theusefulness

[theusefulness]

A quiet personal consequence of the horrors of the present moment is that, in order to cope with the constant existential dread, I've developed an entire (atheist, collectivist) philosophy around death that I did not previously have, in the sense that I've now organised my previously nebulous thoughts on the matter into something coherent. Which is probably of zero interest or comfort to anyone other than myself, and it's not exactly casual chit-chat material, but given that it's now a loadbearing part of my personal emotional/ethical framework, it feels relevant to at least put down in writing somewhere that it exists, and tumblr is as good a place as any, so! At least I've got that going for me.

[theusefulness]

So, someone asked:

And truthfully, I have so much advice that it needs to be it's own post.

First off, let's set some background information: I have ADHD. I have really bad ADHD*, and that has an impact on executive functioning and thus the amount of work that can be accomplished during work time. HOWEVER! You do not have to have ADHD for this advice to be relevant for you. Often accommodations for one group end up working well for others, so just, like, keep that in mind, ok?

On ward!

Step 1: Have you met your mammalian needs? That is, have you had food (type of food matters, make sure you get some good protein, fats, carbs, and vegetables in you. You will not last long on coffee and a bag of candy), water, physical exercise, and ample sleep**? We are animals. We have to have these needs met, or we will not be functioning well. This is the ground work, the foundation of the ability to Do Stuff.

Addendum for those with executive functioning disorders (ADHD, ASD, probably others, I'm not an expert in mental disorders!): You need to make space in your life, EVERY DAY for things you enjoy. Do not limit them to "rewards" for after the task is done- you need things to be happy about in order maintain your mental well-being. Without happy-making things, you get depressed (well, a lot of us are co-morbid and need to keep an eye on that any way), and when you're depressed, you will not be functioning well. Depression literally robs you of energy. Doing things that make you happy is just as foundational as eating, drinking, and sleeping. Time with friends and loved ones, time with hyperfixations and special interests, hobbies, etc. You NEED them. They are prerequisite, not reward!

Step 2. Do physical activities daily. The more physical activity you do, the more you'll be able to do. Yes, there is a point at which it becomes too much, or a person tries to do too much too soon, but for the majority of modern humans in the US, increasing your physical activity will increase your energy levels and endurance. It also does good things for your brain (increased focus, increased learning ability, increased positive mood, etc). Find some activities that you enjoy- walking around the neighborhood and identifying plants and birds? SCA? Dancing? Stretching? Swimming? Biking? DDR? Pushups? Find something that you enjoy doing and can fit into your daily life. Also try to find things that strengthen muscles, maintain flexibility, and train balance.

Step 3. Reduce Cognitive load- and plan to do it before you start. The less you have to think about while you're working, the better. Thinking takes energy, and when you're working on a thing***, you want your energy to be going to that thing. Some things that may help:

Listening to music

Having a piece of paper where you write down any thoughts of things you need to do that aren't the thing you're doing right now.

Putting your phone on Do Not Disturb

Meditating first, so you can write down all those "AAAA! I need to do that!!!" thoughts on that paper mentioned earlier before you even try to work. I find that every time I try to meditate they all come bubbling up, so it's a great way to get them all written down first so they won't be distracting you while you're trying to work on your chosen task.

Set a timer, so that you're not thinking about how long it's been or if you need to stop and do something else.

Do some prep work before working to make the working easier. Like, are you cleaning out a doom room? Grab the garbage, recycling, and empty containers you need first. Are you writing a paper? Grab your snacks and hot beverages, and references, and have a plan for your break times before you sit down to write.

Step 4. Access what you need/want to do. Make a list. Look at the list. Do any of those things feel overwhelming? You need to address that:

can you break the tasks into smaller tasks?

do some of the tasks need preparatory work? Write that down on your list too

does a task have a hard part that is blocking you from progress? Can you do that first thing while you're at max energy? Can you break down that part into smaller parts? Can you get someone else to do it? Can you do it, and then schedule a break?

Step 5. Keep your 'Why' in mind. Why are you doing it? What is the core motivation, the driving force? Eg, "I'm cleaning my room because I feel better when my space is clear and organized, and it's a gift to my future self". Or maybe, "I'm writing this paper because (this topic interests me) or (because I want to get a good grade in this class and do well in school so that I can get a job that will support me in the future)". Some times it's not obvious at first why exactly you're doing a thing, but if you dig, there's probably a solid reason that is meaningful to you in there somewhere (even if it's just, like, avoiding late fees or something). If not, maybe don't do the thing?

Step 6. Take breaks. Breaks are legally mandated, at a minimum of 10 minutes every 2 hours where I am, but everywhere I've worked (except when I was a teacher) gave people 15 minutes every 2 hours. You know why? Because you get back from break with more energy. You also make less mistakes when you take regular rest breaks. You work more efficiently, and can work for longer if you take restful breaks. Just, like, don't do something that's taxing in the same way as the work you're doing. In other words, if you're writing, don't go read more things, get up and walk around the building instead. If you're doing physical labor, sit your tired bones down and consider looking at things that make you laugh or bring you joy.

