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So, for a long time now, I've been interested in politics. I can't speak to exactly why, just as I'm sure I can't explain exactly why I like putting together plastic models or any other hobby or interest. The exact interest isn't important, you can substitute fly fishing or fantasy football or knitting for politics.

However, I've decided that this specific interest isn't particularly good for me. It's corrosive and while it's not as harmful as say, an interest in heroin, or compulsive gambling... it's no longer desirable.

So I was wondering. Is it possible to train yourself out of an interest? Is there some mental trick or exercise?

This isn't so much a self-help question per se, so much as I'm interested in the basic concept, whether or not humans can choose to drop an interest. Can you choose not to want to play the guitar or read vampire romances?

I don't know much about psychology and there are a far range of backgrounds and knowledge out in that there OT, so I hear.

As far as I know you can form habits relatively consistently by repeating stuff each for for one to two months (if you want it to happen quickly). After that it should stick. My guess is that you'd need to find something else you want to do to replace it with (and that you can do when the to be replaced habit shows up). Then keep doing that for two months and kinda "overwrite" the old habit.

Generally speaking, yes, you can make such a choice. The easiest way is to find something else to replace it. It gets harder when things like addiction are involved, though. Or if it's something you're continually exposed to (like, say, trying to give up gaming when you work in a game store).

You can, it's just about practice (like everything else). On a subject like that quitting cold turkey is a good way to go. That said, I never enjoyed politics until 2017. It's been non-stop hilarity from day one of Trump's presidency (and let's be honest, before that). Yes, lots of people are getting screwed over. But that's only when viewed through the lens of individuals, which is really not a good way to look at things with there being over 7 billion of us.

Instead, think of it like a funny youtube video of someone harming themselves through their own idiocy. Only that individual is the country. Because at the end of the day we're all in this together and it's pretty dam funny how good we are at screwing ourselves. Besides, a Democracy elects the government it deserves. Our current government is a representation of who US citizens actually are (obviously not THAT bad, but still).

Yeah, because what this thread needed was a post about politics...

This isn't really a thread about politics, backdoor or otherwise. Lets skip the motivation, it's really not relevant - it was a mistake to be that specific.

It was more about whether or not you train yourself via a technique or trick to no longer be interested in something. Lets pretend it was knitting!

If you're really into knitting, can you decide that every time you think about picking up a needle you can decide to do some other activity, like tossing around a football - even though you hate football, lets say - and lose the interest in knitting?

If people have done that with something they decided they wanted to do anymore, have you lost the original interest somehow? I suppose the obvious analogies here are addictions like alcoholism or gambling, but those aren't a good fit because things like that are so deleterious they also have heavy pressure to stop engaging in them. I'm talking something more or less harmless that you just decided wasn't good for you.

I am pretty sure we can. It is just usually something that is easier said than done. To drop an interest you would need the following:
1. Have enough willpower and self-discipline
2. Stop exposing yourself to the interest.
3. Replace interest with other interest.
The amount of willpower you need depends on the interest you want to drop (dropping things that are addictive is seriously hard) and on how suitable the replacement interest is. You want something that is as least as interesting to you as the thing you are trying to drop, otherwise it is also going to become seriously hard.
Just my opinions/experiences though. I am not a psychologist.

Sure, people do this all the time, often without realising it.

There are a few ways you can do this and things to keep in mind when its an interest

1) Time - hobbies and interests take up time in order to achieve. Thus if you cut something out you suddenly find yourself with spare time during the day; even if those time slots are just 5 mins to check a website or watch the news etc.... So you ideally want to find ways to fill that time slot with another activity - depending on how long those time slots are.

2) Another interest - this is linked to time filling, but is about not just finding anything; but giving yourself specific (it could be more than one) focuses during those time slots. This might mean taking up a new interest or hobby; or developing one you already do to a greater level.

You could even throw in life - instead of an interest do the gardening/housework etc... Ergo something that needs to be done rather than just all hobby/casual life that is non-essential (sometimes the essential nature of day to day living can be a good thing to use because its "important" in real world terms to you).

3) Remove easy access - delete your bookmarks to popular political websites; stop watching the news on the TV - perhaps even stop reading newspapers. Ergo through this what you are doing is cutting ties to easy information and easy access to the interest concerned.
By cutting these ties (coupled to filling the time that was otherwise used when checking them) you cut yourself off from casual interaction.

4) A diary - a log of what you do each day - even if you fail to keep away from politics. The idea here is that you're putting structure and review to your daily life. This lets you monitor your activities and also keep track of time. It lets you see the change in yourself in real terms and also can show how small lapses are not a bad thing.

