Overcoming Intellectual Melancholy: Reducing FOMO & perceived high opportunity cost of intellectual pursuits

The Melancholy

In order to study reality on a fundamental level, you have to be disconnected from it for prolonged periods of time. I often feel like the opportunity cost is too high: the time sacrifice, solitude, time away from connecting with people and nature, or from building and making things in real life. Yet, all I want to do is go deeper. Recently, while studying quantum mechanics, I’ve continually been wanting to get to the very root of each concept. To dig into the foreign mathematical concepts necessary for understanding proofs. I’ve wanted to know where the logic of derivations come from, what they indeed tell us in the end, and how these conclusions can be applied. I’ve wanted to do all the suggested practice to properly grasp all the concepts… to play with them. But the deeper I go, the greater the opportunity cost of being disconnected from reality: time not spent acting, building, or connecting in the physically tangible world.

I can’t help continually asking myself: What is the balance? At what point is the opportunity cost too high? How do I dive deeper intellectually & practically at the same time? How can I be satisfied?

The problem is, in the digital modern age, there’s an infinite amount of things we can do, but only a finite amount of time and energy. To further complicate this dilemma, the internet exposes us to all the elite achiever of the world: where exceptionalism occupies every niche of life. Because of this, many of us feel dissatisfied with our current selves: our skills, achievements, experiences, relationships, and overall quality of life. In this article, I hope to explore this dilemma and offer some guidance, for both myself and others.

Here’s a quick outline of what will be covered:

• A framework of information input to output
  • Types of intellectual output
  • Balancing modes of input & output
• Overcoming FOMO & fear of opportunity costs
  • Adoptable practices
  • “Good enough” mindset

Firstly, I will explore a framework of information input & output: defining input vs. output, how we process information, and the different information modalities. Next, I will explore some practices for helping overcome FOMO (which are applicable to life in general, not just the intellectual sphere). Lastly, I’ll touch upon developing a “good enough” mindset: a framework for being more satisfied with the limited amount of things you can do in life.

Framework of Input to Output

I think one of the core contributors to this intellectual melancholy is that we have too much input and not enough output.

Input is essential for obtaining new ideas and perspectives. Some examples of intellectual input for myself would be:

• Academic studying: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology
• Any books I read (mostly Non-fiction)
• A lot of articles and video content I consume around human nature (behaviour and emotion)
• Some conversations or social interactions I engage in

Wedged between input and output is the middle ground of our own subconscious. It’s where our subconscious framework can masticate on ideas, feelings, and trains of thought. We feed our subconscious when we input any information into our minds. Then, through some kind of psychological osmosis, our conscious mind can interact with this digested knowledge floating in the background.

Output is then the result of engaging with these subconscious gifts, evolved from previous inputs, then making something useful or beautiful with them through focused effort. Output is particularly valuable because it requires you to take ownership over your own thoughts and creativity. The act of making and outputting something, tends to give more purpose to the inputs you’ve collected, digested, and explored within your own mind.

Input holds greater value when it can be synthesized into some output.

Output can take many forms: research, writing (articles, stories, books, poems, etc.), building or designing projects, artistic expression, and even your own behaviour. Additionally, I’ve found the act of creating both energizing and liberating. It’s a form of expression that counteracts the strain of constantly trying absorb and process knowledge. It’s as if the more information you input and chew on, the more contemplative pressure builds up within your mind, and output, in any form, helps alleviate this pressure.

Types of intellectual output

In the modern age I find there are 2 key components to intellectual output:

• Location: Online vs. In-real-life (IRL)
• Function: Knowledge sharing vs. building/design

Here are the different combos of output using the two components above:

• Online knowledge sharing (writing, videos, courses, and infographics)
• IRL knowledge sharing (talks, workshops, mentoring/tutoring, and conversations)
• Online building/design (models, code, website, design)
• IRL building/design (hands-on implementation, and experiments)

The first two output combos consist of sharing and spreading knowledge or ideas. Online knowledge sharing can be done through articles, books, forums, podcasts, videos, and infographics. In-person knowledge sharing is just a conversation, whether a talk, workshop, or one-on-one.

