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Guest Author: George Mack
What’s the opposite of a hedonic treadmill?
The hedonic treadmill is so powerful that Dan Bilzerian, the Jesus of Hedonism, wants to work at Walmart for 6 months to reset his hedonic baseline.
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
– Wittgenstein If we don’t have a word for it — it limits our ability to do it. Here’s one…
Hedonic Escalators: Life events or activities that don’t adapt to a stable baseline.
Some examples:
1. Flow states
– Previous flow states do not reduce the quality of a current flow state. You’re too busy in the flow state for your mind to contrast to the past.
2. Living near great friends
– This seems to be the opposite of a hedonic treadmill. The more you live near great friends, the more the relationship deepens — increasing your happiness further.
3. Good night sleep
– It’s really hard to adapt to a good night of sleep. And if you do, all you need is one bad night of sleep to reset the appreciation.
4. Learning
– The more you learn, the more you enjoy future learning. It compounds as more nodes get connected. And the more you learn, the quicker you can learn in the future. It’s a hedonic flywheel that keeps getting better and better.
5. Post exercise high
– Unlike buying a sports car, the euphoric feeling after a workout is still as strong as it was 6 months ago. As long as you don’t injure yourself, the hedonic escalator does not break.
6. Larger meaning
– If humans have some larger meaning they’re contributing towards, it’s possible to keep going in a concentration camp — see Victor Frankl. If you have no sense of meaning, it’s possible you’ll kill yourself in your McLaren F1.
A positive hedonic escalator is an infinite game. It’s a drug with little to no tolerance adaptation or comedown.
If you were to create a dashboard for human happiness, you’d optimise for time spent in hedonic escalators.
