Can you relate to "never" being happy

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I have recently graduated with ph.d. and started a post doc in India. Since now I am level above graduate school, I am not "under" anyone, so I am free to choose my own research topic, which I did. I guess, based on everything I used to think for the past several years, the topic I chose is really the topic of my dreams. I am doing a research in a very rare area of physics that was worked on by only 20 people, so I can say "they are all wrong, I will do it my own way". Thus, on the one hand, I can encorporate my own philosophy, and on the other hand, I can proudly say *I* came up with an entirely new direction in physics and *I* did it all by myself.

But I guess now that I did some work in this direction I saw that results are less than perfect, and now I want go go right back to more "standard" physics. I guess I am probably asking too much, I mean why would anyone expect me to make something within few years just as good as something else that existed for 50 years? But at the same time I have a nagging feeling "what if it will never work", which, of course, is totally possible. But then again, I am free to do whatever I want, so if I want to, I can do something more standard, no one stops me. And yet I am not doing it. Why not? Because doing something more standard is "pointless" since it would never get me "famous". But then again, doing something what I do now won't get me "famous" either because of all the problems it entails.

I guess it is probably something wrong with my mind set. Most ppl have to make the same choice as I am facing (obviously most make it in favor of "standard" and few in favor of "not so standard") but they are still happy, and I am not. Right now I just want to be a student again, and do the homework, and not worry about anything else. Or else have some research advisor, and do what someone else wants me to do, and again not worry about it. Of course neither of these would make me famous; but then I won't care, it is a nice escape root where I don't have to feel responsible or worry about anything.

But then, back at the time when that was what I was doing, I kept waiting for it to be over to go to the next stage. Isn't it funny, when I was in stage A I was looking forward to stage B, and now at stage B I look back on stage A? I was also really looking forward to go to India, an entirely new country. But now I just miss USA.

I face the same dillema in relationships as well. Back at the time when I was single I really felt desperate to get a girlfriend. I actually succeeded in getting two relationships: with Sarah for a year and with Jennifer for almost two years. In both cases I felt trapped, and wanted the relationships to over. In case of Jennifer I even decided it was a mistake I ever wanted a relationship and I was swearing to myself that if she breaks up with me I will stay single. Well, she broke up with me. And now I am again desperate to be in a relationship. Not only that, but even getting back with Jennifer would be one of the "good" options, even though I hated it for a year. And now that she broke up I remember all the good times and miss them.

Is it something wrong with me? How come I always want what I don't have, whehter it be research, my geographical location, or a relationship status? I feel so restless in daily basis, when I study at one location (caffee or whatever) I want to go to a different location. I have the same feelings about life in general I guess. Can you guys relate to it? Do you guys ever feel "trapped" in a rather small place where you tried everything out to make yourself happy and nothing really works?

I read your entire long post, and yes I can relate. I have a love of physics and studied it at university, then dropped out looking for the big answers that the physics didn't give me. I got involved in Buddhism and became a monk. Then left that after a year and went to university again where I stayed for three years but still didn't find what I was looking for so left again. Finally got a dead end job writing software; which suited my inclination. Since then I've spent my life wishing I was always somewhere else or doing something different. Nothing brings lasting happiness. I've been married for 18 years now and, well, not sure what to say about that.

The forever seeking and not finding seems to be part of my nature and probably part of the human condition full stop.

From where I am sitting now, I can totally understand where you are comming from, although I probably would have looked down on that if I heard it back in high school when I was all black or white. I guess in my situation I know I am going to stick with physics for the rest of my life. It was my life time goal since I was 9 years old, so for me it is the way I "define" myself and my success. But it is funny though, I know I will stay in physics. But what does it mean? Get another post doc and then become a professor? And suppose I done all of that (although I am worried about a professor one, because of all the scary competition, but this belongs to another post), what then?

