Stop and Think

Hey,

this is not my usual article in this blog. It’s less technical and much more abstract than usual. Consider yourself warned.

Today I just stopped for a moment and thought. Did nothing else, just tried to consciously think.

This was after I found on twitter an image which basically gave three advises:

• When you are confused, write.
• When you are anxious, meditate.
• When you are burnt out, take a nap.

Coincidentally, this happened right after a nap. And I unconsciously started thinking about that tweet.

I couldn’t write, so I tried to think but trying to imitate writing. One word after another. Making phrases in my head.

Let me say that this is not at all how I think. Usually, it is just a mixture of half-baked ideas/concepts in my head. And these ideas are smashed ones into the others. I don’t know how to explain it better, but if you are anything similar to me you probably understood.

As I said this time I “wrote” it mentally. I was forcing the linear and textual thinking that writing usually brings. But this time in my head. It felt slower, but it also felt much more powerful.

Powerful in a sense that, even though it was slower than my usual thinking (and required more concentration). It was also faster than writing. And I didn’t need any resource other than time and myself.

I found this surprising. And suddenly stopping and doing nothing other than thinking made a lot of sense.

While thinking on this I had a bunch of other ideas but I didn’t dig deeper on them. Maybe next time?

• Natural language is not as limited as I thought. Makes sense how powerful LLMs are becoming.
• Journaling is writing really needed? Only if you want to reflect on past entries.
• Meditation is not thinking. Gym vs doing something useful with your muscles.

This is not my usual content in here. If you liked it, let me know by email or by clicking as crazy the like button below.