to dedicate half of his day to either school or work. So how does one decide what to do without passion? How does one find the confidence to invest all his efforts and time into it? It seems like there is no way to develop passion. It's something you have or don't.

With pretty much everything you need to invest a lot of time without any gratification before you see results. Without passion that makes the way enjoyable that's very hard to do.

So without passion you are destined to do a job you hate so you can spend money on entertainment.

This is the reason I drift through life without a direction. I have no natural passion for anything. A lot of things interest me but I can't focus on any of them and because I don't have confidence in wanting to do something forever I don't find the motivation to start. So I just aimlessly browse imageboards.

>>2643

I have no idea. I think it's when you fully understood your core issues that you no longer need to continue investing time and energy into information-foraging. I believe that once your core is understood, you'll know how to heal yourself from any injury that comes your way and so you're now free to learn any lessons from life "the hard way". Plus, I imagine this board is already familiar with the Red Pill so there's already an understanding of social dynamics, clearing out much of the hard work and leaving things mostly to books regarding the skills we wish to cultivate.

That's my opinion. I see us losers in our basements as caterpillars in our cocoons. Now we're finally ready to emerge.

>>2605

This remembered me of my old days in /lit/ where not only I understood literary movements, but I laughed almost everyday and eventually became to recognize more authors and themes than almost every other student I know in my university.

>>2728

None. I have like 3-4 things I could do but I keep putting them off to be here.

Fucking horrible man. At least I did pretty much all the errands I needed to do since last week.

>>2730

Me again, I'm going to forcibly leave imageboards again like I did during my experiment.

Quit cold turkey. I know that I can get at least 2 weeks out of it. We'll see each other then guys.

Godspeed.

>>2594

>some reddit subreddits

Can you point us to some good ones?

>>2083

I have a backlog of games and books, but I end up here talking about my hobbies. I spend most of my time on /k/ and I think I spend more time talking about my guns then going out and using them.

Then I go on /cuteboys/ and it just reenforces my feelings of despair. Back on halfchan I spend a good year on /r9k/ and when I left it felt great. I finally saw how low i made myself go.

Imageboards are just too good. Years ago, till around 2008 I was only on forums. Around then I was on halfchan and could never go back. Now I've found my way here and I can't go back.

When I had a job I found I spent less time here, but now that I'm unemployed I fucking spend hours on 8chan, videos games or fap. Then the sun comes up like it is now. I go to bed , wakr up at 3pm and just go right online and come back. I keep saying I'll look for a job or go out and run, but then I end up not doing it. It's fucked up I do that to myself.

>>2743

I like how this books keeps pointing out to other works to give basis to what the text talks about. Granted, so far none of them seem to be peer reviewed scientific papers, but still it's a step above what seems to be the never-ending trend in self help books.

>>2630

I had an epiphany.

The key is to "let go".

You see, when we indulge in our fear of missing out and start obsessing over whether or not we're experiencing what everyone else is experiencing, how they're experiencing it and when they're experiencing it, we start trying to consciously control what we experience. Everything we do becomes manufactured, calculated and deliberate. We are no longer "in the moment", we are in our heads. In order to release ourselves from the fear and its resulting desire for a controlled experience, we must truly experience reality. We must follow our passions and immerse ourselves in them, living as authentically as possible until eventually we're able to reach a point where we "submit" to them and allow them to drive us. We reach that point where how we live our lives is neither random nor controlled, neither conscious nor unconscious but rather, somewhere in between the two states. We need to live in that state, becoming both the artist and the art.

bump for good thread

Hello friends

I limit the time I spend on every single imageboard (mostly half chan and full chan) I frequent with a neat little firefox extension called "leechblock" to one hour a day. It's easy to use and you can tinker with it to suit your personal needs. One thing I really like is that after your time is up, this extension disables you from changing the options until the next day when you have your next free hour. Of course, until then your addiction has well passed.

Knowing I only have only one hour even creates a fear that I might need that one hour for something really important like asking a question and because of this fear I often never even turn them on anymore.

I limit my time spend on facebook aswell. It can also be a time waster even greater than imageboards. Looking at profiles of people you know, comparing yourself to them, telling yourself "he he It's all good anon, you're better than them, fuck further improvement". Wasting precious hours upon hours in the process.

Also I warmly reccomend this book right here. >>2743

It has been a life changer for me ever since I've read it some year+ ago.

I mostly spend my leisure time listening to music while reading one of the thousand books I have accumulated while freely surfing the chans. A lot of my free time I have also replaced with audiobooks and video tutorials. I try to finish them off as fast as possible (2 books/audiobooks per week, 1 full video tutorial course per day)

>>4839

I installed a blocker once, and the next day I just spent ages finding a way to disable it, and then carried on as usual.

To be honest I don't really want to give up imageboards, as I get/find a lot of help and advice on them, and I don't have any IRL friends or a social life.

