Three things I read this week

Don't trust the science, N.S. Lyons, the Obsolete Man

I call it internet brain. The carcinogenic blend of short attention span, mild anxiety and impulsiveness that comes from too much time browsing. Social media brings it on the fastest, but any online “work” can trigger internet brain. But here’s an interesting observation, sometimes I can spend hours online and leave feeling refreshed and ready for a challenge. Why do some online sessions make me feel like I’m recovering from a three-day bender, and others don’t? I think the answer is found in the outcome.

Browsing for browsing’s sake, without a clearly defined goal, will almost surely bring on internet brain. However, when I’m doing actual research that’s leading towards an outcome like buying a product, writing an article or solving a complex problem, I don’t tend to feel bad. Our brains, it would appear, are highly intuitive and they can tell the difference between wasted time and meaningful expenditures of energy.

I’m reading a book called Why We Drive, by Matthew Crawford, and the following passage supports this thesis almost perfectly. When there is “a clear connection between effort and consequence,” we feel good.

In experiments on both rats and people, she explored what she calls “effort-driven rewards.” Lambert found that “movement—and especially hand movement that lead to desired outcomes—plays a key role in both preventing the onset of and building resilience against depression and other emotional disorders. Furthermore, we are predisposed to preferring hand movements that our ancestors needed for survival—those necessary for nurturing, cleaning, cooking, grooming, building shelter and farming.”

Lambert theorizes that the enormous increase in rates of anxiety and depression over the last few decades may be due in part to our disengagement from the basic tasks of securing our own bodily needs, and “all the complexity of movement and thought processes” such tasks require of us.

“The decreased brain activation associated with increasingly effortless-driven rewards may, over time, diminish your perception of control over your environment and increase your vulnerability to mental illnesses such as depression….Anything that lets us see a clear connection between effort and consequence—and that helps us feel in control of a challenging situation—is a kind of mental vitamin that helps build resilience and provides a buffer against depression.”

1 - Real science

This is what real science looks like, not TRUST THE SCIENCE™

Part of being a good experimental scientist is finding the balance between being paranoid enough at every stage to think of everything and do it right, without being so paranoid that you can’t trust your result. At some point you need to say: ‘I did this experiment. This is the result. This is what I think it means.’ Then you need to be big enough to have others tear it to pieces, and then figure out whether they’re doing that because you were wrong or because you’ve just shown their life’s work to be wrong.

Ultra-Processed People, by Chris van Tulleken.

2 - Dark Enchantment

N.S. Lyons reflects on paganism. The core of his argument is that paganism isn’t an especially apt analogy for our current moment, since the pagans had great esteem for physical forces like the wind, storms, lightning, etc. While to us, the modern man, these things are scientifically explainable and thus devoid of deeper meaning.

3 - Handcuffed Lightning

The Obsolete Man wrote this a great article about people in the prime of their lives. Do they realize that the moment they’re in might be the best of their lives? How does someone like Neil Armstrong enjoy the rest of his life, when everything he does after his one small step is anti-climatic?

Handcuffed Lightning

When I asked Mr. Obsolete if he thought his best years were ahead or behind him, this is what he said…

Behind me. There was a period of a couple of years when everything in life felt as though it was aligned perfectly. I was in a new relationship with the woman I would eventually marry. We were surrounded by friends that we became very close with. I was beginning a new career that felt promising. My life felt as though every piece had come together perfectly.

Life is still very good. In fact, most things have actually improved. But that specific period will always stand out for me as the most fully alive and connected I’ve ever been. Life was firing on all cylinders in a way that is difficult to describe.

Brutal honesty, I love it. Hemingway famously quipped, “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

Maybe it’s impossible to say for certain, but I don’t think my best years are in the pasts. Unlike Mr. Obsolete I can’t point to one period of my life that set the standard by which all else is judged. Although I wonder, is it possible to bring a new all-time high into your life through sheer force of will, or do you just get lucky sometimes when everything comes together beautifully?

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