Building things with knowledge brings us into the world of design. This manifests itself online through websites, programs, and communities. IRL this takes the form of building or implementing knowledge in a way that is physically tangible. That could be an invention, an experiment, implementing a system, or observing theory in real life.

The first 3 combos are great. They give you some sort of creative expression. They force you to create something with your knowledge, but they still lack some physical manifestation in IRL. I personally find being able to create something physical with my knowledge, or tying theory back to something physically tangible (such as how a machine or plant works), brings a deep sense of purpose and fulfillment to my intellectual pursuits. Not to mention, bringing knowledge full circle, back into real life, is quite fun. You finally get to fully interact with your knowledge: using your mind, body, and senses.

Balancing modes of input and output

Broadly speaking, I would categorize input and output into 4 subjective modalities:

1. Intellectual
2. Creative
3. Practical
4. Social

They definitely overlap with one another, but in some ways are quite distinct. With regards to overcoming intellectual melancholy, a solution could be to intentionally interweave intellectual activities with other modalities. For example, you could attend a philosophy club, interweaving intellectual & social. Or, you might apply your intellect to some form of creative expression, as I’m doing right now with article writing. Furthermore, you could interweave intellectual and practical by using some theoretical knowledge to solve/fix some household problem: such as working with electricity, plumbing, or cleaning.

I also believe it’s vital to dedicate appropriate time engaging in activities strictly within each modality. This helps diversify your sources of stimuli, and can free you from any intellectual loop-holes.

Overcoming FOMO & fear of opportunity costs

Due to my broad range of curiosities, I often feel FOMO towards learning. I know I can’t dive as deeply into every topic I’m interested in as much as I’d like to, at least not all at the same time. Also, I feel like I’m hit with a big opportunity cost when I decide to dedicate a lot of time towards just one topic. I’ve felt this often the past couple years, when studying math & physics. The time, focus, energy, and solitude required to study physics has made me feel like I’ve “missed out” on learning a variety of other topics. I’ve even sacrificed having a “normal” university experience, in order to pursue such deep studying. So what’s the solution to this never-ending yearning for more?

I would split the answer to this question into two sections. The first consists of adoptable practices that can help you achieve more, and better diversify what you’re working on. The second consists of developing a “good enough” mindset, which entails being satisfied with what you’re already doing.

Adoptable practices

• Deep work cycles: In Cal Newport’s book “Deep Work”, he lays out different approaches of deep work used by some of the most influential & productive people in the world. Some only work in complete and utter isolation. Others split the year, month, or week between periods of deep work and periods of flexibility. Others do so on a daily basis, where they have a specific portion of the day dedicated to work/study. Lastly, some do so more on an opportunistic basis, whenever a chunk of free time pops up (such as when the kids are taking a nap). Deep work cycles provide us further agency over our endeavours, and aid us in accomplishing more within our current life structure. 1 hour of truly deep work often surpasses 4 hours of, semi-deep, distracted work.
• Batching: prioritizing different activities on different days, or dedicating parts of your day to specific activities.Batching could be considered a component of deep work practices. It allows you to group similar tasks together, so you’re not constantly jumping around from one task to another. This helps to reduce distractions and promote focus. One might assign specific tasks to particular days of the week, or alternate between two projects every-other day. For example, as a student, I could assign specific days of the week for working on specific classes/subjects.
• Consistency: Consistently, on a weekly or daily basis, pursue growth in a variety of life areas. The youtuber Ali Abdaal, has a practice he calls “daily side-quests”, focused on three areas of life: Work, Health, and Relationships. Everyday, he tries to complete a minimum of one “side quest” in each of these life areas. For work, it might be sending that email to a client he’s been putting off, or finally updating a resume. For health, it could be going for a run, doing a workout, cooking a hearty soup, or whipping up a smoothie stocked full of antioxidants and vitamins. For relationships, it could be catching up with someone over coffee, calling a friend or family member to check up on them, attending a club or social environment (climbing gyms are a favourite of mine), or even just having an intimate conversation with a partner. The goal is to complete one side-quest in all 3 areas, everyday. I like adding a fourth side-quest to this: hobbies. So, my four daily side quests are: Work/study (I consider studying work at times), Hobbies, Exercise, and Relationships.