>>4839

Hey I use Leechblock too and was wondering once you blocked it I just went to do something else on the interent. First I blocked chans and youtube. Then I wound myself up at reddit and imgur. So I blocked that too and then I started going back on facebook. Etc. I always found something else to do on the internet. Did you have those problems too?

>>4840

Don't block them forever. I'm also browsing chans for over 3 hours each day. I first tried quitting cold turkey and was just like you trying to disable them. Now I try with a time limit where I can only browse half an hour before blocking every site I can possibly know for half an hour. After that half hour block I can carry back on for half an hour.

sorry for bad english

>>2626

>There's a part of my mind that is genuinely convinced that the "next coolest thing" could be just around the corner, I just need to stay on the lookout.

This hit home. Today I witnessed the 60th million post on halfchan pol.. at 5:40 in the morning. I was up at 5:00 to study for my exam starting at 9:00 and still stayed half an hour to see the big number.

>>4847

Yes anon, get in the mindset of blocking anything and everything that wastes your time. Doing this trains the ego not to even seek indulgement in time wasting sites.

I know what I'm saying is very "out there", but your own ego should fear you own determination. If you limit or block a site, its done, no coming back.

>>4860

Tbh I try this because i've exams for the next 2-3 weeks and quitting cold turkey is not a good idea. I believe you should try to limit it every day and find something else to do until you don't really need the internet anymore. If at this very moment the internet would just block everywhere in the world all of us would go crazy.

>>2546

this so much. i have my current job due to a contact from fencing. I dont do a lot of stuff with the people there, except maybe go eat a pizza after training every now and again, but it does ensure a weekly minimum of exercise/social interaction, and if I were to end up isolated, i could still increase contact with those people.

It's not like that everywhere, though, I was also in a chess club and it wasnt nearly as much social interaction as in the fencing club, simply because there's not so much opportunity to.

>>4883

Well if you think about the stereotypes

>fencing = elite sport

>more socially/financial strong people

>chess = nerds

>most of them have bad social skills

I always wanted to join the boxing club but it's full of muslims and certainly not the type you want to be associated with.

>>4884

>I always wanted to join the boxing club but it's full of muslims and certainly not the type you want to be associated with

bruh, that's boxing everywhere. as the saying goes, the quality of a boxing gym is inversely proportional to the quality of the neighborhood it's in.

I'd like to get back in it but tbh when you're in your mid 20's as opposed to your teens and you have to put your own food on the table it's very hard to justify doing it.

I think it's comfort. Our minds naturally default to laziness and what is easy. When we try to go out and improve our lives and work we only go so far until we fail and that causes us to want to turtle up and go back to comfort. Even if it's depressing and slowly killing us. It's not really addiction to laziness, so much as it is fear of work, and fear of failure, and fear of discomfort.

Vid Related:

Vid related:

>>2589

I tried to remove (some) multi-tasking. Instead of tabs I use new windows, the problem with tabs as I see it is that they are constantly present.

With zero tabs I am completely concentrated on reading your reply and replying to it. Maximizing the browser or hiding the tab bar would have the same effect I think.

Doing one thing at a time, I would describe it as very cosy and calm.

From an economist perspective, imageboards give you content and entertainment without spending a single cent asides from internet bill which is fixed cost.

That's why it's easier to lurk here than spend money outside.

>>4976

That is totally and completely old me. It was easier to not try and hide in vidya and porn.

Turns out trying at life gives it flavor and makes it worthwhile, even with the occasional setbacks and disappointments.

I've come to realize these days one of chans lurking bigger symptoms: the murder of the self.

I remember that the first time I came to them, I was surprised by how strongly blogposting and talking about yourself was discouraged. I knew about the site much before and entered about twice a year, but didn't start to really lurk until the same summer that Shingeki no Kyojin aired, so when I arrived there was a lot of people using names, trips, and generally talking about their lives, and the reaction towards those newfags was aggressive.

I noticed today something that I have been doing without thinking, and I didn't do before. I don't like when people talk about themselves, I get bored, I don't care, or without noticing I interrupt them to talk about myself. I've always been energetic and talked with different groups of people, but I really can't care about others personal life now. I remember that about three years ago I was a very good listener, I had interest on things, I've enjoyed talking with someone even if they were "lazy", "losers", "strangers", or just plain different to me. I've asked and remembered their occupations, and liked to see them getting excited because someone was actually putting effort in understanding them. Maybe it wasn't empathy, but I didn't talk to people out of minimal politeness. Now I contempt internally everyone who isn't absolutely perfect.

Do you guys know about the 4chan cup? See the twitch chat. Compare it to forums, and other internet places. You get a dozen of messages every few seconds, and they are all the same. They don't talk about themselves, they don't make jokes or anything that is remotely original. Depending of the situation, they type a meme fitting it. It's like flipping a switch. They see a stimulus, and they react with the same meme they have been taught. Up to one hundred of guys writing EXACTLY THE SAME in seconds. It's amazing. I realized that the same happens in the boards. Unless you are on a place like /adv/ (which I haven't visited in a long time, since I considered most of their "troubles" small or meaningless) or other unpopulated boards, you get the same content over and over, and anything unique is frowned upon, insulted and negatively punished.