I guess if I do a research I am happy about, then that is the answer to what then. But may be my criteria of being happy about my research is a bit idealistic. I want it both ways: I want to do something new, and I want to be sure of what I am doing. I don't mean it has to be easy. I love hard work. But I want to be SURE that I won't find out in a year or two that it was all wrong. Well, it is hard for it to be both ways for a simple reason that ppl were workin at it for 50 years; so if it is new, it is new for a good reason, meaning there is a lot of risk of failure researching it. It is also a funny: if I was "under" someone, I am sure I would have blamed it on that other person and I would have been looking forward to get out so I can finally do what I am happy doing. But right now I am not "under" anyone, and yet I can't use all this freedom I have to make myself happy. And, ironically, right now I do want to be "under" someone, just so that I won't feel responsible in justifying to myself my research direction.

It just seems like you're constantly looking for something better. I don't mean that as a personal slight against you, a lot of people are perfectionists. It's just that we live in an imperfect world with imperfect people, you and me included. I know how frustrating it can be to have to put up with other things' and other people's limitations. Sometimes we do have a choice, but other times we really don't, and that can be really frustrating. I have been on the giving and receiving end of it in relationships, and it was both vindicating and upsetting when the other person left me to find "greener pastures" only to come crawling back because the grass wasn't greener on the other side of the fence. Just made me feel like I was simply the backup person to be ditched at whim.

Personally I think it's great that you've been pushing yourself really hard up to date, as far as physics and possibly even relationships is concerned, but as it seems you've found out, you're starting to see some of your own personal limitations, and I think that's really good too. I used to think I was some superstar when I started graduate school too, and several years later I now know and accept that I'm nothing like a superstar and I have some very significant flaws. Learning things the hard way helped me get a mature perspective of life, and helped to iron out some of my priorities in life. As far as relationships go, I'd say probably you weren't really ready to settle down in a long-term relationship before, and that's perfectly ok, but things seem to be changing in how you view relationships now. Your happiness may come soon or it might come years in the future. It'll be difficult until then, but once it comes you'll finally be content with what you have.

If you think you have an original physics theory I'd suggest throwing yourself at it regardless. If it reaches a point where it comes undone and you realise you've been labouring under an illusion / mistake then is the time to move on to a more mainstream project.

Look at it this way; if you give up on your personal theory and don't follow it through; how will you feel if in five years time someone comes up with exactly the same thing and gets the "fame" and recognition for a breakthrough? You could end up becoming bitter and thinking "If only I'd...".

Better to try and fail than not try at all etc.

If you settle for doing mainstream "boring" research just how fulfilling would you find it anyway?

My advice is to chase your dream. Go for it. Don't become an old man wishing you had lived your life differently and had taken a few more risks along the way.

My pennyworth anyway. Good luck whatever direction you go in.

Well, yes... Are you considering a solution to this? Or an explanation for why your present strategies aren't working out too well?

"Trying to make yourself happy" isn't always effective.....especially if you don't already have a fairly clear idea of what usually does make you happy. There are quite a few things I enjoy....but no one thing works all the time. And occasionally, only something new will suffice to make me truly happy.

I'm batting in the dark here..... You may have left brain burnout. Need more creativity and less analysis in your life. Your approach to life could be so overly logical and analytical, that you hardly ever stop to smell the roses. Perhaps you need to engage in some new activities, and explore various possibilities. Assess your options, and choose something to do that you've not tried before.

btw...."smelling the roses" is a metaphor for slowing down, relaxing, and allowing time to enjoy things... as opposed to continually working, studying, and analyzing everything to death..

A similar suggestion is to watch what has been called yin/yang balance. Try to balance out speed, aggression, and ambition with rest, relaxation, and receptivity. If one is overly inclined toward yin or yang, and seeks happiness, the key to that happiness will depend on their willingness to achieve balance.

From the selection of your posts that I have read, it would seem that you tend to be extremely yang...therefore concentrating on more yin activities may enable you to feel balanced, complete, whole and happy. For example, devoting most of your attention for a couple hours, to listening to the music of your choice-- is a very yin activity. And if the music moves you to dance, that would enhance the effect of the music even more.