Step 7. As you work, acknowledge to yourself your accomplishments, and celebrate them. The harder the thing is (or the harder it was to get started), the more important this is. You're training your brain to associate doing the work you want to do with good feelings. You are not that much more complex than a dog or pigeon. If you are mean to yourself, for example by thinking "dang, that was all? What's wrong with me that it took me 3 weeks/6 months/2 years to get started?" then you are effectively punishing yourself. Even a small tweak like "Dang, that's all? That's way easier than I thought it would be! Go me! I'm so glad that's over and I'm no longer suffering through procrastination!" makes a huge difference. Don't be mean to yourself.

Further suggestions:

8. If you have a hard time starting, use some ADHD strategies:

Tell yourself that you only have to work for 5 minutes (or 10, if that feels very doable), and then you can take a break. Set a timer, and at 5 minutes, check in with yourself. How are you doing? If you're doing good and want to keep going, do a quick stretching break, mentally praise yourself, and then get back to it. If not, stop, take a break and assess what you can do to make it better. Then get back to it.

Count down from 10 and start.

Bribe yourself: When I'm done, I'm going to take a hot bath. When I'm done, I'm going to go for a walk. When I'm done, I'm going to spend $300 dollars on houseplants. When I'm done, I'm going to ask for a hug. When I'm done, I'm going to play 6 hours of that new game. You know, what ever is reasonable and fits the scale of the project.

Get a body double/work buddy. They don't have to help you, they are just there, working on their own thing. For some reason this helps a lot of people.

Think about how much future-you will appreciate present-you for doing this task.

Take a second and write about the problem, why it's hard to start. Is there something else even more pressing that you need to take care of first? Have you not met all of your needs? Is there some element that you're avoiding thinking about for some reason? Can you address it?

9. Role play an effective person. Or a person that's good at the thing you want to do. Think of someone, ideally someone you know, who is good at the thing, and pretend you're them. Maybe someone you're slightly jealous of because of their ability to do the thing. What would they do? What would it look like? How would they feel internally while doing it? Just pretend you're them and look at the work through their eyes for a little bit.

10. Do you have sensory issues? Is your body comfortable? Are your clothes clean and nice feeling? Do you need to take a shower (or just wipe relevant bits with a wet washcloth)? Are the lights bright/dim enough? Is the air fresh or does it feel stuffy and stagnant? Are you hungry/sad/thirsty/tired/overwhelmed/etc? Can you address any of those factors?

11. Use usually negative personality traits. I'm not saying this is for everyone, but for some of us, it may be a useful tool when used cautiously. For example, I am a person who has a lot of anger. Obviously I have worked very hard to get better at managing my anger and reducing the sum total of hours I spend angry. HOWEVER, I am so good at cleaning when I'm furious. S,o maybe I pick a thing that I know will make me angry, and I think about it for a while, and then I have a lot more energy to clean the room.

12. Use positive personality traits. I also really enjoy making people happy. So sometimes if it's not enough to motivate me, I think about how happy whatever work will make someone else. That's probably the better, healthier option.

13. Are you trying to do too much? I want you to take an assessment of yourself and your energy and endurance levels. Think of what would use up 100% of your energy and endurance for the day. Got it? Ok, good. Now, don't let yourself go over 80%. At the max. Reduce your task list and responsibilities until you can comfortably get everything done with 60 to 80% of your energy and endurance. Why? Because if you're running at 100% all of the time, what happens when you can't? Because if you're running at 100% all the time, you will burn out. Because if you're running at 100% all of the time, if a small disaster happens, so much will collapse because you won't be able to do it all.

Because you're a human, and you deserve leisure time and rest and relaxation. Because you're a human, and you NEED leisure time and rest and relaxation.

14. Being mean, harsh, disapproving, and demanding of yourself is counter productive and WILL NOT work in the long term. Being kind, creating chances for you to learn new things, being grateful to your past-self, and giving yourself the things you need to be happy and healthy will.

* enough that the physiatrist commented on it, but I was home schooled until I went to college, and thus had no idea what ADHD was or that I had it until year two of my masters degree in teaching. I didn't get formally diagnosed until 29.

**ample sleep, here defined as allotting enough time to sleep that you wake up before your alarm clock on a regular basis. Not like, once a week you sleep in for however many hours in an attempt to make up for the rest of the week. No, I mean allotting enough time EVERY NIGHT that you wake up before your alarm 90% of the time. It doesn't count if you're waking up because of anxiety or pain. I would hope that you're addressing those as much as you possibly can.

*** please nobody think that when I say "working" that I mean jobs/working for other people. When I say "working" I mean literally any activity that you don't find yourself doing automatically and without thought. I love plants- taking care of them is still work. I love food- making it is still work. I love sharing information- compiling it in a format that is intelligible to others is still work.

