So another update about absolutely needing social stimulation. I'll have to do some research on the internet to see if I can find some scientific papers to back this up.
In response to the question
questions that I asked myself here: Quote:
So instead of going out clubbing, since my best friend was leaving to go back home to the states to go start work, I went to speak to him for two hours.
But by being social, I was in fact able to spur on another great burst of creativity. I'll have to experiment with this again. Either there was some kind of brain regulation going on inside of me, or it was just the fact that I had a break from thinking about this stuff that it did let me be more creative again. I'll have to try this again sometime... probably will be in two weeks or so before I come like this again. But I feel another drive in me to be more creative. I might be able to get the same effect from just going out walking alone for the same amount of time, but maybe I really did need to have the social stimulation.
Also that night when I was able to keep thing from 9pm to 5am was when I spent the whole day from 10:00am to 5:00pm doing karaoke and eating sushi with my friends...
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I spent a good chunk of yesterday thinking about how to respond to
mark's questions about the summary of this model.
I had some good insights, was in a awesome creative/synergetic phase [
"synergetic" phase talked about in this post], and in the morning I felt burnt out and I started feeling bad for some reason. I have my life purpose all figured out and I know all of
Steve's 33 tricks of productivity. But none of those tricks would have made me feel any better. I've always thought I knew how to be happy manually.
Then I reasoned it must have been because I had not thought about people or have gone out and talked about or been around any people at all.
So I just went out for a walk. Nothing felt different. It was nice to go outside, but still felt bad [not horribly bad, but defiantly not as happy as I know I can be]. Saw a hot chick walk by who had the most beautiful smile..., instantly felt a surge of feeling better. But still not in a great mood. Went to the train station to get out into the city to do some errands and get my china visa. Just being in the train with people and looking around I could feel myself just feeling better.
My conclusion?? Well, now I really consider being with and interacting with other people a fundamental thing.
If you start to feel depressed, its probably cause you've run out of social fuel. Don't let yourself back rationalize why things are bad and blame it on something else.
I'd almost relate it to a fuel and that you have a tank for it. I ran dry by being all introvert and creative, and so after a day or so, even though I was all rested up and was healthy, I started to feel bad for no apparent reason.
If I let myself think in thoughts, then I'd probably backwards rationalize with some made up reason why I was feeling bad and blame it on something else, when it was simply that I had not been paying attention to other people or been around other people. I my "social tank" just ran empty.
And I could feel that the quality of people you are around determine how well it fills up. When I paid attention to old sad people on the train, I barely felt my self any better. When I'd see a beautiful girl, it felt like it added like 5x much more to my tank. If she was smiling too then it was like 50x as much. And I'd image that if you cuddle with your girl friend then it would be like 500x as fast (depending on how much you actually like her)
I was not even talking to these people, just being on the same train with them. I suspect that having a nice long conversation with someone would fill it up just as fast.
Conclusion... if you are feeling bad and some degree of depression... its probably in part that your "social tank" is empty. How fast it fills up depends on the quality of what you send to your conciousness. I would think that if they were in a bad mood then it would probably empty it... though I have not tried that yet.
I remember once that I was feeling lonely, so I just took out my cell phone and for each name I'd spend about a minute or two thinking about the fun times I'd have with that person. When I got to the end, it was about an hour of just thinking of people. This really worked if I was just with them within the last 4 days or so, and is not as effective if you have to keep on using the same old memories. I just sent memories to my consciousness and that was enough to help fill the tank.
Here's another guess... I seem like I need to top it off like every 2 days or so if I'm in total isolation, and no thoughts of other people cross my conciousness. I'm not sure if watching TV helps with this, because I have not watched it for the last 4 months (which actually was a habit I started when I got into self hypnosis when I was in 8th grade... cause I could just feel the negativity just pulling me down, tough I do enjoy watching a comedy show or scifi show once a week)
I'll have to see if just listening to an audio book could help, or when I have access to a TV then watching that would help.
So here are some rough steps if you don't feel your peak.
Fill your social tank. Maybe it takes something like 4 hours of interaction to top it off, I don't know, perhaps it depends on the person as well. That will let you become happy and concentrate. Spend some of that time/fuel doing mandatory things. Spend some of that being creative to grow personally... it is incredibly fun experience while doing that, until your tank runs out, then things just start to seem bad for some reason or another, and your concious mind tries to make up and excuse or blame it on something. [edit: The reason I can tell is that I can operate without verbally thinking, so I don't let myself make up some logical excuse, though I still feel bad for even though it seems to be like there is no reason]
When your tank runs down, stop, have fun and refill.
I also remember on my trip to the Philippines over the Chinese new year I was with my two good friends constantly for 2 weeks strait. After the trip I felt like doing nothing but just thinking and reading for the next 2 weeks... so maybe its an additive process to some extent...
Also another thought, if your social tank is full, then, at least for me, people just start getting on my nerves. That's my signal to sit down, be introvert for a while, think about / update my life purpose, be creative and make things happen. Right now creativity for me means figuring out what I wrote at the top of this thread and writing here, and figuring myself out as I'm doing now.
So maybe that's what class is good for
even if the professor is horrible, it will help to refill your tank, and you could just ignore the professor if he is bad and think about your own things. For college students, this probably doesn't become an issue... always out partying and such... but I know that at my school, especially if you are in the hard science and engineering and are really one of those nerds... then you have to watch yourself that you don't try to run on empty.