The idea, for you, would be to slow way down. Your brain seems to engage at very high speeds, which is yang. Slowing it way down and trying to be a little more yin (relaxed, receptive, less hyper-focused) may help to heal you and enable you to be open to happiness. Hope that helps somewhat..

Can you relate to "never" being happy

No.
But then I am 40 with a GED so maybe ignorance can be bliss.

I am sticking to my original idea, for the exact reasons you mentioned.

I guess you have to understand something though. This new area of research (causal set theory) is SO MUCH undeveloped that one of the unresolved questions is just why do we have some basic geometry that we otherwise take for granted? Why is anything like coordinate system even exists? So this pretty much blocks ANY physics research from being done since we don't have this background information.

The funny thing is that causal set theory was invented in order to do something that mainstream physics can't do, which is combining gravitation with quantum mechanics. But then, ironically, it can't even reproduce some of the most basic results; so it doesn't even get to the point where it can do what it originally wanted to do. The motivation for causal set theory to persist is that one of the main obstacles to quantum theory of gravity is removed within CONCEPTUAL background of this field. But, this comes with a price of a lot of other obstacles that in standard physics never existed.

I guess I don't have to be responsible for this state of things since Sorkin was the one who invented causal set theory, not me; and he did it a couple of decades ago. I am the one who says "Sorkin is wrong, I will do causal set theory differently", and I hope THIS would make me (rather than Sorkin) famous. But then the nagging question is this: while my version of causal set theory can, in fact, accomplish some of the MOST BASIC things that I just mentioned, some doesn't mean all. So, while I am doing "better job" than Sorkin, I am still not being able to reproduce the most basic geometry, let alone get any advanced physics results. So I guess that is the frustrating part.

But then again, for the reasons you suggested, I will still stick to what I am working on. Especially since I already got SOME of my work published, I don't want others to read it and figure out the rest. I would like myself to do the reast if it is at all possible.

Last edited by Roman on 18 Oct 2009, 1:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It is funny you call my posting on this forum as an example of yan. To me, physics feels like yan, while posting here is very much yin. After all, I post here in order to take a break from physics. May be I am addicted to posting here which is why to me it is yin even though it feels like yan? Do you think it is true for Asperger's obsessions in general?

Roman,

1. One needs be extremely clear when talking with you, because you are very clever, and have a way of sabotaging the discussion to prove that you have hopeless problem. I do this too, so therefore am more able to see it when you employ this tactic. Subpoint: You will require a mate who can see through your tactics. Otherwise it will not work. They must have equally as strong a mind as you do. It can be in a different field though. And they must be as stubborn as you are also.

2. Yes, can thoroughly appreciate you post here for a "break" from physics. However, when you post here, it is somewhat over the top, i.e., extremely overly analytical. When you post here, your mind is still racing. Being obsessive is indeed an aspie trait.

3. IMO, adjusting (like shifting down) from math/physics/pattern thinking to any spoken language is difficult. I think it would be much easier for you to go from math/physics thinking to music......because both music and math involve pattern thinking... and you can make that shift more effortlessly..

Having replied to Roman's posts in the past, I don't think it's necessarily to try to prove that a problem is hopeless, but rather to discourage giving practical feedback or trying to analyze the situation. I think Roman's posts are more like rants than petitions for suggestions; he's just trying to release some steam and to get some sympathetic listeners. I think he'd rather try to figure things out for himself, which is fine in and of itself and a lot of Aspies do this... but it'll just make things harder for him than perhaps it really needs to be.

Definitely agree though, this kind of attitude can be problematic in relationships especially if the other person can see right through this attitude. It'll royally piss such person off. Having been in such relationship where I got pissed off, I know. It kinda sucks to deal with it.

I don't do that on purpose. I always remember where the discussion left off, and I plan to make a parenthetical remark to clarify such and such detail that the other person missed, and then get back to discussion. The problem though is that while making parenthetical remark I am thinking of other potential details that might be misunderstood, so I have to put some parentheses inside these parentheses, and then yet other parentheses inside them, etc.