[theusefulness]

additionally i think a lot of us remain helplessly dependent on self flagellation and punishment believing it to be discipline/self control because we are not taught to believe that care and deliberate healing and patience and attention are disciplines themselves

[theusefulness]

I cannot emphasize enough how much of a life hack it is to exclusively be friends with, date and marry people who are not constantly mean assholes to you.

[theusefulness]

otherwise interesting post ruined by the bold insistence that you can never accidentally abuse someone & that all abusive people are self-aware evil masterminds

[theusefulness]

In hindsight it's very insulting to be told that flunking out of college due to adhd is actually "quite common"

[theusefulness]

while you were attending therapy i was studying the blade

[theusefulness]

(seeing so many bad faith interpretations of the argument, y'all are really going to make me do this, okay HERE WE GO)

.................................

What Ed says: "I think last night was a mistake. I'm not ready for... Whatever this is."

What Ed means: "I didn't want last night to happen so soon or under those circumstances. Things are changing rapidly, which makes me feel out of control and scared."

What Stede hears: "I regret sleeping with you. I don't want the sort of relationship that you're after."

.................................

What Stede says: "It was a fine fish. It was... whatever. I was just trying to make you feel good!"

What Stede means: "I only cared about the fish because you cared about it, and I care about you. I liked the fish because it made you happy. Ordinarily, I'm ambivalent about fish."

What Ed hears: "I lied to you. I didn't care about your achievement I was just placating you to get what I wanted."

.................................

What Ed says: "Here's the news: I'm leaving. I got a job on a little fishing boat and I'm leaving. I'm a fisherman now."

What Ed means: "I think I need to be away from you to figure out who I am, because I haven't been able to do that while we're together, and your lifestyle now is the life I'm trying to leave behind."

What Stede hears: "I've made a decision to leave you and have a life without you. I don't value what we have enough to work with you to find a solution, I'd prefer to end it."

.................................

What Stede says: "Oh, Ed. Seriously? You're not a fisherman."

What Stede means: "I think you're using this plan to escape and avoid your problems. It sounds like you're pretending to be someone else. It seems to me like an impulsive decision and I am concerned."

What Ed hears: "I don't support this ambition. I think you're incapable. I don't think you can be different from what you have always been."

.................................

This is the kind of analysis done in therapeutic environments. When I put what they mean, it's not just a rephrasing but a boiling down to the core issue. I could go on to the rest of the dialogue but do you see the continuing ship-in-the-night miscommunication?? It's tripartite:

failing to express one's current emotional reality with the most accurate and clear language, often because that reality is not fully understood to oneself,

misinterpreting the other's language, due to preexisting sensitivities and defensiveness about one's own understanding of the situation,

increasing frustration and sense of personal attack that results from those misinterpretations, which perpetuates and worsens the poor communication.

Importantly, this kind of pattern means you miss the best and most important kernels of communication in an exchange because you're reacting to the more inflammatory parts.

Stede: "This can be whatever we want it to be." (I am willing to make changes to our arrangement so that you're happy). Ed: "I don't even know who I am! Alright? I know I don't want to be a pirate. And you, you're blowing up, you're the toast of the town." (I think we want different things. You're just starting a journey that I've already finished).

With those two bits alone they could've sorted this out. The first is the answer to the second. But they didn't -- couldn't -- latch onto it because all their other baggage was getting in the way.

And I'm being proven correct that this is what is happening, because I have seen next to nothing on here about the above two lines, only reactionary takes of fans also focusing on the inflammatory parts because of their predispositions. You're doing an encore performance of what they're doing.

Point being, there are no bad guys in this scene, just repeated system failure!

[theusefulness]

cant stop thinking about this this was sooo crazyyyyy

[theusefulness]

One evening in 1951 astronomer William Wilson Morgan was strolling home from Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin when he looked up at the night sky and had a “flash inspiration ... a creative intuitional burst.” It solved one of the great mysteries of astronomy.

The observable universe contains billions, possibly even trillions, of galaxies. With a modest telescope, their varied forms are discernible—spirals, ellipsoids and others with irregular structures. But what about our own galaxy, the Milky Way?

Morgan had been calculating the distances from Earth of groups of big, hot, bright stars, nowadays called OB associations. He knew that in spiral galaxies these clusters reside in the trailing arms. Gazing at the sky while walking home, he located the familiar dots of the OB associations. But this time the flat image of the night sky merged in his mind with the star distances that he had calculated and committed to memory, and it sprang to three-dimensional life. Morgan’s vision: the stars of the OB association are arranged in a long strand—an arm of our spiral galaxy.

