Angsty Braindump on Intellectual Anhedonia

Lately the phrase I can't get out of my mind is "intellectual anhedonia," the inability to derive pleasure from thinking. Intellectual anhedonia feels like the right description of what I've been experiencing for most of 2017.

Of course, it's an overstated diagnosis. Sometimes I do feel that spark of curiosity; my infovore instinct reemerges and doing its bidding is delightful. The sensation is cerebral but primal — some combo of adrenaline and dopamine, I guess. Covering the Drupal drama elicited that feeling. My ability to love knowledge-seeking is not gone completely, which is good! But still, my drive has been severely diminished.

At first I thought all of my intellectual energy was being used at work. You and I have discussed that, and it's probably part of the explanation for my ennui. But I find that I'm not excited by work either — the lack of curiosity has spread. Possibly this is a version of burnout. Maybe there's a cap on how much I can healthily write per day or week. Maybe it's possible to raise that cap / increase my strength and endurance but I tried to increase too fast and the absence of internal motivation is a sort of stress injury

Another possibility: This is the natural result of relying on emotional detachment to cope with the chaos of the internet. You lapse into apathy, a dull passivity that remakes your mind. Self-protection along the lines of "you'll never suffer an embarrassing failure if you don't try." Avoiding disappointment by eschewing hope. They can't hurt you if you don't care

Escapism feels good. It's an outlet for my voyeurism minus the pressure to identify patterns and seek insight.

There are ups and downs. The ennui is especially heavy today — maybe last week I wouldn't have sounded so fatalistic.

So much of what I do and feel, on every level, is compulsive. Right now the urge to write (and, I'll admit, to wallow) is directing me to braindump my feelings here. I try to set up systems for myself that make it easy to thrive and succeed, and I aspire to be Tiago-level someday, but my efforts prove to be woefully inadequate when a fundamental drive that I relied on is suddenly much weaker