Why is it a bad thing for your brain to be running DFS all the time? Is it a wasteful use of time? Does it cause behavioral issues? Is it a personal choice? Or...?
I think it's a question of balance. I was too far on the side of not living in the moment, and spending lots of time on what-if scenarios. I think that I might have veered too far to the other extreme now, and my capacity for empathy is suffering a little.
Fully agreed. I was like this (overthinking what if’s) for many years, and the amount on energy spent on this left me spent to actually go and live in reality. The upside was having a plan for nearly whatever life threw at me - but discarding hundreds of alternate plans.
Now as I grew older I have learnt to be much looser with life steering, as we are not in full control anyway. Just have a general direction of what you want to do, and spend the rest of your energy here and now...
This "Living in the moment" stuff has depth such that many books have been written on it. It is one of the premises of mindfulness meditation, and Buddhism thoroughly explores this.
The summary is that you will be more satisfied if you are not continuously ruminating on the past, or anxiously anticipating future problems, but instead focus on your immediate happiness. e.g. Right now you are comfortable, not in any pain and surrounded by interesting things. Enjoy this, and don't worry about some conversation you might be having later.
Living in the moment is somewhat counter to striving. It's hard (maybe impossible?) to be a builder and a creator without spending some time ruminating on the last and future.
I think it depends on whether you want to feel like a good person, or be a good person. Living in the moment lets you feel better, because there's less to consider. Constantly examining yourself and those around you allows you to better react to those surroundings (even if some people don't act on it for various reasons, one of which might be getting too caught up in the examining and never doing).
Like literally every single thing in life I can think of, the truth is likely that moderation is key, as too much to either end of the spectrum is problematic.
This is definitely not true, at least most people don't experience it this way once they learn meditation/mindfulness/etc.
What happens instead is that if you are in the moment, you can much more easily see and feel which things actually exist in the current moment for you to consider, and to actually react to those surroundings that actually matter, instead of those that have been served up by the internal dialog which is based usually on worries, fears, ego beliefs etc.
Living in the moment does not make you live like an animal. It makes you appreciate and focus on that which truly matters for you, instead of distractions that a constantly thiking mind always throws at you and makes you feel like everything is says matters and is very important.
Those things that are truly worth considering, already exist in the moment. If you have a real need or want to do something today - it will be in the moment and it will present itself. It is a total nonsense that a person "living in the moment" can never complete any complicated task, accomplish a complicated goal or plan for the future when that is required. - And that is being a good person, not simply "feeling like one".
I would argue that perhaps your idea of living in the moment is more like mostly living in the moment. To truly live fully in the moment would be to react to stimuli as they were encountered, wouldn't it? If so, then to truly live in the moment would be to ignore most the ramifications of what you say or did, beyond what you could internalize, as to act without forethought is to strip away all we do to try to tame our less desired instincts.
That is what I tries to express by talking about moderation before. At one extreme you have what I outlined above, and at the other you have the person who always seems absent minded because they are always thinking about something else, and are rarely if ever giving their full attention to what's going on in front of them and around them.
I think when most people say you should "live in the moment" they are actually espousing moving that direction on the spectrum, which can be beneficial, even if reaching the end of the spectrum likely isn't. The point of all this is that being more mindful of your surroundings and living in the moment is probably useful most the time, until it isn't, because you've gone too far, where too far depends on the location, company, and circumstances, so there's no real "correct" answer.
The reason I even broached this is because it was already alluded to in this exact same thread, with:
I think it's a question of balance. I was too far on the side of not living in the moment, and spending lots of time on what-if scenarios. I think that I might have veered too far to the other extreme now, and my capacity for empathy is suffering a little.
I can relate to that in some respects, even if only for aspects of my personality. In letting go of always being too overly concerned with exactly how I was perceived and interpreted when I was you to being able to let some of that go later in life, I noticed times where my not making sure to explain myself in extra detail probably left people thinking I was dismissive of their concerns (and there are probably plenty of times where I don't realize I was dismissive of their concerns, and I'm willing to bet that's more often now than in the past).
