Thin desires are eating your life

I think this article is really true, and I think a consequence is that people are really hungry for thick desires these days but they cannot put a finger on it. They notice themselves not growing, they get the dopamine hit they were looking for but it feel like empty calories.

As a software engineer, I decided to build an app about side quests. Reading this article I realized I could not put a finger on what I was getting at either, but I just knew I hadd to add wholesome activities that were not part of my life into my life and I kinda built this app for myself (initially for a hackathon) and just shared it with friends.

Hopefully it's useful to someone else on here (nasty self promotion): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sidequests-hq/id6751321255

I find it ironic that this perspective is being shared in such a "thin" way.

There are some insightful observations but the whole thick/thin perspective just doesn't resonate with me. As an old man (shakes fist at clouds), we have stopped prioritizing people. It is all about building and maintaining relationships and we've gotten lazy. And maintaining relationships is a lot of work and without it we do feel more isolated. So we try to fill that void with things that don't require effort like buying crap we don't need on Amazon and chasing likes on social media. We aren't happy so we try to be busy so we don't notice so much.

We saw a bit of a teeny correction during covid when people starting going outdoors and baking bread and cooking home cooked meals. But now everyone is back to working from home in their pajamas and tell themselves how happy they are with all the time they save not driving but skip over the lack of adult interaction (both good and bad).

But the problem is easily solved for each of us by things as simple as hobbies and volunteering and organizations (church, civic, etc.) Personally, I design board games and have friends over to test them and go to board game conferences. We've built a group that still test and communicate online but are happiest when we get to hang out and play games and go for dinner. There is no shortage of these opportunities but you have to get off the couch and join in. It is a place where you will make new friends and find happiness but you have to decide it is worth it.

Halfway the this post, I realized checking the HN front page was merely a thin desire – so I'm off to read a book. Farewell!

This is a core concept of Buddhism, called tanha, and has been contemplated for a couple thousand years at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%E1%B9%87h%C4%81

Great piece!

Made me reflect on my own persuasion of thin desires and my struggle to control them.

It also made me see that my hobbies and my career are actually about following my thick desires. I'm in tech, yes. But I chose, among all the possibilities, to be an analog circuit designer. The analog part is what makes it a long hard skill to master, and my day job feels like constant learning from my interactions woth the world. I can't imagine doing anything which isn't interacting with the actual physical world!

Us software engineers assume value comes from serving more people, faster, with less friction. But many of the things that actually make life feel coherent such as learning a craft, maintaining friendships and building tools for one person, only work because they’re slow and specific.

Tech doesn't give us the wrong desires but the easier versions of the right ones, and those end up hollow.

I send postcards when I travel. I love doing it.

https://findingfavorites.podbean.com/e/ry-jones-postcards/

There’s nothing especially novel in here but she says it beautifully and succinctly.

This is the second time I'm finding out Joan's moved her RSS feed without announcing it...

“Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.” T.S. Eliot

Very nicely written. I've been slowly removing thin desires from my life. It's hard to do at first, but what I've noticed is once I am free from them, I do not miss them at all. Almost like I was under a spell.

Would adding some kind of psychophantic LLM that assauges your "thick desires" after you perform thin desires be the next psychological hook to get you more addicted to screen time?

You are creating content[1] that is insightful. To everyone. Equally known.

We all cheer. We know this. Then we move on.

A catchy title. A novel enough term. That will hook them.

We all read. We all smile. The daily grind.

This insight is not original to me.

[1] It’s just content now

Not essays

Not music

Content

Well written, this has given a concrete description to a vague notion that has been in my mind for a while

> A thick desire is one that changes you in the process of pursuing it. > > A thin desire is one that doesn't.

> The person who checks their notifications is [a thin desire], afterward, exactly the same person who wanted to check their notifications five minutes ago.

[I added the brackets]

The author, I think, would label the desire for sugary drinks as a thin desire. However, that desire tends towards unfavorable consequences: mood swings, poor dental hygiene, weight gain. Thus it undermines one's body. This "changes you" -- for the worse, yielding a contradiction. If the preceding logical analysis is sound, the article's terms or argument are flawed.

This is the concept of hungry ghost from buddhism: https://www.lionsroar.com/buddhism/hungry-ghosts/

From "How to know what you really want" by Luke Burgis [1]:

> There are two kinds of desire, thin and thick. Thick desires are like layers of rock that have been built up throughout the course of our lives. These are desires that can be shaped and cultivated through models like our parents and people that we admire as children. But at some level, they’re related to the core of who we are. They can be related to perennial human truths: beauty, goodness, human dignity.

> Thin desires are highly mimetic (imitative) and ephemeral desires. They’re the things that can be here today, gone tomorrow. Thin desires are subject to the winds of mimetic change, because they’re not rooted in a layer of ourselves that’s been built up over time. They are like a layer of leaves that’s sitting on top of layers of rock. Those thin desires are blown away with a light gust of wind. A new model comes into our life; the old desires are gone. All of a sudden we want something else.

Comparing the above conceptualizations with the ones offered by Westenberg (OP) would take more energy and time than I want to spend at the moment, but I will say this: they feel wrong. One way of putting it is this: the above definitions feel complected. [2] To put it another way, they don't carve reality at the joints. [3]

[1]: https://bigthink.com/series/explain-it-like-im-smart/mimetic...

[2]: https://github.com/matthiasn/talk-transcripts/blob/master/Hi...

[3]: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/303819/what-do-t...

Thanks for this.

[flagged]

I desire to be a heroin addict.