5) Remember that politics is totally normal to talk about and interact with. At a very casual level even people who take no active interest in it will still get involved talking about it from time to time. So its very unlikely that you will totally cut it out of your life; but you can certainly reduce your interaction and familiarity.

6) Willingness to change, not just desire to change. We can all desire things; but you've got to go one step further and have the willpower to enforce and take on that change in yourself.



Also look for triggers in your life; things that connect you to the politics and which generate the undesirable situations. Note that you might well find that the undesirable aspects might just be a symptom of other stresses, problems or issues in your life so cutting politics out might not net the full result you desire. So do keep a diary of your progress and activities and take note of if your undesirable behaviour is repeating itself in other areas.


Also remember that the human mind is like a muscle - and thus like most of your body its Lazy. It will take repeat pathways and approaches that you are familiar with because, well, they are the easy pathway (even if in reality its not easy) that your mind is used to and familiar with. So you've got to work hard to change those pathways - hence why earlier presented concepts focused upon filling those time gaps and situations with other stuff.




Note you might never crush the interest totally; but you can bring it under control and moderate it and your own behaviour to the point where your interest has less and less undesirable impact on your life.

Have any of you guys ever done something like that?

Thank you for the well thought out replies.

 Ouze wrote:
Have any of you guys ever done something like that?

Thank you for the well thought out replies.

IN terms of hobbies, not really. But when I was in grade school, I used to play with my ears all the time as a coping technique. My family found that shaming me wasn't working, so therapy. I don't remember the details, but I ended up redirected to other kinds of fidgeting. I knew a boy around the same time who went from self-harming to grabbing his pockets.

I think its generally a mistake to try and override your interests. For much the same reason that you can't really explain why something interests you, it's a bad idea to try and change what interests you. It's coming from the subconscious.

I think you can try and engage in something in a more positive manner. Try and approach it in a way that enriches, rather than reduces your life. For politics for instance you might look for people you agree with and active roles that make you feel like part of the solution, rather than just rail at your political opponents.

When you're really, truly done with something then you don't have to make something happen. You know. You just don't give a gak anymore. You stop thinking about it. Stop finding time to fit it in to your schedule. It leaves your life without you really doing anything pro-active at all.

I agree with Seb...

If you find political discussions going really negative, simply *walk away* from the discussion and realize you don't need to say/write the last word everytime.

Take a break...

I tell ya... me 'n Seb go at each other in the PMs and recently we've decided to stop because it was time to end it. We were really vicious to each other... but, it's not personal. It's just two very opinionated people coming from totally different viewpoints.

At the end of our epic PM discussions, even though things were heated, we both still respected to each other and were adult enough to know enough is enough.

But, if political topics really depresses you, throw yourself at a hobby.

I hear you got some rifles you still need to build/test.

My dad used to be an addiction counsellor and he always disagreed with the abstinence approach that a lot of groups take (e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous); it’s a useful stepping stone, but you haven’t actually cured the problem, just avoided it. If you are truly cured of your addiction you can (in that example) drink in moderation, without fear of going off the rails. I mention this because politics is something you’re going to be exposed to from time to time, so is going to make it more difficult to stop being drawn in to, so I would propose you need to reduce your interest, rather than ignore/remove it.

My suggestion, which is purely out of my own head and not based on any approved theory, would be to try and find something similar to politics to substitute in. I imagine it would be a lot harder to sit there and go “I’m not going to be interested in politics, so time to take up knitting!” than, say philosophy or history or something more closely related. There’s obviously reasons why you became interested in politics in the first place (personality, education, background, etc.), so you need something similar to scratch that same itch.

On a personal note, I sympathise with where you’re coming from, I used to really enjoy debating politics with friends and family, but the political situation in the UK is now so polarised and unpleasant that I’ve largely stopped a) because I don’t want to start an acrimonious fight with people I like and b) it makes me so angry and depressed and it’s just not healthy.

 sebster wrote:
I think its generally a mistake to try and override your interests. For much the same reason that you can't really explain why something interests you, it's a bad idea to try and change what interests you. It's coming from the subconscious.

I think you can try and engage in something in a more positive manner. Try and approach it in a way that enriches, rather than reduces your life. For politics for instance you might look for people you agree with and active roles that make you feel like part of the solution, rather than just rail at your political opponents.

When you're really, truly done with something then you don't have to make something happen. You know. You just don't give a gak anymore. You stop thinking about it. Stop finding time to fit it in to your schedule. It leaves your life without you really doing anything pro-active at all.

I feel like sometimes the effort and stress it takes to maintain something in a healthy way isn't worth it, there isn't a wrong answer here and I don't think 'mistake' was the best choice of word.

