Being an astronaut seems cognitively expensive. Your time is regimented down to the minute. Your space is regimented down to the inch. The things you bring up and down, including yourself, is measured to the pound. I would imagine you have to constantly be evaluating, assessing, and thinking critically about everything you do all the time. And then to suddenly not have to do that and just live in the moment has to be a massive readjustment.

▲

recursivecaveat 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You gotta fight for time to use the restroom even: https://idlewords.com/shepard_pee.htm I mean it makes sense in a way. It's probably more cost effective to have 100 people on the ground spreadsheeting out your entire day to the minute than have 1 astronaut hour spent planning, but it would probably drive me completely insane. Reminds me of that story about the earring that slowly absorbs your mind as you let it make every single decision for you: https://gwern.net/doc/fiction/science-fiction/2012-10-03-yva...

▲

firasd 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's a popular clip from Joe Rogan out there where he says "Be the hero of your own movie. If your life was a movie and it started now. ... What would the hero of your life’s movie do right now? Do that. Do those things."

So it's interesting that this cognitive state is helpful for some people to visit in a transient or metaphorical way but becomes weird when it's persistent. But it does seem potentially related in that maybe it originates from a kind of conscientiousness in the astronaut profession

▲

SoftTalker an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Don't take life advice from Joe Rogan.

▲

CoolestBeans an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think if you've been alive long enough you've had to deal with situations where you need to put aside your ego and just do the thing that has to be done to overcome it. But to sort of be in a similar mode virtually all the time, even if its contributing to your own self-actualization and what you value, and then suddenly stop has to be extremely disorienting.

▲

CobrastanJorji 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Why would I want to be the hero at the START of the movie? That's when I'm just doing my daily shit and I'm showing off all of my character flaws. That's the worst possible moment of the movie to be aping the hero.

	▲	ninjalanternshk an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Because it’s hard to transition from daily grind into peak hero. Hence, start when the hero is ordinary, like you are (I speak of the concept, not you in particular.)
	▲	pimlottc 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Because the start of the movie is where the hero does the things that lead to their victory
	▲	influx 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		You get to go through the montage section, that's the best part!
	▲	antonvs an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Besides, what if Dujour and Choi don’t knock on my door, never lead me to Trinity, so Morpheus never offers me the red pill? Now I’m just stuck as an ordinary schlub.
	▲	parineum 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Because you want to be the one that over comes all of your flaws.

▲

mstank 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Your comment lead me down a rabbit hole of space micromanagement. OSTPV (onboard short-term planner viewer) is the software they use to basically schedule every minute of your space flight. Basically every day someone from earth decides what you do, when you eat, when you exercise and will make changes in realtime.

Great read here with a video of someone using the actual software: https://blogs.esa.int/iriss/2015/09/09/playing-with-playbook...

	▲	lanstin 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Skylab third (longest) mission the astronauts went on strike at one point. Just started ding solar research till NASA put in some flexibility.