I believe this to be the reason. The anonymity of chans deletes your personality. You spend a huge amount of time each day doing the same thing as others. You are only allowed to talk about yourself if you complain about how shitty your life and everything around is, reinforcing a negative view on 3DPD through feels and licking each other wounds, lamenting how you wasted so much time, opportunities, and good things on your life, feeding the belief of hopelessness. And those posts all are also EXACTLY THE SAME. Of course due to your addiction to chans, you lose time to invest in other hobbies and are left without energy. You get hypersexuality which makes you search porn and hentai, because sex is commented over and over and in most boards it actually replaces any kind of discussion. You are becoming more and more like the average anonymous, and only feel like you are being yourself in the chans, despite the fact that you are being like them and will be punished if you behave in a slightly different way. More accurately, it's not killing the self, it's a replacement of your original personality, as you are expected to type the same content as everybody else. And you know that you feel alienation every moment that you are not in the chans. Even if you find most of the people in them stupid, you act just like them, over and over

>>5150

I know and have experienced exactly what you're talking about, however it kind of disappeared once I left halfchan and moved to 8chan.

I still feel completely at odds to people with social media accounts, blogs, dating profiles, etc, but the whole "herd mentality" thing and the "everyone must be miserable, depressed, and misanthropic" thing is much weaker here than it is on virtually any halfchan board except for perhaps /r9k/ and the obligatory feels threads that every board has.

Then again, my imageboard browsing habits have also changed a lot over the past year or so. I tend to frequent the more self-improvement, positivity, and information-focused boards rather than the escapism and misery-focused boards that I did in the past, and it's been nothing but beneficial to me.

>>5151

What other boards do you visit?

>>5150

>I've enjoyed talking with someone even if they were "lazy", "losers", "strangers", or just plain different to me. I've asked and remembered their occupations, and liked to see them getting excited because someone was actually putting effort in understanding them.

If we're talking about self-improvement, that is a very bad strategy. Most people on this world are simply full of shit and if you don't value your time other people would be more than eager to waste it with their bullshit.

Being more selective with your time and energy with people is a winning strategy on the long term. You need your time and energy for your own improvement and success.

I've read the rest of your post and I agree with it.

>>2852

>Imageboards have had a big impact on my mental development. Good and bad. I'm very good at noticing mental gymnastics performed by ideologist thinkers because I've had my own views and opinions changed and broken countless times.

This.

I feel very bitter-sweet about having wasted my time on chans and such. On the one hand I missed out on a lot of real life experience but on the other I genuinely think that I'm more informed on a broader range of topics than most people and I catch myself aswell as others easily when they put forth arguments that are fallacious.

You get a very good idea for what someone is trying to achieve when discussing a topic.

There are the people who participate in discussions to push their already existent view onto others and then there are those that engage in an argument to challenge their own view and understand the others perspective.

It's very frustrating when you realize that 90-95% of the people you talk to just try to make reality fit their perception and will use dishonest debate tactics to "win" when all you wanted was to actually have a proper exchange.

Even worse is that you can't convince these people to drop the sharade. You can literally point out why they just posted what they posted and perfectly describe their entire thought process but they'll still justify their dishonest behavior or not even understand what you're even talking about. You just know what these people are doing and thinking because you've been the exact same person before but you can't convince people that you actually have an intuitie understanding for what's going on.

I can personally relate to a good amount of the posts within this thread.

>>5150

It's dehumanizing and disgusting.

I don't think social media is any solution either. Real world social interaction is essential, even saying hello to a cashier or something can improve mental health.

>>5150

I feel like people in a lot of boards here are the type of not very creative "stoners" with brain fog or some depression. You have good boards, but then you have mental hospital phenomena like /animus/. There are people with disorders, alcoholics, and people on anti-depressants which slow their cognition. Or perhaps just young. When I was 18 on imageboards I always wondered why everybody always said they're 17-22. I'm 23 now and I think I start to understand. It's time for me to move on as well, but I have no idea where. I really like /improve/ though, learned a lot here. Do you know some places like /improve/ on the Internet? Anonymous obscure places are the best, because they're the least likely to have corporate agenda behind them and less likely to involve petty drama. Popular forums on improvement and health are full of corporate shills

>>5282

Not him.

>/r/theredpill

I don't really care about the game and how to fuck girls. For me it's more about the self-improvement part on how to become a man.

And ofc you'll have drama in every forum where usernames exists but it's really limited and the mods to good job in keeping that forum clean.

I agree with pretty much everything ITT. I will add that the internet and especially chans are even worse for you than others vices like video games, because you are guaranteed to stumble across something lewd and fap constantly. You may be wasting your time when you play vidya, but at least it's keeping you from unleashing the ultimate unearned dopamine load.

>>5373

Same. Making internet publicly accessible was a mistake. It should have stayed in laboratory rooms.