An “aha! moment,” such as Morgan’s marvelous insight that the Milky Way is a spiral, is a new idea or perspective that arrives abruptly, often bursting into an ongoing stream of thought. It may pop up while someone is actively trying to solve a problem, but it can also arrive spontaneously. “When I write songs, it’s never a conscious decision—it’s an idea that floats down in front of me at four in the morning or in the middle of a conversation or on a tour bus or in the mall or in an airport bathroom,” singer-songwriter Taylor Swift related to an interviewer. “I never know when I’m gonna get an idea and I never know what it’s gonna be.”

These revelations feel pleasing, even thrilling, and they can be portals to a scientific breakthrough, an innovative business proposal, a hit song or the plot of a best-selling novel. Or they may provide a life-changing perspective on a personal dilemma. People can overcome many challenges by analyzing them step by arduous step, but leaps of insight are more often associated with out-of-the-box ideas. And though often obvious in hindsight, the revelation can be astounding when it arrives.

Scholars have sought to capture the elusive essence of the aha! moment for more than a century, and it is finally within our grasp. We now know where it happens in the brain and when it’s more likely to happen. And we’re discovering some surprising benefits of insight, including elevated mood, memory and, oddly, the ability to distinguish fake news from real.

Jen Christiansen

Jen Christiansen; Sources: “Intuition in Insight and Noninsight Problem Solving,” by Janet Metcalfe and David Wiebe, in Memory & Cognition, Vol. 15; May 1987 (triangle and polygon reference); “Restructuring Processes and Aha! Experiences in Insight Problem Solving,” by Jennifer Wiley and Amory H. Danek, in Nature Reviews Psychology, Vol. 3; January 2024 (candle problem reference)

The 1990s saw rapid developments in neuroimaging. By the early 2000s cognitive neuroscientist Mark Beeman and one of us (John), both then at the University of Pennsylvania, concluded that imaging technologies were advanced enough for us to try to see what happens in the brain when a person has an insight. We used two complementary methods: electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). EEG measures the electrical activity of the brain with electrodes placed on a person’s scalp. It provides very precise information about when something is happening in the brain. In contrast, fMRI measures slower changes in blood flow (when a region of the brain is working harder, it draws more blood) and provides very detailed maps of where things are happening. By using EEG and fMRI in parallel experiments with different people solving the same puzzles, we were able to isolate the brain’s aha! moments in both space and time.

We couldn’t rely on difficult brainteasers, because to get statistically significant results, we needed each test subject to solve many problems. Instead we used little verbal puzzles such as compound remote associates (CRAs), which people can solve either insightfully or analytically. Each CRA consists of three words, such as “pine,” “crab” and “sauce.” The participant’s job is to think of a fourth word that can be used to form a compound word or familiar phrase with each of the three given words. Immediately after a volunteer solved one of these puzzles, they reported whether the solution had popped into awareness suddenly or been discovered through deliberate, step-by-step thinking. We were thus able to isolate aha! moments and compare the brain activity during them with the brain activity for analytical solutions. (If you’re curious, the answer to the CRA in this paragraph is “apple.”)

Our key result: an aha! solution corresponds to a burst of high-frequency brain waves in the brain’s right temporal lobe, just above the right ear. That part of the brain, the right anterior superior temporal gyrus, connects with many other brain regions. It is associated with our ability to realize connections between concepts that may initially seem unrelated, as occurs when comprehending metaphors, jokes and the gist of conversations. Our findings linking this specific area of the brain to the aha! experience supported previous work by Edward M. Bowden of the University of Wisconsin–Parkside and Beeman suggesting that the solution to such a problem can be unconsciously present in the right hemisphere, ready to emerge into awareness as an insight.

The number of puzzles people solved by insight—but not analysis—predicted how well they could discriminate between real news stories and fake ones.

Our later research revealed, however, that aha! moments may excite other areas of the brain, depending on the type of puzzle. In 2020 John and his co-workers showed that insights that solve pattern-reorganization problems activate the frontal lobe rather than the right temporal lobe. Anagrams—for example, rearranging the letters in BELAT to get the solution TABLE—are among such problems. Thus, the distinctive feature of an insight is the sudden burst of high-frequency brain-wave activity, which can occur in various parts of the brain, depending on the type of problem solved.

Some problems lend themselves to an analytical, as opposed to an insightful, solution. Analytical problem-solving recruits areas of the brain involved in “executive” processes such as “working” memory that rely on the brain’s frontal lobes. Virtually everyone can use either insightful or analytical methods, but many people tend to use one rather than the other. Nobel laureate physicist and mathematician Roger Penrose, for example, can obviously think analytically but seems to be inherently insightful: “I had this strange feeling of elation, and I couldn’t quite work out why I was feeling like that,” he once said in an interview. It turned out he’d had an epiphany about the formation of black holes while crossing a road. “I do most of my thinking in visual terms,” he related, “rather than writing down equations.”