Anyways, I have had that with video games where I was just sinking too much time into a game, and I realized I was getting too invested. I had to simply uninstall the game and walk away from it. I have also had it with, oddly enough, reading novels. If I get into a book I really like I will tear through it in two days, maybe a week if I pace myself. There's nothing bad about that but I simply can't afford to buy that many books. Trying to read them slower and draw things out over a longer period would simply suck all the enjoyment out of it for me. So I restrict myself to very specific lines and don't deviate from them. For example, right now it's Age of Sigmar novels. I get all of them when they come out but keep myself from going into, say, 40k novels, or other series of fantasy novels. I would enjoy them, but I simply can't afford to sink so much money in.

Set your goals in life. Look, what helps these purposes, and what stirs or prevents it. Usually, PC games, alcohol and other waste of time interfere your goals. Some knowledge will look unnecessary. if you know your goals Some will prove to be necessary. Some you will find some necessary, which you did not think about, but they are needed earlier. Unfortunately, even favorite things usually have to be overcome contrary to desires. If you molest desires, a person degrades.

If you want to remove the very somthing you leave a gap, a hole in your life and time.

You need to find somthing to replace it, build new habits, intrests and things that take up the time previously used.

Find somthing posetive to fill in thr gaps.

Leaving time, leaving gaps open makes it easier to relapse into somthing. If you replace somthong and build a new habit it may stand better off of sticking.

I'm sure it must be possible, but it can be hard to do just through personally will power alone.

Honestly the best thing to do would be to get a behaviour coach, they're the experts in this sort of thing after all!

(I would question why staying informed on political issues is a caustic behaviour... Democracy requires an informed electorate to work well)

I've done exactly that - i.e. got rid of almost obsessive "armchair involvement" in politics two years ago, after I got seriously too deep into it and it become a time burden more than "healthy interest". There is a quite well established knowledge about 21-28 days period needed to establish a new habit (just google it and there is plenty of articles about it).

With politics it's a bit harder to do, because usually there is a lot of people around you to just "lure you" into the subject, so do it in steps - at first, make a habit of not involving into any discussions, no mather how "wrong" about something anyone is. Then gradually stop following news sites (if you crave "morning coffe press run" then just start following sites about your other/desired interests). As you'll see, after you actually stop discussing politics there is no real reason to follow it closely anymore.

And switching one interest/hobby into another comes quite naturally, because you suddenly have significantly more time to do so. So good luck!

I found from my own experience that just deleting my Facebook account has helped a ton. 99% of what people posted on Facebook was political bs and I got tired of it. My wife deleted her FB account 6+ years ago and doesn’t miss it for a second. Start there

nou wrote:
I've done exactly that - i.e. got rid of almost obsessive "armchair involvement" in politics two years ago, after I got seriously too deep into it and it become a time burden more than "healthy interest". There is a quite well established knowledge about 21-28 days period needed to establish a new habit (just google it and there is plenty of articles about it).

With politics it's a bit harder to do, because usually there is a lot of people around you to just "lure you" into the subject, so do it in steps - at first, make a habit of not involving into any discussions, no mather how "wrong" about something anyone is. Then gradually stop following news sites (if you crave "morning coffe press run" then just start following sites about your other/desired interests). As you'll see, after you actually stop discussing politics there is no real reason to follow it closely anymore.

And switching one interest/hobby into another comes quite naturally, because you suddenly have significantly more time to do so. So good luck!

This definitely seems to be the consensus view, actively sub out into an alternate activity.

So, since you did exactly that... do you feel a void in your life? Like do you still feel drawn to it? Or have you legitimately no interest in it anymore?

 Chute82 wrote:
I found from my own experience that just deleting my Facebook account has helped a ton. 99% of what people posted on Facebook was political bs and I got tired of it. My wife deleted her FB account 6+ years ago and doesn’t miss it for a second. Start there

I can totally understand that problem, but I'd been slowly unfollowing those people a few years ago so I don't really have that problem; my feed is really just hobby things and family stuff. Despite that I've still considered deleting my FB account just so I can shed some of that always-on accessibility.... but that's a whole other thread




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jadenim wrote:
My dad used to be an addiction counsellor and he always disagreed with the abstinence approach that a lot of groups take (e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous); it’s a useful stepping stone, but you haven’t actually cured the problem, just avoided it. If you are truly cured of your addiction you can (in that example) drink in moderation, without fear of going off the rails. I mention this because politics is something you’re going to be exposed to from time to time, so is going to make it more difficult to stop being drawn in to, so I would propose you need to reduce your interest, rather than ignore/remove it.