If it is 10AM and I need to plan for my meeting at 3PM, and I need to consider the needs of the person I am going to meet - all of these details exist in my mind "in the moment". I can use those stimuli in the moment to plan out everything I need, in the moment. Even though I plan something in the future, I move those plans in my mind which exist there as a moment, as images or words or etc.
Once you start practicing mindfulness or meditation, you very easily see these distinctions. Yes, there is a way to use those concepts in a literal sense in which "in the moment" would mean that you can never consider anything else than your immediate surroundings. However most spiritual teachings or meditation retreats or people who say that this thing has helped them in their life, mean it in a more practical way.
Perhaps "being in the moment" is not the best phrase to really explain what they mean here and there is a lot of space for confusion and misunderstanding. But it is just the phrase that they usually use.
I think that this is a false trade-off. Being "in the moment", or "present" doesn't mean turning off your brain and not planning for the future. It is possible to be present while you are planning for the future.
This amounts to, when planning, not being overly invested in emotionally anticipating the outcome of your plans. (Both good or bad, as anticipating the good will hurt your ego when the plan fails, and dreading the bad will hurt you now.)
I can comment on this for my wife who suffers from anxiety.
She is very good at planning because she needs to feel in control all the time. You are right that when things don't go as planned and the pressure ramps up she loses her control and makes poor decisions or no decision at all.
It's interesting to me as I am on the opposite side for most of the time.
For me personally it seems to make it impossible to get to sleep. Which makes me tired, and less resistant to rambling trains of thought. Repeat ad infinitum.
Have had this issue sometimes, specially when ruminating about a discussion or whatever. What i often do in those cases is going into visual mode. For me I imagine having big long wings and catching the wind from some high mountain descending flying slowly, trying to surround the mountain and checking the views. It's something soothing and takes the attention away from the internal monologe. Though you can fall back to it and when you notice go back to visual.
I also note that there is like two visual modes, one less defined, more controlled by my will, and one more realistic and crowded with details mostly out of my control.
I don't usually have this issue, but when I do I find just focusing on breath, meditation style, helps. As soon as you notice yourself thinking, acknowledge the thought gently, and then let it go. At least for me (with a bit of practice) this can head off any thoughts before they can get started, and eventually allow things to quiet down.
Also, acknowledging the fact that, since I'm in bed trying to sleep, I can't act on these thoughts right now anyway, so I don't really need to have them right now (and trusting that if it's important, they will probably come up again at a more useful moment).
When you think less you may be open to more possibilities, be more spontaneous and even have some childlike fun. However, others can be taken aback and even suspect ulterior motives, until you harmonize better with others.
Spontaneity is also thinking. There are two distinct modes of thought. Verbal/abstract and real-time/intuition. These have neurological foundations in the two hemispheres. The right is more highly connected. The left has more to do with speech and rumination.
I am surprised that you said others can suspect ulterior motives, because that started happening to me but I can't figure out what the connection is. Can you expand on that?
I have learned to be cautious with two very different types of people (this is not a scientific exercise, take with a grain of salt):
- One is people who are constantly negative and cast stones everywhere, but offset that negativity with charm. They can accrue a network of Stockholm-esque followers that would say "he's not an asshole, he's actually a really sweet person." When they perceive a threat from you, or they find that you are indifferent to their charm-aura, you can get on their s*list pretty quickly. They can subtly isolate you from their followers, and be as useless as possible if you have to depend on them for anything. If they lash out at you, it's actually not out of character because they lash out at everything. They're just being themselves, right? Much of their venom is hidden behind sardonic humor, which gives them plausible deniability. They are not beholden to social norms, and everyone around you has accepted that. In lieu of social norms, they create impenetrable, arbitrary standards that only they and their followers can meet.