In the 2010s Brian Erickson, then a doctoral student in John’s laboratory at Drexel University, and his colleagues demonstrated that people’s tendency toward insightful or analytical thinking is evident during “resting-state” brain activity—while a person relaxes with no task to perform or expectation about what is to come. Erickson recorded people’s resting-state EEGs and then, weeks later, tasked the same participants with solving a series of anagrams. The astonishing result: a few minutes of EEG predicted, up to seven weeks in advance, whether a person would solve the puzzles mostly insightfully or analytically. Our predominant thinking style is stable over time.

Jen Christiansen; Source: “Resting-State Brain Oscillations Predict Trait-like Cognitive Styles,” by Brian Erickson et al., in Neuropsychologia, Vol. 120; November 2018 (reference)

Although individuals may be inclined toward more analytical or insightful thinking, we aren’t locked into one or the other. Your thinking style can shift or be nudged, at least temporarily, to the other strategy. One factor is mood. In a 2009 study led by Karuna Subramaniam, then a doctoral student in Beeman’s lab at Northwestern University, researchers found that participants who reported feeling more positive solved more puzzles by insight, whereas those who reported greater anxiety solved more puzzles analytically.

Why might that be? Consider the following example, courtesy of Beeman. Imagine you are in Africa 25,000 years ago. You see a lion off in the distance and are gripped with fear. Your thinking immediately becomes very careful and deliberate—analytical—because one mistake and you are finished. Can the lion see me or hear me? Am I upwind or downwind? If I run, is the lion close enough to catch up?

You manage to escape. That evening you are back in the cave with your people. There’s a fire, so it’s warm, and the day’s catch is cooking on a rack. You are enjoying what researchers call psychological safety. In your protected haven, you don’t have to suppress rambling, fanciful thoughts—the stuff of creativity. You are empowered to say or do something imaginative. That may be why, 25,000 years later, we find the innovative, practical flint tools and breathtaking cave paintings that sustained and inspired the lives of the ancients.

Jen Christiansen; Source: “An Insight-Related Neural Reward Signal,” by Youngtaek Oh et al., in NeuroImage, Vol. 214; July 2020 (reference)

To discover whether more complex insights could lift mood over a longer time, Christine Chesebrough, then a doctoral student in John’s lab, developed word pairs that formed ongoing analogies, such as steering wheel/car followed by rudder/boat, both of which suggest an implement that guides a vehicle. The next word pair could be either handlebars/bicycle, which continues this theme, or voting/government, which forces the subject to reinterpret the ongoing analogy in a more abstract way as one entity controlling another. This conceptual expansion sparked strong aha! experiences that elevated participants’ moods for at least the hour-long test session—the more insights, the better their mood. The vibe persists. The joy of insights can thus impel scientists, artists, writers, and others to feel such a strong drive to express their creativity that they forgo a well-paying job to immerse themselves in their vocation, contributing essential ideas to culture and science.

The thrill of an aha! moment can increase risk-taking. As a doctoral student in Beeman’s lab, Yuhua Yu led a study in which she and her colleagues gave people CRA puzzles to solve. Between some of these puzzles, they offered the participants a choice between taking a small payment—a sure thing—and taking a chance to win a larger prize with the risk of no payoff. After finding an analytical solution, the volunteers tended to take the smaller, guaranteed payoff. But after enjoying an insight, participants were more likely to gamble on winning the bigger prize. Experiencing an aha! moment can therefore promote an appetite for risk, which, as Maxi Becker of Humboldt University of Berlin and her colleagues showed in 2023, involves the nucleus accumbens, a dopamine-rich part of the brain’s reward system.

Tolerance for risk can be good or bad depending on the circumstances. But one unequivocal benefit conferred by insightful thinking is reduced “bullshit receptivity,” as Carola Salvi of John Cabot University in Rome and her collaborators have found. People are flooded by biased information and slanted reporting, and their limited capacity to deal with this torrent of information makes them vulnerable to false messages. Fortunately, insightful thinking is largely unconscious and does not tax attention or working memory the way analytical thinking does. Salvi and her co-workers observed that the number of puzzles the participants in their study solved by insight—but not analysis—predicted how well they could discriminate between real news stories and fake ones, as well as between meaningful statements and “pseudo-profound bullshit” statements. Insightfulness is not only for dreamers: it confers real-world skills that help people navigate the overwhelming information landscape.

Insight also enhances learning and memory. Amory H. Danek of Heidelberg University in Germany and her colleagues showed participants videos of magic tricks and asked them to explain how the tricks were done. Later the subjects remembered the solutions that were experienced as aha! moments better than explanations that were not. Danek and Jennifer Wiley of the University of Illinois at Chicago followed up this study by showing that the pleasure accompanying insights made them easier to recall. Jasmin Kizilirmark of the University of Hildesheim in Germany and her colleagues have been exploring how this so-called insight memory advantage can be applied to improve memory in older adults.