My suggestion, which is purely out of my own head and not based on any approved theory, would be to try and find something similar to politics to substitute in. I imagine it would be a lot harder to sit there and go “I’m not going to be interested in politics, so time to take up knitting!” than, say philosophy or history or something more closely related. There’s obviously reasons why you became interested in politics in the first place (personality, education, background, etc.), so you need something similar to scratch that same itch.

On a personal note, I sympathise with where you’re coming from, I used to really enjoy debating politics with friends and family, but the political situation in the UK is now so polarised and unpleasant that I’ve largely stopped a) because I don’t want to start an acrimonious fight with people I like and b) it makes me so angry and depressed and it’s just not healthy.

Thank you for the advice. I'm not sure what is the underlying interest but something on a similar track makes sense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
I agree with Seb...

If you find political discussions going really negative, simply *walk away* from the discussion and realize you don't need to say/write the last word everytime.

I don't think you understand. Someone is wrong on the internet.

 Ouze wrote:

nou wrote:
I've done exactly that - i.e. got rid of almost obsessive "armchair involvement" in politics two years ago, after I got seriously too deep into it and it become a time burden more than "healthy interest". There is a quite well established knowledge about 21-28 days period needed to establish a new habit (just google it and there is plenty of articles about it).

With politics it's a bit harder to do, because usually there is a lot of people around you to just "lure you" into the subject, so do it in steps - at first, make a habit of not involving into any discussions, no mather how "wrong" about something anyone is. Then gradually stop following news sites (if you crave "morning coffe press run" then just start following sites about your other/desired interests). As you'll see, after you actually stop discussing politics there is no real reason to follow it closely anymore.

And switching one interest/hobby into another comes quite naturally, because you suddenly have significantly more time to do so. So good luck!

This definitely seems to be the consensus view, actively sub out into an alternate activity.

So, since you did exactly that... do you feel a void in your life? Like do you still feel drawn to it? Or have you legitimately no interest in it anymore?

I don't feel any void whatsoever. You see, there is a HUGE difference between obsesion and healthy awareness. I did got rid of obsessive interest, but as in the "anonymous alcoholics" example above, I don't have to be completely isolated from politics. Quite contrary - removing myself from following daily news gave me necessary distance to see politics in much more interesting, "meta" context. To illustrate what I mean by that let me deviate from politics onto Bitcoin bubble:

There are basically three levels on which one can be involved in following what is happening there: first is the microfluctuations (represented by charts with 1-15min intervals) - those are highly unstable, rising and falling all the time. Those are usefull if you are a Bitcoin "investor" actively gaming this chart for profit, but otherwise it is entirely meaningless and following this level is heavily time demanding. Then there is medium interval level, observing charts of 15-1hr intervals (this gives you scope of about a month or so): here you can clearly see all that "magical numberology" of stock/currency exchange players, all that "psychological barriers", round numbers that players hold dear. It has not only utility for long term "investors", but is also interesting from psychological/sociological observer viewpoint. It can be a "break from work" activity, because you can spend like 5 minutes daily to follow what is happening. And there is third level, upwards from 6hr intervals - this is where Bitcoin chart looks exactly like a textbook bubble chart and adds to a perspective on how entire economy and society works. On this level it is enough to check weekly "if Bitcoin bubble have bursted already", so there is very little involvement and much more reflexion.

Now going back to politics, the first thing to realise is that real politics happens somewhere between this second and third scope. There is absolutely no need for or gain from following politics on hour-to hour or even day-to-day basis (short intervals frome example above) for private "armchair observers" (it is even doubtfull for active politicians to keep an eye on such timescape in non-crisis times). The shift from daily news to non-stop news is something developed and pushed by 24/7 news stations and paper newspapers shifting to internet news services, which both have to generate content much more often to keep bills payed. On the other hand, there is a question of utility of personal involvement: if you are not an activist or active politician, there is absolutely no meaningfull positive effect of your discussions with friends and family (middle level intervals). Even if you're "succesfull" and "worked" someone to change their stance on something, it doesn't change the outcome of politics whatsoever, because real politics happen up above individuals (in democracies this is true even in the context of active politicians, which can only focus attention, not singlehandedly create topics out of a hat) - politics happen in large time intervals and those are only that are important. And you can easily still be interested in those without being obsessive or spending too much time/emotional involvement.

I heard an interesting thought about Nuero-Linguistic Programming on how to do this as a mind over matter exercise. Now keep in mind NLP is pretty much quackery and insanity.