Actually I face the same problem while writing a physics paper. So, while editting it, it is quite a challenge to make sure that my clarifications are only few line long so that the reader wont miss a point and, at the same time, I clarify everything that needs be clarified. But in case of physics paper it is okay to work on it for several days to accomplish this goal. In case of forum post, it would be ridiculous to edit it the way I edit physics paper. At the same time, I don't worry about the fact that it might take half an hour to write the long post that I do; that is my obsession after all. But I save my time when it comes to shortening it. So then it looks like I just try to divert the original topic to a rant. But in reality rant was meant to be just a parenthetical remark, and I meant to get back to original topic once the parenthetical discussion is done (even if parenthetical discussion might include several exchanges).

Well, yes I do want to analyze the situation. But no, I am not discouraging practical feedback. I mean, no one forces me to follow it, so why would it bother me? If I have practical feedback, I have a choice to either use it or not; if I dont have one, then I can't possibly use it. So, of coures I would rather have it than not. So discouraging it was not intention, it was only a side effect to trying to analyze things.



I do want advise. But then again, if there are points to counter, I would, just out of perfectionism. So that leaves an impression that I don't want it. But my communication style is that if I agree with 90% and disagree with 10% I would focus on 10% I disagree with. Just like in physics class, I raise my hand only if I have a question. So in class if I agree with professor for 49 minutes and disagree with him for 1 minute, I would, of course, raise my hand during the 1 minute I disagree.

I guess the problem is that it is not class or physics discussion, so I should be acknowledging the times when I agree with you too, such as for example thanking you for all the time you put into writing the part of the email that I like. But I guess I am just too used to the former type of discussion and not the latter, so it would take an effort to change my communication style.



That was actually the major issue with my last relationship with Jennifer. In particular, what pissed her off is that whenever I do soemthing wrong I would then "explain myself" as to why I did what I did. She felt that "explaining myself" amounts to "not being willing to take responsibility". But from my perspective, yes I do want to change FUTURE behavior; I am only explaining the PAST because I can't possibly change the past. Yet she feels a need to hold me responsible for the past, the very thing I can not change.

When we were in san francisco science museum there was a place where they explored the way different sounds affect a person emotions. Among various things there was a tape recorder where they were tape recording different relationship samples: "anger", "justifying", and some other two I don't remember. We were supposed to listen to all of them and decide which of these four couples would stay together, and then we were supposed to look at the right answer. Well, my answer was "justifying" couple would stay together, while Jennifer's answer was "anger" couple would stay together. After we looked it up, Jennifer ended up being right. And I don't ever understand why.

From Jennifer's perspective there is nothing wrong with anger because everyone "has a right to be angry", while it IS wrong to justify since by doing that you deprive the other person of their right to be angry. She says it is "disrespectful" if I tell her not to be mad at me for what I did, or to forget what I did. She sais that she "has a right to be mad" and I disrespecting her by saying she doesn't have that right. But from my perspective being mad is not about making oneself feel good, it is about making the other person feel bad, so how is it possibly be disrespectful to tell her to fight that feeling, I mean it is not a plesant feeling to have.

On the other hand, when I kept asking her what is wrong with justifying, she says that by doing it I "shift blame on another person". Well, in my case I almost never blame the other person when justifying. Instead, I blame my own Asperger, or my own thinking pattern. But even after i said it she still said that I blame the other person in some very subtle ways. Well, if it is wrong to blame the other person in "very subtle" ways while justifying, how come it is not wrong at all by openly blaming the other person with actual anger? That is the point I don't get.