Aha! moments can have a downside. Insights are more likely to be correct than analytical solutions—but they are not always correct. The dilemma is that people tend to be particularly confident about their insights, even the false ones. Furthermore, work by Ruben Laukkonen of Southern Cross University in Australia and his colleagues suggests that statements presented along with anagrams that people solve by insight also feel more believable than statements presented with anagrams solved by analysis. Aha! moments may create an aura of truth that envelops accompanying information.

The fact that mood can alter one’s thinking style has profound implications for our understanding of creativity. Subramaniam’s fMRI analyses isolated the lone area of the brain that responds to both differences in mood and differences in thinking style. This area, the anterior cingulate cortex, located in the middle of the front of the brain, detects conflicting strategies. When you are relaxed, your anterior cingulate cortex is better able to detect the presence of an alternative to the most obvious, but possibly ineffective, problem-solving strategy and switch to it, sparking an aha! moment. But when you are anxious, it is less able to detect the subtler strategy, and you will continue to grind through the problem in a straightforward, analytical manner.

An obvious way to increase insightfulness is therefore to relax and carve out a span of time when you aren’t anxious or rushed. Another way is expansion in space: When you are in a large room or the great outdoors—under a starry sky, as Morgan was—your attention expands to take in the large space. That broadened awareness shifts the mind toward considering the whole rather than the parts, thereby enhancing insightful thinking. Filtering out the world around you can have a similar effect: aha! moments are often preceded by eye blinks and looking away from a problem to reduce distractions. People solve more thinking problems when they close their eyes. In contrast, objects that grab attention will narrow your focus on details and induce you to think analytically.

Steven Smith of Texas A&M University and his collaborators have also shown that if you take a break from a problem to do something else, preferably a relatively undemanding task such as light gardening or housework, any misleading information or misinterpretation will loosen its grip, and you will be more likely to achieve an insight. Kristin Sanders, now at the University of Notre Dame, and Beeman showed that sleep can enhance this process, supporting the many stories of scientists who have experienced great ideas during or right after sleep. Colleen Seifert and David E. Meyer of the University of Michigan and their colleagues reported another benefit of breaks: you may encounter a trigger—a person, a street sign, anything—that can spark an aha! moment because the trigger bears some resemblance to or association with the needed solution.

How about drugs? The thought of popping a pill that would unlock creative insights may be appealing for some people. Microdosing psychedelic drugs has been proposed to increase innovative thinking. We are not aware of any rigorous scientific evidence that psychedelics can increase the likelihood of insights, although they may cause a person to feel creative and profound. But alcohol, if not taken to extremes, does seem to enhance insightful solving. (That is not an endorsement!)

Perhaps there are other ways to directly intervene in brain function to produce aha! moments. Several researchers, including Beeman, Salvi, Amna Ghani of Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Caroline Di Bernardi Luft of Brunel University London and Joydeep Bhattacharya of Goldsmiths, University of London, have shown that direct electrical stimulation of test subjects’ right temporal lobes with electrodes placed on their heads—in some cases, synchronized with hints—can increase the likelihood that they will solve CRA puzzles using insight. For various reasons, though—including the fact that different types of insight involve different areas of the brain—it is unlikely that electrical stimulation will become useful as a technique for sparking aha! moments.

Here’s what does not work: expectations of monetary prizes or bonuses. Payments can coax a person to tackle a problem—and people should certainly be compensated for their work—but they can also inhibit insights. A focus on an expected payoff grabs and narrows one’s attention, limiting creative thought. Messages about rewards can enhance insight—but only when they are displayed so briefly that a person cannot consciously perceive them. When innovation is the goal, conspicuous rewards may therefore be counterproductive, as are strict deadlines that switch one’s thinking to an analytical mode by inducing anxiety and narrowing mental focus.

Alternatively, you could just go get groceries. Vishal Rao, an oncologist in India, endured years of frustration before a surprising twist enabled him and his unique team to create an amazing medical device. As a surgeon specializing in neck and throat cancer, Rao knew that most of the tens of thousands of new patients with throat cancer each year in India could not afford the prohibitive cost of surgery to replace their diseased voice box with an artificial one. So, in 2013, Rao formed a team that developed an inexpensive artificial voice box costing less than a dollar.

But there was one roadblock remaining. The artificial voice box had to be replaced yearly in a surgical procedure that costs hundreds of dollars, a regular expense way beyond the means of most of his patients. He needed an inexpensive, nonsurgical tool that a patient could use to remove an old artificial voice box and implant a new one—a challenge that seemed insurmountable.

One day Rao went to the supermarket with his toddler. The boy broke free and started running down the aisles, gleefully knocking things off the shelves. Rao chased and caught him, but only after the boy had knocked down a box of tampons, the contents of which spilled out onto the floor. When Rao saw the tampon applicator, it sparked an aha! moment: here was a safe, inexpensive, nonsurgical implement that could be a model for a voice-box applicator.