- Another type of person I'm initially careful of is someone who doesn't give any "tells." They always go with the flow, and laugh at everyone's jokes. The only overtly interesting thing about them is how social they are (they only open up in trivial ways). They listen very deeply, asking follow-up question after follow-up question, but they're likely to go and spill your secrets over drinks "I heard X said Y....ya I know, interesting." They don't waste an opportunity to gain social currency, spanning all social groups in order to trade between them. They rarely challenge people, and seem above the fray, but they're as political as anyone.
Do you live on the set of Mean Girls? But me, most people are spending their energy trying to get by, with no time for junior high school drama conspiracies. Maybe I'm too useless to be socially manipulated.
People are indeed complex. The first type of person described specifically is rare, but what is more common is a dangerous combination of aggressiveness and charm.
Tying back to the OP, I think an internal monologue is valuable. If you don’t have one, that’s out of your control. However, I think it encourages pro-social behavior on the margins. Using your internal voice is quite literally introspection. It can make you feel bad about a potential course of action, preventing you from doing it. It can also make you feel worse about something bad you did, by replaying it in your head. Too much of that can bog you down, but I think it’s an important part of the self-policing toolset. I believe reflective people are more trustworthy (not that internal voice = reflection).
I hear you about the people who use their charisma to assemble followers and mark you down as an enemy if they can’t bring you into that fold. It’s very disappointing that you can’t have a normal working relationship with them.
Has there been a deflation of the word "gaslighting" recently? I used to understand it as "making person X or others believe person X is crazy (in order to discredit them)" but I see it used much more widely nowadays and I don't really see what it has to do with the scenario in question.
Setting different standards for themselves, setting other people up, even boasting of sabotaging others openly, surrounded by gullible and oblivious people, limiting number of marks, snide remarks, running in packs and claiming all authority while victimizing themselves. Gaslighting is rare but part of the toolset.
It lost it's subtle manipulation element too. Gas lighting was causing doubt to spread, using manipulation tools the abuser thought were flying under the radar of the victim. The victim fell oblivious to the changes in worldview. It lost all connection to psychotherapy when it became a politicized term.
People mostly prefer "their own kind", at least until they truly get to know you. Solving fatigue by being recluse starves crucial human contact. For many reasons there can remain barriers before getting meaningful contact. Your question itself points to this preference and yearning, and not indifference.
A different mode of mind will be received by others differently, as an experience. To get anywhere we must move, but to others this might be deemed too uncomfortable or even mistaken as implicit criticism.
As social creatures we must have/find support around us. This works as platform and mandate, so helps true leaders lead.
When I look closely at those sorts of imagined conversations, I almost always conclude that my attention has been misdirected by delusional egotism. I also find that letting them run tends to entrench the delusions, which I am better off without.
Depth first search. Basically he's saying you're playing out each conversation to the end, then backing up to the last branch point and chasing it to the end, repeat until you've exhausted every possibility you can think of
In my experience it typically doesn't work, but sometimes it can work and is good to keep your mind busy IF you have some free time. It's just rehearsing, essentially what dreams are, but in daytime and more controlled.
It doesn't work in the sense of predicting the conversation, but do it long enough, or, do it with iterative deepening, and even though you probably won't nail the specifics of how the conversation goes, it WILL frequently prepare you in broad strokes such that the actual conversation's twists and turns won't throw you, even if they do surprise you.
I found that in my late 30ies I shifted from an exhausting DFS to a BFS mode....and it has surely helped in tackling social and work complexities better. I have also discovered that I was unconsciously not giving my full attention to details ,especially over math/programming problems, I was always in a state of slight 'haze', but the whole thing was extremely well played by the brain...I really thought I was fully concentrated and paying complete attention, but only now I know that I can step to a deeper level, where I play back and forth multiple variables and remember better the connectivity of the problem. A decent analogy would be if you play piano and are going through a challenging part, your hands and mind are fully focused on the movements but doing so makes everything hard and stiff, and eventually you run out of steam very fast, with experience though you learn to microfocus on some parts and keep it loose on others...etc. seems fitting..
I think it's the personal/interpersonal version of "real artists ship". I am one of those people that spends too much time in his head. It's mostly wasted energy if I never pause and let the thoughts out.