What you do is you imagine yourself doing this interest. You then imagine it as a picture on a frame, or a photograph or something of the like. You then mentally place it inot a scrap book of memories and activities. Next, you mentally close the scrapbook and place it on a book shelf full of other books. You then imagine pulling back from the bookshelf and seeing hundreds of other bookshelves. You keep panning your mind's eye back until it is a warehouse like at the end of Indiana Jones. Once you have that image, you turn it off like a TV and it flips into a small white dot on a black void, and then that disappears into the darkness.

Supposedly, this is suppose to help rid yourself of unwanted memories and the like.

I quit a different 40k site, and have strongly cut back on my time spent on any forums. (I happen to be having a VERY slow day at work). While I missed it quite a bit for a week or two, I found I was less irritable because I wasn't stewing over what so-and-so was saying, or doing, or just generally bothered by something as small as a post on a website.

Every 2 or 3 months, I check in on the site. Not much has changed. For me, the trick was creating a random gibberish password and then throwing it away. That way I couldn't log into my old account to reply to things.

For me, it was such a relief to be rid of that part of my life, I was just happy having more time to do other things, be they productive or not, I wasn't raging at my computer screen for an hour a day.

If you feel your politicking hobby is harming you, it should be pretty easy to put away if you "lock it up" and keep yourself away for a little while. You might relapse every now and again, but that's a lot better than daily use.

I had a particular fixation with news during the year leading up to a recent election and as a personal experiment, I read literally every piece of news Google would present me with, and a lot of the associated comments.

I spent about a year doing this, and got progressively more stressed out, angry, and depressed as the time went on. I think I also became pretty skeptical and doubtful of pretty much anything for a while.

Eventually, it got to the point where I had to turn it off. I found the way to remove Newsstand and disable the news feed in Chrome. I stopped looking at any news for the most part. Stopped watching it at the gym, etc. For a while I kept looking for it on my phone when i was bored, but eventually I got over it and I don't really do it now, except for occasionally checking out Reuters and CSPAN.

I don't know if that anecdote counts because I more burned out and was pushed toward quitting by other people, but that's what I got. My steps to walking away from it were like my steps toward quitting smoking: Remove easy access to it. Tell people they can't remind you it even exists. Replace it with something else. Get ready for things to really suck for a while.

And now, as I sit here thinking about smoking, well, I'd still trade anyone or anything for a smoke. That sounds really good right now. It's not a problem when I'm not thinking about it though because I've changed my lifestyle to remove the things that remind me of it from a day to day basis, and that's good enough for me.

Ouze wrote:Have any of you guys ever done something like that?

I accidentally stopped playing video games like that. I really liked playing them in my teenager years and played a lot of Counter Striker. That was when everybody loved beta 5.6 (or something like that) and some of my friends were really, really good. They were so good that two of them once took apart a clan for fun that was at that time playing in tournaments—while they being outnumbered 5 to 2. We played a lot but never got into the the more professional side of clans that started developing at that time. As I moved from high school to University I just ended up not having the time and it was kinda this process of the original habit being replaced with something else. I only got back into playing games with the Nintendo 3DS years later and my teenager obsession (if one can describe it like that) isn't really there anymore.

Thankfully I never got into MMOs (they got big and the bubble imploded while I was on my break) and all the addictive elements that are now added to extract more money from players just leave me completely disinterested and I can bypass those games. When it comes to multi-player FPS games I don't play those anymore. I know I can learn all the habits and I could build that muscle memory to become really good but the idea of actually doing it now feels like I would be just wasting time on something very repetitive.

I don't know what exactly it is but something similar to the FPS immunity also happened with MTG (when I dropped that game), at some point the big loop of waste (in this case money and not time) burned itself into my brain and it made the whole thing feel pointless and repetitive.

I'm happier now when I get to actually choose the games I want to play instead of just jumping in and then drowning in repetitive habits. Teenage me was way too impulsive and ignorant about that stuff.

 Ouze wrote:
Have any of you guys ever done something like that?

Thank you for the well thought out replies.

I found myself in the same boat during the lead up to the 2016 elections, so I started to spend more time on hobbies and less time browsing political news. I started looking into D&D for the first time and read the free rules. I looked into getting back properly into the painting and modelling, so I spent a lot of time looking at what was available, picking out a theme, reading articles on painting, watching Youtube videos of painting tutorials, browsed bitz sites to plan purchases, and started to look deeper into the lore.
I spent more time on firearms related stuff too. I spent more time reading about historical firearms and watching Forgotten Weapons. I would read about boring things like twist rates, ballistics and compare the specs of similar rifles to keep my mind busy.
My better half and I also started planning our forthcoming large family vacation, and making all the arrangements with those attending, all of which took a lot of time (in a positive way).

The short version is that I essentially used replacement therapy - I replaced reading about politics with more hobby time.