When Rao explained this idea to others, they said the device he wanted sounded more like a toy than a surgical instrument. This comment triggered the doctor’s second aha! moment. He recalled that Channapatna, a nearby city, is nicknamed “toy town” because of its centuries-old tradition of master craftsmen who design and make inexpensive wood toys. After interviewing Channapatna toy makers, he found Kouser Pasha, who was intrigued by the idea. It took Pasha just a couple of hours to come up with a design for an inexpensive voice-box applicator.

Just as hungry people tend to notice anything related to food, Rao’s initial failure to imagine an inexpensive applicator sensitized his brain to anything around him that looked like it could help him solve the problem. When he took a break from his problem, his old ways of thinking relaxed their grip as he was exposed to a variety of objects in the supermarket. One of those objects, the tampon applicator, was potentially related to the problem, so it grabbed his attention. Once he figured out that a similar device would work, the surgeon still had to figure out how to design and manufacture it. The need for a solution sensitized him to the word “toy,” which triggered his insight about recruiting a toy maker from “toy town.”

The upshot: when you are stuck, take a break and expose yourself to a variety of environments and people to increase the chance you will encounter a triggering stimulus. Perhaps the most important scientific lesson about insight, though, is that it is as fragile as it is beneficial. The aha! moment brings new ideas and perspectives, lifts mood, increases tolerance for risk, and enhances the ability to discern truth from fiction. But anxiety and sleep deprivation can squash these precious gifts.

Jen Christiansen; Sources: “Intuition in Insight and Noninsight Problem Solving,” by Janet Metcalfe and David Wiebe, in Memory & Cognition, Vol. 15; May 1987 (triangle and polygon reference); “Restructuring Processes and Aha! Experiences in Insight Problem Solving,” by Jennifer Wiley and Amory H. Danek, in Nature Reviews Psychology, Vol. 3; January 2024 (candle problem reference)

[theusefulness]

genuinely wild to me when I go to someone's house and we watch TV or listen to music or something and there are ads. I haven't seen an ad in my home since 2005. what do you mean you haven't set up multiple layers of digital infrastructure to banish corporate messaging to oblivion before it manifests? listen, this is important. this is the 21st century version of carving sigils on the wall to deny entry to demons or wearing bells to ward off the Unseelie. come on give me your router admin password and I'll show you how to cast a protective spell of Get Thee Tae Fuck, Capital

[theusefulness]

[theusefulness]

hey there Fandom mum

what's it like being in love? I've never had it, and honestly im not sure I ever will I just can't imagine anyone living me that way or even noticing me that way. it's just never happened for me but I long and hurt for it anyways

what's it like? is it possible for someone who or too afraid of the world?

you don't need to answer this I suppose. I apologize. I'm glad you are happy😊

take care

It is a lot harder to find and fall in love when you’re hiding parts of yourself away.

Being in love - from my perspective, anyway - is about being known, and seen, and heard, and valued.

It’s like you’re a book, and your whole life you’re just waiting for someone to come along and read your pages carefully and thoroughly, not only what’s written but what’s between the lines too - and they want to keep reading it, and adding to it, because they never want the story to end.

That’s how love feels to me, anyway.

What that looks like in practice is different for everyone. But you can’t expect anyone to want to pick up a book that doesn’t have a blurb, or whose blurb is generic or inaccurate. You need to try to be as you as humanly possibly, to ensure that the right person finds you, that they want to read more.

I hope my weird little analogy made sense.

I am sure that one day someone will come along who wants to know you, who longs to know every facet of you - who wants to hear about your childhood and your hopes and fears, who will read everything you’ve ever written because they just want to know you better, and who knows how to soothe you in times of distress and may someday come to know you better than you know yourself. When you find that person, and feel safe being vulnerable with them, then you have found love.

It’s out there. Don’t ever give up hope.

[theusefulness]

Dismantling the Lies of Abusive Parents Masterlist

Resources

Giving you food and clothing is the bare minimum

You don’t owe gratitude for food and clothes you needed as a child

You had the right for basic resources

Parents shaming you for costing money is ironic and stupid

What it means when they say ‘This is MY house’

My house = my rules is blackmail

Children don’t owe absolute obedience for being fed and sheltered

Physical abuse

You are allowed to refuse any touch, not only violence

If they ‘don’t know they’re hurting you’, why do they ignore or punish you when you protest?

Hitting children is irrational and doesn’t work

You cannot ‘provoke’ your parents to abuse you if they’re not abusive

Why do parents hit, manipulate and traumatize children

Blatant Lies

Care, nurture and affection do not make you weak

They’re lying when they say it ‘wasn’t that bad’‘

You wouldn’t have grown up spoiled if not for abuse

You got too affected by it’ is a lie

Your parents are not ‘just too emotionally immature’ to understand abuse

‘You’re not living in the real world!’ is nonsense

You’re not worthless, a burden, ungrateful, or stupid, and your parents know that.

