Dynomight Life Guide
Let me guess—you're a fragile organic wondering how to spend these short fleeting days before you're claimed by the grasping infinite? You want to know how to deal with the constant, gnawing, never-ending existential dread? You see this incredible world, full of so much possibility, yet every day you can only capture a small part of it? You're a leaky thimble in a downpour? And how could evolution be so cruel? Why create such finite beings and give them a lust for the infinite? Well, you've come to the right place. Just kidding I've got nothing. But here's my best attempt to help with more mundane stuff.
What should you be doing right now? Obviously there's many factors, but here's what I suggest for your top priorities. First of all, prioritize your health. Like it or not, you're a physical object. Everything you do, say, or think, is done by your meat. Second, try to attain reasonable financial security. I don't mean try to get rich—a lot of people basically toss away the best years of their life that way. But Constantly worrying about having a place to sleep or food to eat will make it impossible for you to be happy. Third, maintain good relationships. Every study says that this is actually what makes people happy. Making new friends or family is great, but also hard. (Yes, there's the "old-fashioned" way of making new family, but that isn't easy either!) Before trying to create new relationships, are you maintaining your existing ones? Do you have friends or family you haven't talked to in a long time? Talk to them. Do you have relationships that have deteriorated? Undeteriorate them.
The key to crossing the street is managing the information of drivers who are looking at you. If you are crossing and want cars to stop, you should pretend (but only pretend) not to be looking at them and start walking. Alternatively, if you don't want drivers to stop (e.g. because it's a dangerous multi-lane road and other people will zoom around them) you can look the other way entirely or pretend to look at your phone.
They're probably fine, especially the older well-tested ones. They do not cause an insulin spike. There's no evidence that they increase appetite. There's no evidence that they cause cancer. It's possible this is wrong, and there's some small harms that haven't been uncovered yet. If you'd rather drink water than diet soda, that's cool. But please— don't consume actual sugar in place of artificial sweeteners for health reasons! Sugar has huge, known, harms.
There's no way to win at life. It might feel like you're winning if you have millions of dollars and are beloved by your peers or have lots of beautiful babies or whatever. By all means, do those things if you want! But you're still a hunk of meat and everything you want is programmed into you by the ruthless logic of evolution. In the long-run, entropy eats the universe and we’re all forgotten. I'm always surprised how few people dedicate their lives to weirder things. Why not buy a big chunk of desert and paint it green? Why not study how to brew tea that raccoons would like? It’s really up to you, and there’s no wrong answers.
After that you can do whatever. The game you’re playing doesn’t have any rules, and there’s no way to win.
In general I’m very open to the idea that I got stuff wrong, I think all feedback is a gift, and I change things based on feedback from people all the time. But fans of methamphetamines should be aware I am not super open-minded about theories in which I am an agent of the Mexican cartels.