Quote from: winkio on May 25, 2013, 09:25:52 pm
But Blizzard, you have to admit that when you are interacting with other people in real life (say, talking and eating lunch together), you are not directly interacting with them. Your public, social self is interacting with their public social self, and there is some misrepresentation, mistranslation, and deception occurring.
Yes, of course. And that's normal. But the point is to be as authentic as possible. You can never be 100% authentic, that's only an ideal. But one should try to achieve this ideal, that's what it's about. The whole thing about being authentic is to take down the social mask. It's not just to be who you really are, to be simply yourself, it's about to be your best self, your true self. People often feel bad or negative and then they identify with these emotions (and lots of other things) and then they think that they are bad or negative. And that's because they don't know who they are so it's difficult for them to be authentic. Even the people that are authentic as much as possible, there are still things that were caused by social conditioning that will mess with that. So improvement in this area is a lifelong journey, there is no point where you can say "Ok, I'm done, I reached the ultimate enlightenment." And the more you get to know yourself and the more a happy person you become, the more authentic you can be towards others.
Quote from: winkio on May 25, 2013, 09:25:52 pm
On the point about the cult of stimulation, vs. fulfilling interactions, I definitely get where you are coming from, and how it makes sense to you, and a great deal of other people. But I would counter that there are many people who get absolutely no fulfillment out of social interaction. In fact, I got little out of social interaction in high school, but the first two years of college, I felt that social interaction was very fulfilling. Then after those first two years, it can no longer hold my interest, and it is fulfilling no longer. Anyways, these same people that do not find real life social interaction fulfilling do find art, or music, or online gaming deeply satisfying and fulfilling. It is not a one minute or one day or one week high that these other media can produce, but a constant, enriched good experience. People often dismiss the cultures around novels, or tv series, or video games, as things that are distracting, and waste people's time, and that everybody should be having social interactions in real life. This argument causes others to feel guilty or ashamed that they prefer a different type of social media, but I would argue that this is completely backward. I argue that the diversity of social media that currently exists has expanded our collective culture and raised our intelligence. So I encourage people that like reading books to read books, and people that like being on facebook to be on facebook, because I believe it leads to a smarter, stronger, and more creative culture.
And this is exactly the problem. Neither social interaction nor any kind of other interaction or stimuli should be there to fill a hole inside of you. It's not gonna make you happy, no matter what. It can only give you a temporary good feel. I most definitely agree that people who like books should read books, people who play games should play games, people who watch TV should watch TV, people who like to be on Facebook should be on Facebook etc., there is nothing wrong with that at its core. The problem is that people do it to feel good and to not look at the "ugly" reality. So the problem is basically that they aren't doing it because they like to do it, they are only doing it because it makes them feel good for a while.
This is obviously a completely wrong approach. They should fill this hole themselves. They should learn how to be happy without anything else. This is the point where stimuli don't work anymore and you stop doing certain things, because you didn't really enjoy some of them. The things that you really enjoyed, the things that you were really passionate about, they will remain. And they won't be filling some hole in your inner self anymore, now they will be enriching your life in ways you didn't even think it was possible.
This is also why some people feel ashamed or guilty for doing certain things. Somewhere deep inside they know that this is only an excuse not to do the things they really want to do, or they feel that they will be judged for not fulfilling society's standards (because of the hole yet again).
I'm not even talking out of my ass here, I have seen this on myself as well as a lot of other people. I used to watch a lot of TV when I was a kid since I didn't have that many friends. When I got more social in high school, I kinda stopped watching TV. Ever since I started going to college (7.5 years ago) I don't even have a TV at my place at all. Sure, I still like to watch a movie or some show from time to time. But I do it because I enjoy it. Same with games. The amount of games that I play has gone back drastically ever since I was a kid. But I still like to play some from time to time, because I like playing games for the sake of playing game, not to feel happy or good while I do it. Even social interaction used to be me trying to fill some hole inside of me to some degree. It's not anymore. Now I enjoy the social interaction just for the joy itself. You could say "don't be dependent on the results, enjoy the process" or "the goal is not the goal, the goal is the journey".
Now I went a bit deep here, but I really believe that this is a core problem in our society. Marketing people know this and they exploit it to the maximum extent possible. They aren't evil or anything, they probably don't even realize the damage it can do. They are just trying to sell stuff and find their own path in life.
@Neoend: I agree that direct social interactions are much stronger in regards of a multitude of channels. The ratios are body language 70%, para-verbal communication (the way something is said) is 23% and words are only 7%. Even though you can communicate with people through words in online games, you are literally missing out on 93% of what the person is communicating. I feel that this is a huge disadvantage. I know how different it was just to talk with winkio and some other people here over Skype rather than just writing. e.g. Lobstrosity felt so different when talking to him than how it feels when just writing.
EDIT: I just wanted to add that there are also acquired tastes. Some people start doing certain things, because they want these things in their lives. At first they won't really enjoy it, but once they get past a certain point, it will become a new passion for them. Because it didn't start as a stimuli and was never trying to fill a hole, it couldn't develop like that. This happens rarely, mind you. People prefer to do stuff that makes them feel good rather than doing the stuff they really want, even if it's hard at first.