Constant undermining of your accomplishments is abuse

Not being allowed to talk about the past is symptom of abuse

Parents who want you to be happy vs look happy

You are not abusive for resisting abuse

When they claim ‘they didn’t mean it’, it’s still abuse

Your parents are responsible for their own actions regardless of how badly they try to shift blame on you

Psychological abuse

Blind Obedience is not required in a healthy upbringing

Disgust is a weapon abusive parents use on their kids

If they say they love you, but walk all over your feelings, they don’t 

Parents don’t have the right to enter your room to scream at you

Parents insisting for you to be ‘tough’ are doing it to hide the trauma

Even if a kid acts like ‘they can take it’, it’s still abuse

Pretending abuse is discipline will leave children permanently scarred

It’s inhumane to control and shame children’s reactions to abuse

Why don’t you already know this? vs Teaching you necessary skills

Acting like they’ll change is escape sabotage

Parents are responsible for protecting children from harm

References to how healthy parenting looks like

Not being allowed to be angry with your parents is psychological abuse

If parents want you to act the way you did when you were little, they’re dangerous

Threats about how hard your life will be later on, are bad for you

Lack of continuity and ever-changing rules will cause anxiety

Forced obedience will lead you to abusive relationships

Parents acting like you’re a ‘bad child’ is a shame tactic to control you

There’s healthy and abusive ways to give children chores

Revisioning the past and insisting you remember it wrong is gaslighting

If your parents make you suicidal, they’re abusive

Parents threatening ‘they could be worse’ is abuse

Always assuming the worst intentions for your actions is wrong

Keeping children hostage in abuse is torture

If this hits home, also read Recognizing Abuse Masterlist

Also check All Masterlists for additional checklists of abuse

[theusefulness]

If you lived with abusive parents, it meant that the rules changed for you any moment. You could have been praised for something most of the time, then suddenly one day it brings a punishment instead. You could have been allowed to do certain things until one day you got tortured for doing it, and afterwards you couldn’t even know if it was alright to ever do it again. Some things were only allowed when parents were in forgiving mood, sometimes things you absolutely had to do, you knew you’d be punished if anyone saw you doing it, or if they found out. 

You never knew what the consequences would be. You could be wildly overpunished for something as simple as failing to close a door, saying the wrong word, having a certain face expression. You would get blamed and punished for things you didn’t do. You would get punished for someone’s bad mood. You would get punished for existing next to someone who was angry and wanted a punching bag. 

There was no consistency in your life, you had to live tiptoeing and hoping you would somehow do the right thing and avoid torture, the rules would change and twist and turn against you no matter what you would do, you developed a sixth sense to figure out when someone was irritated or upset, and you would still end up hurt and abused. 

And you got told this is normal, this is just how life is, everyone has it like this. You don’t doubt it or see it as abuse, it’s just your every day, you can’t imagine living a life where you’re safe, where you don’t have to expect thousand horrible things to happen if you make a tiny mistake that you initially had no idea would even be a mistake.

Now think about that and tell me where your anxiety came from. What living like this continually would do to a person. Because once you lived like this, this mindset doesn’t go away, it’s what you’ve learned to live with, what you’ve been forced to live with if you didn’t want to be in pain every second of your life. How would you not panic and over analyze your every word? How would you not try to predict just what kind of horror could come from most mundane and common action? How would you not at least try to brace yourself for the next torture someone might have ready for you? Your senses are not wrong, they’re trained to do this, they’re experienced in trying to help you survive life in abuse. 

[theusefulness]

Abusive parents put so much pressure on children not being allowed to be angry and displeased with them. That is not a foundation for any healthy relationship. No matter who this person is to you, and what they’ve done for you, you should be allowed to get angry, to say what’s wrong and to demand better. 

But with abusive parents, you can’t. If you try, you get suffocated with guilt, suddenly you’re guilty for being born, for existing, for taking up space, resources, for everything. Why is all this being thrown at you the second you try to express anger? Why is your anger regarded as wrongdoing, something that’s worth hurting you over? It’s a first red flag of any kind of human relationship, if anger itself is forbidden, punished, and has to be held back and repressed.

If they were good parents wouldn’t they want to know what you’re angry about? Wouldn’t they want to take a second to consider if they’ve done something to wrong you, to hurt you? Shouldn’t they be feeling this is the moment to self-examine and consider the consequences of their actions? Isn’t that a humane and logical thing to do? How does it come to ���this ungrateful little brat dares to be angry, I’m gonna show them what they’re allowed to feel” instead of “this child I care about is being hurt and I have to make sure they get better”? 

If you’re not allowed to be angry, you’re not allowed to defend your boundaries. You’re not allowed to be equals, to have your point of view considered. You’re forced to examine your actions but the other side never does. You’re forced to take the blame both for yourself, and them. What does this do to you as a person? What does this teach you of your value, your place in relationships and friendships? Who are they teaching you to be? Why can’t they find their own child worthy of survival, resources and boundaries as well? Are they really parents if they can’t do this much? Are they really worthy of raising a human being?