Anyway, the funny thing is that, even though Jennifer was very mad at my justifying, that was NOT why she broke up. Instead, she broke up over the fact that I put physics first, my mom second, and she was always third; and worse, often I forgot about her needs altogether. But from my perspective it is definitely related to the justification issue, in two different ways:

1) Because I was justifying so much, she became angry enough to disrespect me. And, part of that disrespect, is the disprespect of my need to focus on physics as much as I want, or please my parents

2) Because of my justifying, she responded with anger, and this anger made me dislike her, so once I no longer liked her, OF COURSE I was neglecting her or treating her as unimportant

Well, from my perspective i allientated her with overanalyzing a year ago, even though we broke up very recently. That whole year i PERCEIVED a lot of disrespect comming from her, was "enduring it" loooking forward to leaving to India, and, of course, not putting any effort into relationship. But from her point of view this whole year she was treating me very well and in fact she been putting extra effort in making me happy since she sensed I was not happy (she brought up examples such as taking me to Russian restaurant when I told her i missed Russian food, helping me prepare for my thesis defense, helping me fill out a fellowship, bringing food for me to eat during the last week before my turning in thesis while I was in computer lab all night long, etc) and she is mad at me that I felt that she was "disrespectful" to me during that very time, which is why she now "gave up" on me since trying to please me "does no good".

But, with all that, I still feel that her attitude to me was not as good as in the beginning of a relatinoship, EVEN THOUGH she did more to me than before. I mean she was MUCH more likely to yell at me or start a fight, she was pressuring me to do things I don't want to do (such as stick to her plans rather than my mom's), etc. And I feel that it could have been because of my overanalyzing that ultimately caused her to disrespect me. But I am not sure, could the other part be that honeymoon period was over? Also if I look back at it from now, I see a lot of times when she was quite supportive, which I didn't see back then. Thats why I made this post about wanting what I don't have. When I had her I didn't like her, but now that I don't have her, I like her again. So what do you think? In terms of her behavior this last year, how much of it is my own perceptions being negaive and how much of it is my making her mad through analyzing? Or could it be that that is the way NT-s fight aspies: they find a way to nake aspies depressed, and then aspies will finish their job for them through their own depression, without ever recognizing its sourse? In particular, if I overanalyze things with some other girl, could it be that the girl won't necesserely break up with me, but she would make a relationship such a nightmare that I would be the one who would want to run away?

I don't think I can. I have had a lot of happy moments.

Are you willing to do that effort?

Can you see, I mean: really see, the point you got there?
I think it's the most important one.

Yes I do see. If I make very long posts and/or correct other people on various details that htey say, some or all of the following happens:

a) People simply don't have patience to read such long posts, so they stop readig or giving me advice

b) Since whenever I talk for a long time the topic is always *MYSELF* I come across as self centered. I am also making an implication that my situation is more complex, or deserves more time, than anyone else's. This, again, makes an impression that I am self centered.

c) People feel that whatever they are going to tell me I will "refute" as "wrong", so they might as well leave me to search myelf for my own answers since I won't accept anything else

d) People feel that I must be looking down on them or think they are stupid, since that is the only obvious reason why I won't accept any of their advice

e)Even if I don't lecture them that they are wrong, they still feel that I treat them as stupid since I spell things out like one would for the first grader.

f) People feel that I am making excuses not to do what they suggest. That, in itself, is fine since the only person I hurt is myself. But then the question is why did I make them waste all this time giving me advise on the first place?



Yes, but I guess I need help here. I mean if I make a short post, then people will extrapolate and "fill in" the details, and what if they fill them in wrong?

For instance, if I complain about my overprotective mother, they might instead decide that I talk about selfish mother. But in reality I WISH my mom was selfish, then I would be able to feel like an adult. Or another example, if I talk about keeping things from my mom ppl assume I do that in order to make her happy. But in reality there is a thing inside my head that makes me want to do it REGARDLESS of whether it would make her happy or not (for instance back whgen I was undergrad not happy that I study as much as I do but I was faking it anyway)

Again, I don't mean to divert discussion to my mom in this thread. But I hope you see from the examples I brought up how others might "fill things in" wrong, unless I fill things in for them. And if I do, it will end up being a very long post, since I can't predict WHAT they will fill in wrong, so I have to fill things in for them in every sentence.