“Good enough” mindset:

• Acknowledging finite time: Accept that you only have a finite amount of time and energy. Let go of the illusion that you can conquer an exhaustive checklist every single day. Learn to fill your time with, and prioritize, what’s most important, and drain your life of everything else.
• Celebrate your journey: You’ve been climbing up a mountain from the day you were born. And you likely often forget how far you’ve come, because you rarely pause to look back on your ascent. Especially in periods where you feel like you haven’t done enough, look back and recognize the shit that you have done: what you’ve endured, overcome, and achieved. Celebrate your climb, and enjoy the view from your current vantage point… then keep climbing.
• Gratitude: Acknowledge the wonders of existence, the unfathomable probability of you being you, and you being here with all of these resources, capabilities, people, and potential. Let that excite you, let it drain the negativity from your mind and body, and open you up to receiving the amazing possibilities of the future.
• Prioritization: Consciously choose to focus on specific things over others. Instead of hounding yourself for not learning the guitar, a foreign language, or a new sport, acknowledge that you’re consciously making a choice not to work on that right now. Choose JOMO* (Joy Of Missing Out) over FOMO. Celebrate the fact that you are dedicating a portion of your time to a specific thing, rather than envying doing something else. If you hold envy around the way you’re spending your time, that’s a sign that you need to deeply question the ‘why’ behind what you’re focusing on.
• A central theme here, is learning how to set more realistic daily goals. Cal Newport suggests blocking out your time into 30 minute chunks, and as plans or tasks inevitably change throughout the day, slash out your old time block and reorganize the new one into a column right next to it. This practice helps you realistically assess how long it takes you to complete things, allowing you to more accurately dedicate time to specific tasks. This is what I call “productive realism”, which helps you develop self-awareness, so you can set more manageable goals. Having more manageable goals, increases your likelihood of achieving them, which results in a greater sense of self-satisfaction.

Actively acknowledge what you’re currently focusing on, rather than passively being disappointed in what you’re not.

Instead of grieving the opportunity cost of pursuing something, create your own peace by celebrating what you are pursuing

*I got this acronym from a great book called 4,000 weeks, which I highly recommend.

We live in an age of never enough. It feels like we have the world at our fingertips, and yet we can barely do anything with it. But, the world does not fit in the palm of our hands. In fact, we’re practically insignificant in comparison to it. So let’s stop acting like we’re the size of the world, like we can do absolutely everything, because we’re just humans. We have limits, we’re finite, and rejecting these truths propels us into the disease of “never enough”. I believe that this intellectual melancholy I’ve defined above, is just another way of feel like things are “never enough”. Luckily, we are malleable creatures, with an ever-changing headspace. Which means, we can slowly learn to shift this “never enough” into a “good enough”, and then relax into the peace of satisfaction.

Alrighty, that’s my take on overcoming intellectual melancholy (a.k.a. a form of “never enough”). As a quick recap, you can:

• Balance your input & output of knowledge by actually creating something with it
  • Diversify which modality of input/output you’re engaging with (intellectual, creative, practical, social) and how you interweave them
• Develop practices that allow for deeper work. In-turn, providing yourself more time for the rest of life and diversifying your pursuits.
• Adopt a “good enough” mindset. Which consists of acknowledging your finitude, celebrating how you choose to spend your time, and recognizing the unfathomable beauty of life itself.

I hope you found this article interesting, or that it sparked some introspection. If you resonated with anything in particular, or feel something is missing, please comment it down below. Constructive criticism is always welcome :).

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