Nice to see that you are challenging your biases, learn more about rationality and try to put it into practice. Please note that there is some risk to fall from one tightly stitched community into the next, and there could be some pitfalls with the thinking patterns which were already developed. If you accept my advice also focus on finding friends in your college and don’t limit yourself to the LW/EA community & your old peer group.
Personal contacts go a long way, I was kinda shy at your age, but your commitment to finish high school and going to college impresses me. Have you thought about doing the Intro Fellowship? It’s a virtual course and I really liked to discuss these topics in a small group. Have you thought about joining the spring meetups from AstralCodexTen (ACX)? Join a EA Slack group or work/discuss/socialize at Gather Town? Or the rationality workshops from the guild of the rose (has a membership fee and I have no direct experience)? Just anything with a lower bar for interaction that the forum. x)
The healthy gamer community has some nice tool on mental health and finding friends. You don’t have to pay to use the discord. Yesterday was a lecture about beeing vulnerable, charisma, making friends and gaining influence (putting yourself out there). You did really well with expressing yourself in this post. You can be proud of yourself for beeing open and sharing your inner thoughts.
Yeah thanks for the advice I look forward to exploring some of those links. I would like to note that when writing the post I was feeling kind of lost and especially lonely. I still have my old friends, my family is still there. They don’t know how I feel about god and stuff, but I am not too worried about it. I am rather introverted but hardly socially awkward. I really enjoy making new friends, learning about them hanging out. I just end up moving on and have a harder time with lasting relationships. I am very comfortable alone and prefer it 90% of the time. I have made friends with a couple of people from each of my classes at college. Some better some less so but all of them probably willing to hangout with me. I also plan on going to a nearby LessWrong meetup tomorrow. Overall I am really comfortable with my social life and the problem is far less extreme than I thought it was. The new friends are incredibly diverse and have been fun to hang out with. And overall my mental health is in a much better condition. I still am feeling stressed about an inevitable confrontation with my parents, close friends and relatives. They are great people but they truly believe in god heaven and hell, it is the most important thing in their lives. I have seen the pain that is caused when someone leaves, they truly would prefer that they had died in belief. I can hardly imagine what a similar experience would be like for someone more socially dependent.
I am making plans for summer and fall. I hope to be a lot more financially stable and self reliant by the end of summer and have a plan for doing so. I am super excited about the classes I am registered for and can’t wait until spring. School work is very difficult right now as the semester is coming to an end and at the same time I am taking night/online classes for high school credits. It has been rough but I have been implementing methods from a Cal Newport book. For time management and fighting procrastination. I am having to postpone a lot of my personal interests and projects until the summer, but the work has got to be done. And in a month it will all be over.
The past month has been an interesting experience but I am happy it happened. I feel more in control of my future and am much more optimistic about my dreams. Having goals and plans for getting there has probably been the best thing for my outlook.
I’ll apply to the intro fellowship course, thank you it looks especially interesting.
Hi Xor,
welcome to the EA Forum. :)
Nice to see that you are challenging your biases, learn more about rationality and try to put it into practice. Please note that there is some risk to fall from one tightly stitched community into the next, and there could be some pitfalls with the thinking patterns which were already developed. If you accept my advice also focus on finding friends in your college and don’t limit yourself to the LW/EA community & your old peer group.
Personal contacts go a long way, I was kinda shy at your age, but your commitment to finish high school and going to college impresses me. Have you thought about doing the Intro Fellowship? It’s a virtual course and I really liked to discuss these topics in a small group. Have you thought about joining the spring meetups from AstralCodexTen (ACX)? Join a EA Slack group or work/discuss/socialize at Gather Town? Or the rationality workshops from the guild of the rose (has a membership fee and I have no direct experience)? Just anything with a lower bar for interaction that the forum. x)
The healthy gamer community has some nice tool on mental health and finding friends. You don’t have to pay to use the discord. Yesterday was a lecture about beeing vulnerable, charisma, making friends and gaining influence (putting yourself out there). You did really well with expressing yourself in this post. You can be proud of yourself for beeing open and sharing your inner thoughts.
See ya in the comments.
“Execution is hard.”– Lex Fridman
Yeah thanks for the advice I look forward to exploring some of those links. I would like to note that when writing the post I was feeling kind of lost and especially lonely. I still have my old friends, my family is still there. They don’t know how I feel about god and stuff, but I am not too worried about it. I am rather introverted but hardly socially awkward. I really enjoy making new friends, learning about them hanging out. I just end up moving on and have a harder time with lasting relationships. I am very comfortable alone and prefer it 90% of the time. I have made friends with a couple of people from each of my classes at college. Some better some less so but all of them probably willing to hangout with me. I also plan on going to a nearby LessWrong meetup tomorrow. Overall I am really comfortable with my social life and the problem is far less extreme than I thought it was. The new friends are incredibly diverse and have been fun to hang out with. And overall my mental health is in a much better condition. I still am feeling stressed about an inevitable confrontation with my parents, close friends and relatives. They are great people but they truly believe in god heaven and hell, it is the most important thing in their lives. I have seen the pain that is caused when someone leaves, they truly would prefer that they had died in belief. I can hardly imagine what a similar experience would be like for someone more socially dependent.
I am making plans for summer and fall. I hope to be a lot more financially stable and self reliant by the end of summer and have a plan for doing so. I am super excited about the classes I am registered for and can’t wait until spring. School work is very difficult right now as the semester is coming to an end and at the same time I am taking night/online classes for high school credits. It has been rough but I have been implementing methods from a Cal Newport book. For time management and fighting procrastination. I am having to postpone a lot of my personal interests and projects until the summer, but the work has got to be done. And in a month it will all be over.
The past month has been an interesting experience but I am happy it happened. I feel more in control of my future and am much more optimistic about my dreams.
Having goals and plans for getting there has probably been the best thing for my outlook.
I’ll apply to the intro fellowship course, thank you it looks especially interesting.