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Notes -
It's basically the inverse of "misery loves company" - both are self-reinforcing loops where your internal state shapes who you spend time with and what you pay attention to, which then reinforces the original state.
I was just rereading DFW's E Pluribus Unum where he talks about the same mechanism with loneliness: lonely people watch TV (or some other isolating hobby) for connection → less real-world interaction → more isolated → more TV. The medium becomes a kind of attractor state that keeps pulling you back.
Same principle whether it's gratitude journaling pulling you toward noticing good things, or doom-scrolling pulling you toward catastrophe. Once you're in the loop, the feedback mechanism does the rest. Knowing about the loop doesn't necessarily free you from it, you can see the curtain and still get caught in the performance. The hard part, like you say, is trying to forget or pretend not to do the curtain checking practice. I have some friends who swear by psychedelic usage as lifting them out of depressive states etc. but ultimately I think if you're pretty well adjusted or don't have some kind of PTSD or OCD, psychedelic use (even one off!) can make it really hard to break out of the "it's all a farce, look at us it's just monkeys [playing status games/performing characters/etc.]" mindset. Like yeah that's kinda true, just try not to think about it and you'll be much happier.
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