States of Mind #

These states can be mixed together, but are at their strongest when the mind is fully focused on one at a time.

Professing - Performing - A State of Action #

In this state, the information already contained in your neural patterns is simply being projected as is into the world onto some medium. This could be into the air as speech, onto paper as writing, or into your body as any physical activity (e.g. dancing, biking, etc.). In this model, pure professing involves no self reflection or change whatsoever. If there is adaptation to the unpredictable physical world, it is through if/then branches that choose simply between already constructed neural patterns.

Being in this state requires some combination of practice or training to build the mental patterns, and a framework of assumptions that keeps the mind from examining what it is doing too closely.

In the extreme, pure profession can be animalistic and stubborn. Being in a professing state leads to confidence and strong ego.

Being in this state can be physically draining, but mentally I find I can be in this state for a long time before needing a break.

People tend to express this state more the older they get (i think).

Flow #

Being in a strong professing state can lead to a “flow” state, where the world is continually validating your stored patterns and it feels like everything is going “right”. I believe this state enables the acts of greatest skill or talent that are possible for people. This is a state of “effortless effort” as described in Zen philosophy.

I think the key to flow is to always have a readily accessible pathway for your mind to take when it runs into an issue. Preparation/practice builds these pathways; it is easier to get into flow doing something you have done many times before.

Absorbing - Learning - A State of Observation #

In counter to profession, a state of absorption occurs when a mind is focused instead on taking in new information while making few/no assumptions about the world. In this state, instead of continually acting, one continually questions, expanding the problem space without looking at its details. This happens often when being exposed to new information or questioning assumptions one has about old information. New mental connections and memories are being created actively in this state.

When in this state, a mind is very sensitive to any external feedback to correct its action. This can manifest as insecurity or anxiety if pressure is applied during this state of mind.

This state of mind can be paralyzing, as it lays bare the overwhelming complexity of everything as you continue to zoom out. However, it also leads to interesting connections that you may not see otherwise.

Extreme absorption/mindfulness can lead to analysis paralysis or meaningless theorizing that is too far removed from reality to be useful. Also procrastination.

Younger people tend to express this state more (i think). This thought inspired by “How to Change Your Mind” by Michael Pollan.

Being in this state is very draining, as your mind has to constantly reconfigure its thoughts reactively to match external feedback. For me to be most effective, I need to take short and long breaks from this state (even “sleeping on” what I’m learning) to solidify memories and make them “professable”. Too much raw absorption becomes counterproductive, as my mind is too tired to even hold on to the recent changes, let alone make more new ones.

When learning in this state, there will almost always be blind alleys you must go down to eventually find a model of (or perspective on) the world that works. This explains why learning can be such a “stop and go” process - it’s easy to be stuck on a concept for a while before it finally clicks. Also I think one’s tolerance for blind alleys directly correlates to how good they are at learning.

• Inversion by James Clear
  • Imagining how to avoid failure is often more useful than imagining how to succeed.

Switching states #

In order to get better at something, both absorbing AND professing are equally important often in alternating steps.

See this Skyline video for a description about how this process works for a game like Overwatch specifically.

Learning how to do something new under pressure of your own or other’s expectations can be hard. Specifically, it is stressful to take mental pathways you have recently worked on as an absorber and apply them assuming they will work (with penalty for failure).

Someone who “thrives in ambiguity” is bold about applying untested pathways and has a low fear of failure - or has set expectations properly such that failure is not a big problem. Alternatively, this person is willing to take on perspectives and run with them even if there is a threat that their taken perspective does not match the perspective/expectations of others they are working with.

Ideas to test #

• Do you actually have a worse memory for events that happened to you when in a professing state?

Focus #

This is unrelated to the above states of mind.

One way I think of focus is as getting buy in from your mind to fully engage in some work (mental or physical). Often the mind expects some pay off for doing this, since it takes energy and time to be fully engaged. This snippet by Jonathan Blow does a great job describing how focus can be disrupted (full interview).

A good way to encourage focus is to set yourself up so that external “things I should also think about” are absent. For example:

• Writing thoughts down so that your brain doesn’t feel pressure to remember them (else they would be lost).
• Keeping your goals “in front” of you. This could mean laying out your workspace so that all that’s needed to do your task is at hand. This could mean keeping opponents in a game within your field of view. Being in a situation where you have to “turn your head around” physically or metaphorically to keep abreast can lead to breaks in focus.
• Putting walls up between yourself and other tasks, like by putting your phone in another room when trying to focus on something.

Another useful idea is to try to enumerate the things you want to do before starting on them. If this list is written down (or even remembered), going back to it can be a stimulus that competes with other environmental distractions or thoughts. For instance, a common pattern I notice is (1) I complete a task, (2) I have to refocus on something else, (3) some random environmental stimulus grabs my focus (e.g. an email, article, chore). When I have a list of things I want to do, then those become part of the set of environmental stimuli, making it more likely that I do them instead of something else. This system is most effective when the list is very accessible; this could mean physically at hand, or recently created so it is fresh in your mind. It also helps to consciously pause right after stage (1) above (completing a task), instead of directly jumping to the next thing with little thought - this simple pause really helps your next task be intentional and not dictated by your environment.

Categories: Mind