Comment by machomaster | Hacker News Reader

Comment by machomaster | Hacker News Reader

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You read, but did not actually listen to my explanation of energy. I gave it for a damn good reason; because most people misunderstand it and my explanations light the bulbs in people's heads.

You also totally missed the point of suggestions entirely. I assume that happened because you were out of brain/willpower energy.

My suggestions were not to try harder. They were the exact opposite, they were about:

1. constraining your energy output

2. being careful where and how you spend your energy

3. do a better targeting with your energy

4. hacks to do the same (or more) with less energy

5. restoring energy

Please reread my previous message after you sleep and with a good mood. Assume that I actually know what I am talking about (because I truly do) and my goodwill. Assume that I did not spend my time writing a long comment in order to anger or troll you, but because I wanted to help; I saw clear indicators of certain problems, to which I am able to provide solutions that work in practice.

I did reread and I wish I had been more polite. Sorry about that. :(

I really do understand. These are all really great things, I'm bipolar and already use all of them. I have to. But they don't apply here.

I'm discussing a problem that willpower cannot fix.

Here's an analogy:

- Think of willpower as fuel you put into a train.

- You control how far the train goes by changing the throttle or amount of fuel.

- You have a bunch of freight cars behind you and you're ready to get out of the yard.

- Your engine doesn't have any wheels. Someone removed them last night. (This is an analogy, you can't get a different engine.)

- How much fuel do you need to get to your destination?

Bonus Round:

- Your boss starts asking why you haven't moved yet and won't believe you if you say the wheels were removed. Stop being lazy and get to work.

You are not allowed to disagree with this analogy. :) This is exactly what my life is like.

I wasn't suggesting using willpower to power through the problems. I was suggesting setting up a system, that would fit you and would enable you to live a better and more efficient life. Willpower is useful in setting up the system, to learn it. Not to operate it.

Please watch this fundamental video: https://youtu.be/bcKthx5LTbI

On a surface it is about dieting, but the lessons can be applied to the rest of the life.

Cheers! :-)

Let me try again. I shouldn't have mentioned willpower. Let me restate the problem.

I try to do something and I have the physical sensation of hitting a wall that shouldn't be there. Thoughts never stop at that part of the brain.

I'm talking about a fundamentally different mechanism than thinking something is too hard. It's a hardware interruption that I have no control over.

I've spent my entire life working around this and it's difficult. Especially when everyone thinks I'm just being lazy or I just need to do this one thing. I'm still trying to figure out how to explain it better.

Let't imagine that you have a task, that you started doing, but then hit the hardware wall. How physically/emotionally/intellectually tired are you at that point?

What will happen if you just rest? Sleep, eat, exercise/go on a walk, lay down. No phone, no social media, no doom scrolling, no tv, no netflix, no gaming. Just 100% effort of resting and recovering, without any distractions.

Would you not get bored at some point and will decide that it's better to complete the task rather than continue this boredom while fully rested

> Just 100% effort of resting and recovering, without any distractions.

You say that like the distractions are exclusively outside. I'm not the person you're replying to, but if I close all my blackout curtains, turn off all the lights, and turn off all but the white noise, but I'm not sleepy, my mind will go in a thousand directions at once.

How do I or anyone else explain that to you? The challenge is in the brain. It's not an outside force. There is no boredom.

You are saying it as if that't uncommon (for non-adhd people) or a bad thing.

Yeah, and it is fine that the mind goes somewhere. This is called meditation and it is good for you. You get valuable insights, figure out important issues, get energy and motivation.

No no. Not "somewhere." A thousand places. At once. Not in sequence. Not from one to another. At the exact same time. And then they each fractal off in their own directions.

Take away the external reminders and my reality fragments into thousands of tiny pieces, all of which are just as real to me as the rest, just as pressing, just as important, or just as unimportant, because they all get lost in each other.

We are not describing the same thing. It's confusing that this is somehow not obvious from your side, because it's SCREAMING obvious from this side.

It's confusing because true multitasking in thinking does not exist. Sure, you can walk, eat and think at the same time, but you can't think several thoughts at the same time, only sequentially (with rapid change).

Can you give me research which shows that true multithinking is possible.

"Thinking" is directed and intentional. That may very well not be something people can do. I don't know. That's not what I'm talking about. And it very well might be practically impossible to find enough people whose brains can go multiple directions at the same time that it could be studied.

So no, I'm not going to follow you down a tangent that isn't actually related to what I'm saying.

I truly believe you're sincere but I can't get my point across. :/ Please read carefully.

Stop thinking about how to fix the problem. You might find this interesting if you look at it scientifically.

When it comes to things like ADHD and bipolar, executive function is compromised at the biological level. Put it simply, the baseline is broken.

You're talking about are inputs to this baseline. To use an analogy, explaining how to make macOS apps to someone who's making a Windows application. There are a lot of principles in common, but the implementations are very different.

The default state for this brain is restless, looking for things to focus on. The recovery methods you're talking about are sensory depth deprivation, the worst possible solution. For myself, the best thing I can do is feed the bastard carefully until it calms down. Think of using calm words to get a screaming toddler who just woke up to stop running around and go back to bed. That's not happening.

Sometimes I can't wrestle this thing into control and focus on what I want to. And you want me to relax? That's a bit optimistic. :)

With ADHD, there are a lot of individuals who are able to find a way to work with this and some use it to their advantage, masking the real cause. For those who have it worse, the underlying problem becomes visible, and they get asked why they can't be like other ADHD people who manage. It's like asking why a two year old can't act like a six year old.

How can diet replace the wheels? Think bipolar disorder is curable through diet change? Think harder.

We were talking about healthy people with adhd, not about bipolar people (who need serious medical help) or people with 60iq. No amount of running technique is going to help a legless person.

>You also totally missed the point of suggestions entirely. I assume that happened because you were out of brain/willpower energy.

No, you are pretty bad at communicating. You should try a bit harder, because this is obviously at 10% tops.

You wouldn't handle my 100%, seeing how you consistently misunderstand my 10%.

10%: There's were I a Proving It's

100%: There's no way you could ever understand me if I were trying to say something complicated. I'm much too intelligent. I have way more mental firepower than you do. I'm a very complex thinker, and you just can't keep up. Proving it to you would be a waste of time. It's just hopeless anyway. -- If communication isn't working, sure, it might be a comprehension error. But...it's rarely only a comprehension error.

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